Nuri McBride is a writer, perfumer, researcher, and community organiser.
Her professional work focuses on olfactive cultural education, aromatics in lifecycle rituals, and the preservation of traditional forms of aromatic preparations. She is also deeply interested in labour rights and power equity in the fragrance trade.
In her community work, Nuri advocates for an end to funeral poverty, improved end-of-life care for marginalised peoples, and universal deathcare’s normalisation.
Nuri spent the first twelve years of her career in refugee resettlement and torture treatment. She worked primarily in Kenya, Thailand, Israel, and the United States before transitioning to academia and eventually the private sector.
Joining a Chevra Kadisha (Jewish burial society) and becoming a Metaheret led to Nuri advocating for greater inclusiveness in Jewish death rituals and a return to traditional green death practices for non-Orthodox communities.
Nuri also has had a profound interest in olfaction since she was a child. This interest led to her applying her skills as a researcher to delve deeper into the subject. Eventually, she apprenticed under several perfumers focusing on traditional West Asian fragrance-making and distillation techniques.
Nuri is currently the Program Curator for the 2021 Scent & Society lecture series at the Institute of Art and Olfaction. She explores the intersection of olfaction and death rituals with the Death/Scent project and started the Aromatica de Profundis newsletter in August 2021. She is currently developing a fragrance line that will launch in the coming months and is working on several writing projects to be announced soon. She has had her work featured in several publications [see: Writer].
In her free time, Nuri can be found obsessing over Guillermo del Toro’s movies, Umberto Eco’s books, odd smelly things, learning cuneiform and historical needlework.
What People Say
“She does impeccable research, and her work is fascinating, timely, and very down to earth.”
Saskia Wilson-Brown
[Nuri’s] enthusiasm, insights, and support have bolstered me immensely in the past year, with regard to my creative projects. Nuri writes beautifully and extensively at her own blog Death/Scent.
S. Elizabeth
Nuri McBride’s fascinating research on xenophobia and racism in olfactive culture provides tools for “decolonising our noses”
Lauryn Mannigel
