The Scentscape Story

Humans have five basic senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. Yet, while you may hire an interior designer to make your space look beautiful or a chef to cook you food that tastes delicious, the strongest human sense is the one we often take for granted: smell.

Smell is the most powerful of all senses, shaping our perception of the world around us. It is a warning system, a taste enhancer and a pheromone alarm. It is also our most primal and deeply rooted sense. Hyper-localised, smell defines the unique sensorial tapestry of a specific place and time. Based on this maxim, Scentscape uses the power of aroma to elevate the long-overlooked world of scent.

Gosia Young is the founder of Scentscape. After completing her MA in Media in Cape Town, she followed her nose to France, where she gained her MSc in Wine Business. A brand builder, wine judge and writer, she enjoyed a decade-long career in the wine industry consulting to premium local and international wineries. Fuelled by her passion for creating distinctive environments through meticulously chosen lighting, music, textures and design elements, Gosia fervently believes that beautiful spaces and sensory intention bring people together and turn fleeting moments into lasting memories.

Her lifelong love of scent began when she was around six years old. Gosia watched her sophisticated mother in adoration as she spritzed on delicate layers of her favourite perfumes. Her interest only grew throughout her teens and twenties when she began her own prized collection of body and home fragrances. As a wine writer, her favourite part of the process was always assessing the layered aromas that would waft from the rim of her wine glass.

In 2020, when the world went into lockdown, scent took on a different meaning for Gosia. In the face of a virus that often spreads by way of our noses, the discovery of losing one's sense of smell and taste became an imminent threat. A world without the sense of smell would miss a lot of interesting experiences, emotions, and pleasure. Frankly, our life would lack a whole dimension. During this turbulent time, and to deftly test her nose on a regular basis, Gosia found calm through her morning ritual of burning incense, mixing aromatic oils for her diffuser, and lighting candles. These daily practices brought a degree of predictability to an uncertain future.

Inspired by her experiences, Gosia established Scentscape in 2023. By creating a luxury offering that brings together her passion for storytelling and sensorial analysis, her goal is to enhance our collective sensory experiences and increase positive emotions using the power of scent.

The Science of Scent

It’s the first sense you use when you’re born. It’s also our oldest and most evolved sense, with one out of every 50 of your genes dedicated to it. It must be important, right?

Our sense of smell is breathtakingly powerful. As an adult, you can distinguish 10,000 different smells.

In fact, wherever in the world you may be right now, one thing is for certain: there are smells swirling all around you. While you read this, you are breathing odour molecules through your nose. While 95% of your nasal cavity is used to filter the air you breathe, at the very back of your nose is a region called the olfactory epithelieum. This postage-stamp size patch of skin is key to everything you smell. The olfactory ephithelium has a layer of scent receptors. When odour molecules hit the back of your nose, they bind to these scent receptors which send signals through the olfactory tract directly up to your brain.

The brain region that processes smell - the amygdala - is also responsible for processing memories and emotions, which is why some smells can trigger old memories. No other sense is directly wired to this emotion-processing part of the brain. Incredibly, your brain has 40 million different scent receptors, which is how we can tell the difference between smells. All of these different combinations let you detect a staggering broad array of smells. In fact, 75% of all emotions generated every day are due to smell, and because of this, we are 100 times more likely to remember something we smell over something we see, hear or touch.

Based on this premise, ScentScape aims to harness the intimate connection and emotional power of smell-triggered memory to design and deliver immersive fragrance experiences that elevate your experience of a space. Forming part of a broader movement known as “full-sensory branding”, ScentScape involves using carefully curated fragrance profiles to create a powerful, long-lasting association with it to communicate your desired olfactory identity.

Smells of the Cape Floral Kingdom

As one of the world's most diverse and unique floral regions, the Cape Floral Kingdom is a sensory playground of botanical treasures. From the sweet perfume of the king protea to the spicy aroma of the wild buchu, this natural wonderland is an olfactory feast for the senses. Visitors are welcomed with an array of scents, ranging from earthy to fruity, all mingling together to create a fragrance that is distinctly unique to this region. It's an ever-changing olfactory palette, with seasonal shifts bringing forth new aromatic experiences to delight and surprise the senses.

At the heart of the kingdom is the Fynbos biome, a collection of plants with distinctive scents that are as varied as their beautiful blooms. One might encounter the fragrant wild rosemary, which gives off a soothing lavender-like aroma that calms the senses. Then there is the pelargonium, which presents a delightful mix of rose and citrus notes, a fragrance that seems to embody the very spirit of summer in the region.

Walking through this aromatic haven, it's not uncommon to stumble upon the wild camphor bush, releasing its potent eucalyptus-like scent into the breezes that rustle through the foliage. The fragrant wild olive tree adds a deeper, woody note to the air, grounding the floral fragrances with an earthy undertone.

As you venture further, you may encounter the sweet blossoms of the Erica family, a diverse group of plants that offer scents reminiscent of honey and caramel, warming the soul as you traverse through the floral kingdom. Their fragrances mingle with the intoxicating scent of wild gardenia, a fragrance so sweet and creamy it seems to coat the very air around it.

And it is in this incredible diversity where the magic of the Cape Floral Kingdom truly lies. A place where the aromatic stories of countless plants weave together to create a tapestry of fragrances that transport you to a world of natural wonder and delight. With each step, a new aroma greets you, inviting you to explore and appreciate the breathtaking harmony of nature at the southern tip of Africa.