Why a scent can return you to a room you haven't been in for twenty years.

Smell is processed differently from every other sense. Where sight and sound and touch are routed through the thalamus — the brain's relay station — smell goes directly to the limbic system, which governs memory and emotion. This is why a scent can return you to a room you haven't been in for twenty years not approximately but completely, with a fullness that sight and sound rarely achieve.

It is also why fragrance is the most powerful tool we have for making a room feel like something. Not like a stylish room, not like an expensive room, but like a room that means something. A room with a scent that has been chosen is a room with a memory built into it — a memory that will return to everyone who has spent time in it, long after they've left.

This is what we are building. One room at a time.