Category:
Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Serb, the men’s cologne

In the midst of the Bosnian War, two Serbian designers came out with "Serb" the cologne. I can't think of any other cologne inspired by a war.

Arizona Republic - Apr 17, 1994





St. Louis Post-Dispatch - May 9, 1994

Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 28, 2018 - Comments (2)
Category: 1990s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Pullman Fragrance

For the man that wanted to smell like a train.

Travel in the best circles... go first class, arrive in style with Pullman, Dana's great new luxury fragrance for men!
Pullman puts you on the right track to an enlightening new experience in good grooming. Use it without reservation... Pullman's subtle scent underscores, never overpowers your masculine assurance. Board the Pullman train decisively with After Shave... Eau de Cologne... Talc... Deluxe bath soap... Shower soap on rope.

Someone has a bottle of this stuff for sale on eBay, if you wanna try some 50-year-old fragrance. Only $180!



Philadelphia Inquirer - Oct 29, 1967

Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 25, 2018 - Comments (1)
Category: 1960s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Fragrance-coded card catalog

In 1974, the public library in Upper Arlington, Ohio added scratch-and-sniff scents to its card catalog. They called it the "Stick Your Nose in the Card Catalogue" program.

The idea was that the card in the catalog would have a scent, and then the book on the shelf would have a matching scent. So you could find your books by smell. There were about 60 scents in total, including apple, chocolate, garlic, lemon, roses, root beer, leather, pizza, orange, strawberry, candles, pine, cheddar cheese, clover, and smoke.

I was curious what became of the scented catalog, so I emailed the library and asked. The reply came just a few minutes later:

Unfortunately, the UA Library no longer has this catalog, and has not had a physical card catalog since around August 1989. We aren't sure what exactly happened to the scented catalog, but we guess that the cards eventually lost their scent over time, but remained part of the catalog until it was decommissioned.

And they also emailed me a news clipping about the catalog (in extended, below) from the local Upper Arlington paper.

The Vernon Daily Record - Feb 9, 1975



San Antonio Express - Apr 11, 1976



More in extended >>

Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 16, 2018 - Comments (9)
Category: Libraries, 1970s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Cigarette Perfume

From Etat Libre d'Orange. For women who actually want to smell like an ashtray.

Transparency in sophistication, just a trace of jasmine mingled with the so far neglected smell of a cigarette. Jasmin et Cigarette is the twilight zone, the banned, the addiction. She is an icon, the longed-for woman.




Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 21, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Lincoln-Scented Candle

When you want your room to smell like Abraham Lincoln.

Other scents available include Theodore Roosevelt, Justin Trudeau, Ronald Reagan, Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, and Rutherford B. Hayes.

Link: Amazon.com


via Worst Things For Sale

Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 28, 2017 - Comments (7)
Category: Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Macho Cologne

Introduced by Faberge in 1976. It was described as being "packaged with a startlingly new futuristic look." Which is to say that it was packaged as a giant phallus.

I like the ad promoting it as a Father's Day gift. I can just imagine a son or daughter giving this as a present to their dad.



Indianapolis Star - Oct 30, 1976



The Pocono Record - June 17, 1977


The marketing of the cologne must have gained some notoriety. I found a brief discussion of it in an academic study of marketing — Marketing and Semiotics: New Directions in the Study of Signs for Sale (1987):

The juxtaposition of the grossly physical with the structurally normative produces a profound effect: Norms and values become saturated with emotion while emotions are ennobled through contact with values. The monolithic (or rather, ithyphallic) print ad for Macho cologne run by Faberge several years ago, effectively condensing referents to male sexuality, aggression, wealth, and ethnic stereotyping in its rhetorical and iconographic symbolism, nicely illustrates this principle. Thus, symbols function as both storehouse and powerhouse, encoding information which is ultimately authoritative.


Update: Thanks to Brian for drawing our attention to Pierre Cardin Man's cologne, which also featured a suggestively shaped bottle.

And I just noticed that the Father's Day ad features both Macho cologne and Pierre Cardin Man's cologne. So if you gave your dad both, what message would you be sending him?

Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 26, 2017 - Comments (8)
Category: Advertising, 1970s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Historic Book Odour Wheel

Noting that "the role of smells in how we perceive heritage has not been systematically explored until now," researchers at University College London have developed a "Historic Book Odour Wheel."

They tested it on visitors to St Paul's Cathedral's Dean and Chapter library in London, who characterized the smell of the library as 'woody,' 'smoky,' 'earthy,' and 'vanilla.'

The researchers say, "the Historic Book Odour Wheel could potentially be used to recreate smells and aid the design of olfactory experiences in museums, allowing visitors to form a personal connection with exhibits by allowing them to understand what the past smelled like."

More info: Science Daily, Heritage Science

Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 12, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: Science, Books, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

The Bruce Effect

If a pregnant rodent is exposed to the scent of an unfamiliar male, she will often spontaneously abort. This is known as the Bruce Effect, after researcher Hilda Bruce who discovered the phenomenon while working at London's National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in the 1950s.

It's thought that the female rodent does this in order to make herself ready for mating with the new male — because the new male would probably kill the children of the other father once they were born, so why bother carrying them to term. The trick doesn't work with the scent of a castrated male.

The history of the NIMR (pdf - page 208) offers some interesting details about Bruce's research. The Parkes mentioned was Alan Parkes, her boss:

The Bruce Effect implied that every male mouse smells different to every other male mouse, at least to female mice, and that he produces a spectrum of odours that vary slightly between individuals of the same strain and differ markedly between individuals of different strains. With lateral thinking on how to prove their theory, Bruce and Parkes turned to Boake, a world famous perfumery.

Knowing how skilful perfumers must be in distinguishing between thousands of different odours, they persuaded some Boake representatives to visit NIMR for the purpose of smelling the mice. They invited them to sniff at pieces of cloth that had each been exposed to different cages of various mouse strains. The perfumers had no difficulty in distinguishing the different strains as all had a unique aroma; they even commented that four of the strains were quite similar – all of which had been bred from one original colony at Hampstead. They also noted that the CBA mouse strain, which was fairly new to NIMR, had a wonderful and pleasantly musky smell that could be of commercial interest in perfume manufacture!

Hilda Bruce

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 21, 2017 - Comments (0)
Category: Science, Experiments, Pregnancy, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

The Ingredients of Chanel No. 5

February 1972: There was a popular outcry after Jacques Leal, London Chairman of Chanel Ltd., revealed during an interview that one of the ingredients of Chanel No. 5 perfume was the "sweat of the whipped Abyssinian civet cat."

He explained, "We don't usually like to admit, but it's one of those ancient techniques the Chinese invented. They put the cat's head into a sort of torture chamber, whip it, the cat gets mad, and it gives off a glandular secretion."

However, Leal assured the interviewer that the Chanel company itself didn't whip the civet cats. "We just buy the stuff in bottles."

Other Chanel No. 5 ingredients included castoreum from the Canadian beaver, ambergris from the sperm whale of Chile, and musk from the Tibetan deer.



The Provo Daily Herald - July 16, 1972

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 28, 2017 - Comments (2)
Category: 1970s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

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