Will you buy something for your mom, sister, or a friend for Valentine’s Day? Chocolate? Lotion? A candle? Soap? What about an extravagant item, like . . . perfume?

Do you ever think about the folks who put the good smells in such gifts? WORLDkids got to meet one of these artists—Francisco Lozano. Mr. Lozano is an apprentice perfumer at Arylessence, a fragrance company in Marietta, Georgia.

Mr. Lozano says having a strong sense of smell isn’t a skill you learn. It’s a gift you’re born with. As a grownup, Mr. Lozano took a “smell test” at Arylessence. That’s one of the big steps in becoming a perfumer. 

A wannabe perfumer is given scent identification blotters—strips of absorbent paper. He or she must identify the scents on them. Hyacinth? Gardenia? Violet? Something else?

Then things get a little tougher. The test taker gets three blotters. Each is dipped in a raw material or a man-made mixture of scents. Two of the blotters carry exactly the same fragrance. One is just slightly different. An excellent nose like Mr. Lozano’s can tell which doesn’t belong. 

Perfuming is part science and part art. Perfumers at Arylessence help clients make their products smell good. They write recipes for scents like a baker might write recipes for cakes. They must ask: What experience do we want to create? (That’s the art.) How will the scents bond with the molecules in the wax, soap, oil, water, or other ingredients? How well will the fragrance spread through the room? (That’s the science.)

“We’re not mad scientists,” says Mr. Lozano. “We’re glad scientists.” For him, perfuming is about serving others. He’s creating beauty with what God already made. He says, “At the end of the day, the master perfumer is God.” 

Why? Perfuming can be an art, a science, and even an act of service.