Perfume Pilgrim

I came home last night from the “I Smell Love” event, with a mysterious new pheromone scent on my arm, my husband urged me to buy it. I would, only it isn’t available yet. The Science museum  and Dana centre organises some nifty events, especially this one led by the perfumer and aroma scientist George Dodd. Here is a link to a previous scent event.

This was an enjoyable smelling event interspersed with scent science talks. We were invited to contemplate that couples spend approximately 1/3 of their life with their partner and their odours/pheromones. Also, our sense of smell and feelings are processed in similar areas of our brain. Dodd was suggesting that we are reaching a stage where we can alter our own pheromone profile to enhance our relationships, essentially so we don’t get tired of our partner’s B.O.

Some 5% of our DNA has been reserved for our sense of smell, and apparently this enables us to interrogate other’s immune system and hence establish mate compatibility.  Our body odour can be likened to our own bar code, which in turn can nowadays be decoded and read. We also each have a personal portfolio of smells we cannot smell. Last night we were able to explore 6 of some 200 human pheromones that have been discovered so far, though at the time we didn’t know they were pheromones.

Dodd was proposing that we could take an individuals pheromone profile to create a “Bioperfume” which could be synthesized and recreated in intensity to boost or amplify our own profile. For example, by using a GCMS machine, identifying your own odours, recreating them synthetically and mixing them up together at higher concentrations than found naturally, perhaps adding some nice flowery essential oils and voila an Ueber You scent. Imagine an ultimate bespoke fragrance where the essence of you has been captured and wearing more of yourself and less of other things. This kind of science and techniques have been pioneered and are already available.

But what about for those of us who are not actually that keen on our own odour? Don’t I wear perfume precisely because I want to smell of something other than myself, something that I like more than me? We are moving from the conscious realm to exploring our unconscious reactions to smell here, and I personally fear there is something vaguely improper in radiating more of me intentionally. Are most of us not actually repulsed by our own natural odors and especially those of others? Perhaps consciously, but probably not unconsciously.

Might not wearing such a Me perfume, actually repel others, or is it possible that it might make us completely irresistable? If we are honest, we have probably been attracted to real body odours for millenia, otherwise would we be here today, had our ancestors who may not have had access to daily showers and perfumed soaps, not been drawn to their loved ones. Anyway, as a specialist in the Psychology of Scent and pheromones, Dodd is an expert in this field. How can I object, when as you will see below, I was besotted by one of the synthesized pheromones myself?

I am reminded of the poor man who attended a class I once did, whose body odour was so repugnant that each attendee was anxious to sit as far away as possible from him. He may have had a kidney disorder where toxins were excreted more from the skin rather than through normal routes, or perhaps just poor diet or hygiene. Nevertheless, the suffering for those around us was unbearable and we were all nauseated by catching a whiff of him. After months of enduring his odour we elected one of us to email him to alert him in the most sensitive way possible, and he simply never came again!

At this point I was thinking of Patrick  Suskind’s book, Perfume where the protagonists tries to steal the scent of others to drench himself with. Modern perfumes have according to Dodd become more and more de-eroticised, less animalic and more vanilla. By wearing celebrity scents are we not on some level declaring that  I like you more than I like me and by buying some of You (your smell/perfume) I can become you and loved like you?

After the talk it was time for us to receive our very own scent bags with 6 scent strips, colour-coded with mini stickers. One scent strip was so special that it was given to us individually. We were warned that some people might have very strong reactions to it. (All, the more reason to have a good sniff, so I thought) One poor woman took one whiff and had to run to bathroom to vomit! I approached her later and she said it was the worst smell she had ever smelt in her life, worse than gangrene. We were not given any indication what the smells on the strips were and only found out at the end of the evening.

On the first strip I smelt cheese, the second smelt glorious and of honey. I could not inhale this deeply enough. The third smelt of nothing and I asked to smell the same strip of the person sitting next to me, as I could smell rien. (Yes, later I discovered this was the scientific placebo). The other strips smelled mostly musty,  of old barrells, earth or like armpit odour. We then had to list favourites and compare our favourites with people around us who chose similar colours and those who chose different ones.

Then came an embarrassing but funny hand raising to confirm our preferences. I say embarrassing because who wants to confess that they liked the goat pheromone, pig tongue scent or tomcat spray before finding out what they were? Regarding my honey scent, this was a synthesized human pheromone that some men smell of naturally, but more than half the room raised their hand to say they hated it.. All of the scent strips had single synthesized pheromones, carefully purified.

Dodd finished our humorous and revelatory evening by inviting us to pay attention to the scent of our loved one, our home and the world around us tomorrow. I was very grateful for the opportunity to speak to his partner Elizabeth Mountford who spoke to me about Allels and biochemistry. I asked her which perfume she was wearing and she confessed she was wearing none. I can imagine that her odour free slate being a welcome relief when your partner is a perfumer. I did manage to ask Dodd if I might acquire a sample of the lovely honey pheromone, which he kindly agreed to.

In September George Dodd is commencing a perfume course at his Perfume Studio in Scotland for those who may be interested. He also runs shorter courses there too. In London you can purchase his floral compositions at French’s Dairy reviewed on this site recently. You can also arrange to have a bespoke perfume made via Scent Systems.

Image Credit: Thankyou to David Drummond of 11 Cecil Court, London for this 18th paper cut image

Last Image from a painting by Marie Laurencin, Jeune Fille a la Guirlande, 1935