Because Marilyn Meissler had always wondered if she was the only person who liked the smell of skunks, in 1989 she placed an ad in USA Today seeking out other skunk lovers:
Calling all Skunk Lovers. My family and friends think I am the only person in the world that likes the skunk scent. I would like to prove them wrong, so if you or anyone you know likes the scent, please reply.
She got such a positive response that a year later she founded "Whiffy's Club" — a club for people who like the odor of skunks. For $35 members got a t-shirt, button, membership card, and newsletter. And for an extra $11, they got a bottle of skunk aroma.
Skunk Guard was a solution of skunk spray packaged in small glass vials. Ray Hanson and Jack Scaff started selling this stuff in the 1980s with the idea that it could be used as anti-rape perfume. If a woman feared she was about to be raped, she could break open a vial and smear herself with skunk scent, making herself smell so bad that the rapist, hopefully, would go away. As Scaff explained, "The idea is to make the woman so repulsive the attacker runs away."
If the attacker didn't run away he would end up smelling awful also, making it easier for the police to identify him.
Skunk Guard never sold well. I'm guessing most women wanted a form of defense that was more proactive than just making themselves stink.
A fragrance for muppet fans was a cute idea, but the image of Kermit with six-pack abs was a bit unsettling.
For some reason, Amphibia was deemed culturally significant enough to be added to the Smithsonian's collection. From the Smithsonian:
Amphibia eau de toilette was launched in 1995. It was sold exclusively at Bloomindale’s and was advertised as being "Pour homme, femme, et frog." The glass fragrance bottle is in its original packaging, which includes a cardboard box also containing a t-shirt with an image of Kermit the Frog lounging on his back and showing off his 6-pack abs.
At one time this name meant "nostalgic popular culture invocations of the nineteenth century." But given that meaning, what kind of smells would you necessarily associate with it? Horse manure? Coal fires? Unwashed longjohns? Was that what was meant by "manly elegance?
The Sigma-Aldrich Corporation sells a variety of scents including: Pseudo Corpse I (that smells like a body less than 30 days old), Pseudo Corpse II (that mimics the dry-rot scent cadavers attain after a month), and Pseudo Drowned Victim.
The scents are intended to be used for training rescue dogs, but I suppose they could also be used to enhance a Halloween costume.
Canine reaction to a body can vary widely. The general categories of behavior are:
1 . Enthusiasm - the dog does not hesitate to approach the body. It may attempt to elicit a response from or urinate on the victim.
2. Cautious Interest - the dog slows its search, may become nervous and raise its hackles, but with encouragement, will approach the victim.
3. Avoidance - the dog will not approach the scent source and may actually attempt to leave the area. This behavior may become evident some distance from the body as the dog enters the scent cone.
Ford has collaborated with fragrance firm Olfiction to create a scent called "Mach-Eau" that smells like gasoline. Or, as they put it, the fragrance has "smoky and rubbery accents reminiscent of the petrol smell so many love." They've done this, they say, for the sake of owners of electric cars who miss the smell of gasoline.
However, it seems that Ford isn't actually selling this fragrance. So we have to take their word for it that they really did create it.
In Sanskrit, Samsara means the eternal cycle of life. It is an imaginary place, sacred and mysterious, where Orient and Occident meet. Samsara is the symbol of harmony, of absolute osmosis between a woman and her perfume. It is a spiritual voyage leading to serenity and inner contemplation. The bottle, in the sacred red of the Orient, echoes the figure of a Khmer dancer in the Musée Guimet in Paris, her hands folded in a gesture of offering, expressing plenitude and femininity. The stopper evokes the eye of Buddha. A tantalizing floral-oriental perfume, Samsara is a harmonious blend of all-natural essences, including jasmine, ylang ylang, sandalwood and tonka bean.
I'm no expert on Hindu-Buddhist religion, but I'm pretty sure that Samsara isn't supposed to be a good thing. My understanding is that it's the endless, repeating cycle of birth and death from which we're supposed to hope to awake. Kind of like the endless cycle that Bill Murray's character, in the movie Groundhog Day, finds himself trapped in. Which makes it odd to name a perfume after this.
Of course, I'm over-analyzing this. Guerlain probably a) didn't understand the concept, and b) wouldn't have cared anyway because he just figured the name sounded exotic.
I don't see what advantage an aroma disc would have over an incense candle (except, perhaps, for the lack of an open flame). Which, I assume, is why these are no longer around and incense candles are all over the place.
But Spector was successful enough to have his product featured on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson:
In 1981, Warren Woodford of Atlanta, Georgia was granted a patent (No. 4,260,517) for a method of producing the "aroma of cocaine". From the patent:
The present invention relates to a method and product for providing the aroma of cocaine and so called "street cocaine" to the olfactory senses using readily available, non-controlled substances...
Olfactory conditioning by brain trigger stimulus has recently found application in law enforcement agencies. In some instances, narcotics officers are permitted to light a marijuana cigarette during their training in order to allow them to later react to the characteristic aroma of marijuana smoke. Similarly, officers may be exposed to the aroma of cocaine so as to familiarize them with its distinctive aromatic smell...
Due to the legally controlled nature of such substances as cocaine and marijuana, it is usually not possible to freely disseminate samples of such substances to everyone who might wish to become acquainted with the aromas of these substances. Drug familiarization programs have as a result been limited by the availability of the drugs themselves.
It is therefore desirable to find alternative sources for the aroma of certain controlled substances.
I'm surprised this was never turned into a perfume.
How many presidents and presidential candidates have had fragrances named after them? There was Donald: The Fragrance, which we've posted about before.
And back in 1963, Vi-Jon Laboratories of St. Louis, Missouri released "Gold Water: A Cologne for Americans" — named after Arizona senator Barry Goldwater.
The company also said it would be releasing "JFK — A Family Cologne." But I haven't been able to find any evidence that it actually did.
It's not quite the same as a cologne, but as we've also previously posted about, JD and Kate Industries released a whole series of politician-scented candles including Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Obama, Justin Trudeau, and Joe Biden scents.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.