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Slate Culture Feed

Working: How Perfumers Can Tell Stories Through Scents

Slate Culture Feed

Slate Podcasts

Tv & Film, Arts, Music

4.22K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2022

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, host Karen Han talks to David Seth Moltz and Kavi Moltz, founders of the perfume company D.S. & Durga. In the interview, David and Kavi explain how their interest in perfume started as a hobby and blossomed into a business. They also discuss the trial and error of creating great scents and argue that perfumery should be considered an art form on the level of writing or music composition.  After the interview, Karen and co-host Isaac Butler talk about telling stories through scents and how subjective our sense of smell is.  Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews.  If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. -- Link to Atlassian Work Check Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:42.0

I believe strongly in trying to push perfume more towards the arts. Certainly what I do, I look at it as an art form. It's the same as music and poetry and literature. It's just has this different materials but you can do the same thing with it.

1:08.0

Welcome back to Working. I'm your host, Isaac Butler.

1:15.0

And I'm your other host, Karen Han.

1:18.0

Karen, who have you got for us today?

1:21.0

So for this episode, I talked to David Sethmoltz and CaviMoltz of the New York-based fragrance company DS and Durga.

1:28.0

Oh, so this time we have perfumers. That is totally fascinating, a new profession to profile here on working. Do you have a favorite scent by them?

1:37.0

There are two that I really, really like. I like Debacer and Rose Atlantic. Debacer is a very figgy scent and Rose Atlantic is a really lovely sweet floral.

1:47.0

I mean, I know that they are a small company that many of our listeners maybe like that name DS and Durga doesn't trigger anything for them but if you're in New York and you're listening to this, you may recognize their ads that have been plastered on like every wall in the city for their new scent bistro waters.

2:03.0

When I walk my dog, Chili, I pass by a wall that has like 20 posters for bistro waters in it. So that's them. If you're in New York and you haven't heard of them before.

2:12.0

Anyway, what do our slate plus listeners have in store for them this week?

2:17.0

For the plus segment, we talk about kind of more of their products because they don't only do perfumes. They do other scent of products like lotions and candles.

2:25.0

And we talk about the difference between creating a perfume and creating one of those other products.

2:31.0

And if you are a slate plus listener, you can get that little bonus at the end of this week's episode.

2:37.0

And if you're not a slate plus listener, I mean, what are you waiting for? Slate plus members get bonus segments to every episode of working. They get full bonus episodes of shows like slow burn and big mood little mood. They get full access behind the paywall so they can read everything on slate. They get a delightful weekly newsletter.

2:57.0

And they get to feel good about themselves because they support everything we do right here on working. You can go to slate.com slash working plus to sign up today. It's only $1 for the first month.

3:11.0

Alright, now it's time for Karen's conversation with David Seth and coffee bolts.

3:27.0

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...

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