Tarja Liikanen & Erja Hietala

When guests enter the Hotel Mestari, they feel a very certain atmosphere around them. The atmosphere is holistic, personal and tangible: every sense gets its share. The designers of the Mestari’s fragrance world, Tarja Liikanen and Erja Hietala, tell how fragrances affect the space.

Tarja Liikanen and Erja Hietala, who design the world of fragrances for different spaces on Ambius, know a lot about scents. At its best, one scent can lead into the world of memories for years to come.

“Fragrance design is like science. At the grassroots level, we talk about the memory sections of the brain blocks, the logic of the olfactory sense, and the memory trace. In the years to come, people can still associate a certain scent with something they have experienced,” Liikanen says.

Both have been working in the fragrance market for years and talk about the change in the industry in Finland.

“In Finland people have only recently begun to understand the important role of fragrances in creating a holistic atmosphere. In Finland, the air is fresh and we are used to that there aren’t any smells in the city environment. Whereas in many pedestrian streets in Europe you can pass through personal and attractive scents that spread to the street from different shops,” Hietala describes.

“All the senses must be fullfilled if you want the experience to be holistic.”

Before choosing fragrances, Hietala and Liikanen want to see the space where they are planning to create the world of fragrances. Often the spirit of the place is immediately noticed, and the choice of scents is obvious. The most teasing concept about the scents of spaces is that their effect on creating a holistic atmosphere is subconscious.

“When a guest steps into the Hotel Mestari, he or she may not separate the scent. When the scents, the world of sounds and the materials of the space are precisely matched, the attention is focused on the holistic atmosphere, not on a single sensory perception,” says Hietala.

The scent world of the Mestari is bold and interesting. It could be called confident, rugged, and surprising with a touch of masculinity.

“In the Mestari, the world of fragrances passes through each space, merging with other things that are perceived. Scents and their different nuances have been highlighted in different spaces. Each scent and nuance emphasizes the visual aspects of the surrounding space in different ways,” Liikanen describes.

There is one main message behind the detailed and multi-threaded fragrance design.

“All the senses must be fullfilled if you want the experience to be holistic,” Hietala says.