How Do Perfumers Train Their Noses? The Carles Method

How do perfumers train their noses?

The short answer

Most still train with the method of Jean Carles, who founded the Roure perfumery school in Grasse in 1946. Givaudan, which runs that school today, says his method of sorting raw materials by similarity and contrast is still the standard for perfumery training, and its students take his smelling test every day.

By the Fragnatique team2 min read6 sourcesUpdated 11 November 2026

Key facts

1946Jean Carles, a Roure perfumer, founds the perfumery school in Grasse.
Some 500The raw materials students learn to tell apart in the daily Jean Carles test, Givaudan says.
Eight studentsThe size of the class at Givaudan's Perfumery School in 2016.
1992Roure merges with Givaudan, and the two companies' schools merge too.
1997The school moves from Grasse to Argenteuil, outside Paris.
2026Givaudan marks the school's 80th anniversary.

What is the Jean Carles method?

An ordered way to learn smells. Carles wrote that perfumers worked "in haphazard fashion, in the expectation of a potential miracle", as Harper's Magazine quotes him. Givaudan says his method organised raw materials by similarity and contrast, and Harper's describes an orderly grid that began with two dozen categories. Tendance Parfums calls it a progressive study of raw materials and their interactions.

What is the daily test at perfumery school?

Givaudan wrote in 2016 that the eight students at its Perfumery School all attempt the Jean Carles test each day: they sniff a single ingredient and train their nose to tell it apart from a palette of some 500 raw materials. Harper's says one version or another of the Carles method is now the standard curriculum for trainee perfumers.

Where is the Givaudan perfumery school?

It began in Grasse. Perfumer and Flavorist reported that the Roure school was established in 1946, merged with the school Givaudan had been running when the two companies merged in 1992, and moved to Argenteuil, outside Paris, in 1997. Givaudan marked the school's 80th anniversary in September 2026, when perfumer Calice Becker said the story began in Grasse in 1946 with Jean Carles.

Did Jean Carles lose his sense of smell?

Reportedly. Harper's writes that it is widely believed Carles had lost his sense of smell, and that his later perfumes were works of memory and imagination guided by the system he had devised. Tendance Parfums also describes a gradual loss of smell late in his career, and composing that relied on an exceptionally precise olfactory memory. Harper's says he is likened to Beethoven gone deaf.

The full storyThe Jean Carles Method: How Perfumers Still Train Their Noses8 min read in the Fragnatique Journal