Our Fragrant History Leads You on Fragrant Trails…

Welcome to The Olfactory Contractor — a consulting practice that helps museums, cultural institutions, and educators use scent as a meaningful tool for interpretation and storytelling. My work focuses on olfactory museology or how smell can reveal hidden histories, deepen emotional connection, and offer new ways of understanding art, history, and heritage.

This small scratch-and-sniff sticker on your card is a peek into what we do.

Take a moment.
Scratch the sticker.
Breathe in using both nostrils.

You are smelling cinnamon—a warm and familiar scent. Did you know that this spice we use in our kitchen every day carries enormous cultural, religious, medicinal, and political meaning?

Now let us follow our nose back into history and gain a new understanding for how our favorite spice shaped history!

(Detail) Pomander, anonymous, Silver, Netherlands, c. 1600 – c. 1625. From the collection of The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. 

In early modern Europe, scent was not just about perfume. People believed that disease spread through foul air, a concept known as miasma theory, which remained influential until the mid-late 19th century. Bad smells were thought to be dangerous, while pleasant ones protected the body—shaping how people lived and dressed.

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century paintings, we can often spot small, ornate objects hanging from belts or rosaries. These were called pomanders—delicately crafted silver jewels filled with fragrant materials such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, rosemary, rose, ambergris, and civet. Worn and carried at arms reach, these scented jewels were believed to ward off harmful airs, making them both beautiful accessories and practical tools for protection.

Partly burned ship at the VOC shipyard at Oostenburg, 1690
attributed to Jan van der Heyden, 1690 – 1735. From the collection of The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

In Europe during this time, cinnamon and other aromatics from far off lands carried powerful associations. Ancient and biblical writers described faraway lands such as Arabia and India as places where divine, fragrant winds drifted from aromatic harvests. These stories shaped how people imagined the world beyond Europe. 

Those imagined scent-scapes were tied directly to colonial expansion.

Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and mace were among the most sought-after commodities of the early modern world. The Dutch East India Company built vast trading networks—and violent monopolies—to control their production. On islands in Southeast Asia and in Ceylon (today Sri Lanka), communities were displaced and exploited to secure access to these precious aromatics and spices.

Willem van Mieris, A Grocer’s Shop, Painting, 1717. From the collection of the Mauritshuis Museum, The Hague.

At the same time, European cities were transformed by these materials. Warehouses and harbors—especially in Amsterdam, Netherlands—were filled with spices. Travelers often wrote about the powerful smells drifting through the streets: tobacco, cheese, fish, and spices.

The cinnamon you just smelled has an ability to communicate a layered past – one that we could only discover through our nose. We reveal here deep historical practices and how they can relate to global histories of trade, power, and enslavement.

Here is an Activity You Can Try:

After smelling the cinnamon, imagine encountering this scent not in your kitchen, but in a small silver pomander worn on the body in a European city during a plague outbreak.

How does that shift its meaning?

This is exactly the kind of sensory reframing I achieve through The Olfactory Contractor. I help institutions use scent not as a novelty, but as a deliberate, interpretive medium. One that reveals overlooked histories, sparks conversation, and invites visitors to experience a more immersive form of storytelling. See inspiration for olfactory storytelling projects here.

Drawing on research, hands-on experience, and collaborations with institutions across the U.S. and Europe, I help museums integrate scent into exhibitions, programs, and visitor experiences. From developing historically relevant scents to designing olfactory storytelling strategies and advising on visitor engagement and accessibility, my goal is to create meaningful, multisensory connections that resonate with audiences. Explore my services or get in touch for an introductory call via my contact page.

Interested in learning more? Visit my blog for recommended smell culture resources and insights into olfactory museology. I also regularly teach courses with the Fragrance Alliance Network—join my mailing list to stay updated on upcoming sessions and projects.

Sofia Collette Ehrich sniffing at the “WayFinders: Making Sense of Our World” exhibition at the Maryland Center for History and Culture – The Olfactory Contractor’s first collaboration in March 2026.