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osmoz KIDS is a fragrant section of our site that’s both educational and fun. It will allow you to initiate your children, nephews or nieces, cousins or friends’ children into the delightfully surprising world of scents. Each issue will present a different theme, with smells to discover in a playful, simple and safe way that can keep your little rascals busy on a rainy day…
 

Scented Arts & Crafts
 
When there’s no school and it’s cold outside, sometimes you have to find something to do at home besides watching TV and playing video games, right? What about playing with… your nose?
Make soap bubbles that smell good

In Paris, there’s a new perfume shop that sells fragrance for adults… and soap-bubble solution for kids! It’s really fun, and it’s logical, too, because the bubble solution they sell smells good. It comes in different scents: freshly cut grass (it smells like the lawn right after someone has cut the grass), pear, and mint (like mint candy). They’re called Les Bulles d’Agathe (Agatha’s Bubbles) – for Agatha, the perfume designer’s niece.
Les Bulles d’Agathe, 12 euros a bottle.
Maison Francis Kurdjian, Paris 1er.
Infos : www.franciskurkdjian.com

If you can’t get to Paris (the capital of France), here’s a recipe for a nicely scented bubble solution you can make yourself.
Inside an empty soap-bubble solution container, mix 1 part dishwashing liquid with 3 to 5 parts water. Add a pinch of sugar or glycerin to make the mix work right. Let the mix sit for a while, even overnight, skim off the bubbly foam on top if there is any… then go blow bubbles! For fragrant fun, try using dishwashing liquid with different scents. Look for: raspberry, mango, grapefruit, apple… Ask an adult to help you make sure you get the proportions right.

 

For this activity, you need:
- an empty soap-bubble solution jar
- dishwashing liquid that smells good
- white sugar or glycerin (from a drugstore or pharmacy)

Age range > 8+

 
Make scented pom-poms

You can make a pretty pom-pom that smells good, too! Choose whatever color and scent you want: fruit, vanilla or even the woods or more...
First, print the patterns for the rings and glue them to a thin piece of cardboard (like the kind for gift boxes in a clothing store). Then use a pair of safety scissors to carefully cut the cardboard rings out, and to make the hole in the center too. You need to wind up with two thin, flexible doughnut shapes. Then take a ball of wool in a color that you like (strawberry red, mint green, lemon yellow, or even yarn with a mix of colors…) and cut a long piece of wool, at least as long as your arm (don’t worry if it isn’t long enough, you can always tie another piece on and keep going).
Put the two rings together, wrap one end of the yarn around both rings and tie a knot to hold them tightly together. Then just keep wrapping the yarn around the rings, around and around from the center to the outside, until the rings are entirely covered with yarn.
When that’s done, slip the tip of the scissors between the two rings and cut the yarn all the way around. Now take a new piece of yarn and wrap it where you just cut, between the rings. Tie a knot that holds the ball together tightly, but before you cut the extra piece of yarn, make sure you leave a bit that you can use to hang your pop-pom from a hook or a door handle. Now pull out the two cardboard rings. You might have to tear them to do that: don’t worry, you can always make more rings if you want to make more pom-poms. Then you can trim the edges of yarn if you want your pom-pom to look like a nice smooth, round ball. When it’s all done, with the help of an adult, spray some home fragrance on your pom-pom, holding it by the extra length of yarn you tied around it. Make sure not to get any fragrance on yourself, especially not in your eyes!
Now you have a lovely scented pompom! If it starts to lose its scent after a few weeks, just spray a bit more fragrance on.
Pom-pom pattern...
 

For this activity, you need:
- thin cardboard
- safety scissors, glue
- a ball of wool
- a spray bottle of home fragrance

Age range > 8+


Read about smells

This funny picture book, ‘René le Toutou qui sent tout’ (René the Dog Who Smells Everything’) is full of ideas about the wonderful world of smells. René is the Lodorat family’s dog. He loves to stick his nose anywhere he can: into the fridge, the garbage, the flower shop (see the illustration), the butcher shop… even the perfume shop.
This 48-page book is beautifully illustrated by the painter Pierre Rouillon. Price: 12 euros. Available directly from the author: Chantal Trubert-Tollu : 01.46.03.27.21 / chtrubert@club-internet.fr

For visually deficient children, a Braille version also exists.
Order the Braille version from: Centre de transcription et d'édition en Braille, à Toulouse : 05.61.57.95.89, cteb@wanadoo.fr