Real-Life Communication -- Solution
Here's what you could say to the Slippery Slope representative:
"I had blended the scents of rose and jasmine, but didn't like how it smelled. It was too strong and had a bit of a chemical smell. Only a person with anosmia -- the inability to smell -- would have liked it.
"I'm working on a new combination of flower scents. It's still a little too sweet-smelling. The scent lingers too much, but, of course, I don't want to go to the other extreme. I'm sure you don't want the scent to fade too quickly.
"I've recently added a couple new scents to the combination. Have a smell and see if you can guess what they are."
Communication skills are "very, very important," says perfumer Claudette Belnavis, especially when dealing with clients.
"We have to be able to understand from their end what they're asking us to do, and we have to be able to tell them how we do it -- what we're trying to achieve when we're building a fragrance."
When a perfumer designs a fragrance, it could take a year. This involves a lot of communication -- with the customer, with your lab assistants, and with your other technical people.
Perfumers use a lot of specialized terms. If they're not careful, they could confuse customers by using such words too often.
"There is a special language, almost," says Belnavis. "You have to make sure that the person you're speaking with understands the language you're speaking. That's one of the first things that people learn as they come into the field -- how we communicate and the terms that we use.
"It always helps to keep it simple."