Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Smell of Zombies: Now in Cologne Form for Him and Her

Do you like your movies filled with rows of living corpses? Does the idea of some rotting flesh bring out the 12-year-old boy in you? Is Night of the Living Dead your favorite guilty pleasure? And did you secretly say "yeah, zombies can be normal folks like you and me" while watching Shaun of the Dead?
You're in for a treat then!

Demeter, a cult fragrance line off NYC, has brought out the scent of the living dead in cologne form (in masculine and feminine declinations no less!), so you know what you're going to douse yourself with next Halloween or next Zombie-slumber-party.

The Demeter Fragrance Library explains that its colorless, Zombie For Him cologne smells like 'forest floor', with notes of dried leaves, mushrooms, mildew, moss and earth. And the women's version (Zombie for Her) is slightly 'lighter', with the additional aroma of dregs 'from the bottom of the wine barrel for that feminine touch.'[source]

Shaun of the Dead

The two scents are limited edition, available only from March 15th to April 20th on the Demeter online store.

Demeter, founded by Christopher Brosius and Christopher Gable in 1993, has never stopped producing not-your-average-fragrances for people who are after specific smells (their Rain is the scent of a humidifier pegged just right, their Dirt is the kind you plunge your gardener's hands into and rejoice, they have Vanilla Cake Batter, Play-Doh, Turpentine, Beetroot, Sex on the Beach (after the cocktail), Moonbeam, Laundromat and many many others in a staggering catalogue of 250 scents.

Now would you be curious to smell these? And what do zombies smell like anyway? 
As one reader commented on the Daily Mail: "I don't know what a dead man walking would smell like, but I'll bet it isn't too dissimilar to the current occupants of the government front bench." I couldn't have put it better myself.

This snippet of news was brought to my attention by the lovely Minette.

18 comments:

  1. Prince Barry08:23

    Would really love to have that scent. Big fan of Zombie films and Resident Evil video games. Yep, even Princes have an interest in things other than perfume and being Royal haha.

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  2. B,

    it looks like someone has sniffed you out (ha!!) and prepared something for you then!
    Seriously no harm in having a guilty pleasure, is there? :-D

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  3. Dear Shrine (a strangely appropriate name today)

    There are only a limited number of zombies I would like to smell like - I'm yet to discover if this is one...

    But forest floors, mildew and mushrooms - that sounds rather splendid.

    The thing I have found with Demeter in the past is that they can veer between too photorealistic to really qualify and a perfume and too off beam to earn the name.

    I wonder if anyone out there has the requisite experience to comment on which this might be?

    Yours ever
    The Perfumed Dandy

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  4. Anonymous14:37

    the men's version sounds quite appealing, actually! forest floor sounds great, and who's afraid of a little mildew after living the south and wearing etro messe de minuit?!

    and you can't beat shaun of the dead! what a funny, fantastic film.

    cheers,
    minette

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  5. Forest floors, moss and earth doesn't sound that bad. Is Demeter bound by IFRA laws? Perhaps there's real oakmoss in there.

    As far as zombie goes, I'd have wished for a metallic blood note (Sec Mag anybody) plus a tiny amount of one of those nasty sweet molecules produced by rotten meat (cadaverine or whatever they are called), which the unaptly named Charogne by ELDO unfortunately omitted.

    cacio

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  6. I´d love to smell these! I LOVE the concept!! I think I´d even buy Zombie for Him unsniffed, if their international shipping fee wasn´t so utterly ridiculous... :(

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  7. Miss Heliotrope00:17

    I like the sound of the scent, but the name not so - I'm the sort of person who is too scared to watch Astro Boy, so don't go near even funny horror things.

    (& am a bit over the whole vampire/zombie/blah thing anyway - most of the books in our local library are of that genre & they've chucked out anything previous bc it's not cool any more...)

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  8. Oh, I just love that comment! :)
    I would be interested in smelling this just for fun. I wonder what their idea of a zombie perfume is like...

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  9. Anonymous09:52

    These don't sound too bad. Mildew and forest floor. Might be worth sampling, don't know about buying a full bottle.

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  10. TPD,

    thanks, I guess it has some resonance, indeed!

    Well, the Demeters are for people who like smells, not just perfume. For instance I have long enjoyed their "Rain" (the exact replica of the smell of a room humidifier/ionizer). It's not for wearing on myself, but it brings wonderful images, tender associations and serenity whenever I smell it; money well spent, if you ask me. ;-)

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  11. C,

    yeah, I bet it would resonate with aficionados like us. ;-)

    Shaun is smashing, so very funny and in some ways eerily creepy too! Cult status!! Glad you're a fan as well.

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  12. M,

    I think most companies self-impose IFRA regulations on themselves (after all they ARE members of IFRA themselves!) so as to ensure consumer trust and continued sales (I know...the irony!) I'm not sure on Demeter, especially if something is a LE, but I wouldn't think they'd be too/widely different, because that's the way it is with everyone.

    Cadaverine is indeed the molecule in rotten corpses (cadaver, it computes). I would think it highly unlikely that someone would incorporate it in any perceptible amount in something to be worn on one's self though. (hence ELDO's hesitation, even for Charogne)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Najda,

    where are you? I think there's a site in Swedish or something which stocks some Demeters. Perhaps you could check or ring them if they're planning on stocking this (let's be optimistic) or if they can order it for you.
    Lemme see, it's here: www.eleven.se
    (It was recommender by one of my readers, who has ordered before and is reputable).

    Hope this helps!

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  14. C,

    good point about genres ousting other things off libraries. And stores. And nightstands.

    :-/

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  15. Ines,

    they do sound interesting!
    I'd be something along the lines of Messe de Minuit would be right? Have you smelled that one?

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  16. In the nose,

    they do have potential! I wonder if someone will buy some bottles (since they're LE) and then sell decants, that would be fun!

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  17. I did try Messe de Minuit and well, that would seem very dark although more church scary (ha, like Michael Jackson's Thriller). ;)

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  18. One of the cities in Europe to live in Cologne. I traveled for a week and liked it very much. I have written here.

    ReplyDelete

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