Battling the Bodily Stench or Embracing the Feral and the Ripe?

Battling bad smells has been a millenia-long battle for humanity. Fighting body odor specifically has been a battle against our very own human make-up. With the exception of those carrying the gene ABCC11 (which makes for no armpit smell), common amongst the populations of the Far East,  the vast majority of us of European, African, Central Asian and Native American descent have the sort of apocrine glands in the armpit and groin which secrete a sort of sweaty liquid that when mixed with surface bacteria develops body odor. The ecrine glands, situated throughout the body, secrete just water and salt.

The quest for deodorisation brings us to the American contradiction of a malodorous past coupled with an almost sterilized present. The pioneer settlers, coming from Europe driven out for their strict Puritan religious beliefs or our sheer need for greener pastures and personal growth were not accustomed to washing up too much. Popular westerns, films chronicling the adventures of the Wild West, have long exploited this very notion, having the lone cowboy bust into the odd saloon and demand a cigar and bath in the back quarters after months of herding cattle all alone in the wilderness.

The very interesting thing however is not the invention of deodorant (and anti-perspirant, which debuted in the early 20th century based on aluminum chloride first marketed under the suggestive name Everdry) but the power of marketing. Women, American women in particular, were especially targeted in typically sexist campaigns which implied that their natural odor was repulsive to heterosexual men, therefore they had to rely on a deodorant or anti-perspirant in order to land the man of their dreams. An advertisement from the Walter Thomson Archives, at the Duke University, proclaims in the very title "Within the Curve of a Woman's Arm. A frank discussion of a subject too often avoided." Including lines asking "Would you be absolutely sure of your daintiness?" and "Does excessive perspiration ruin your prettiest dresses?" The agressive campaigns by the Odorono Company, giving their address as Ruth Miller, The Odorono Co., 719 Blair Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio, promised the "so simple, so easy, so sure" solution for that "problem", imaginary or real.

Please read the entirety of my article on Fragrantica.

Swallowable Perfume: A Perfume Pill that Makes You Smell Sweet?

A team is working on edible perfume – a digestible pill that will emit a scent through the skin during perspiration. Men and women will no longer have to bring out the perfume or the body spray in order to prepare for a date; a pill with all the right ingredients will help make them smell attractive and confident instead (and making that nervous sweat smell of golden nectar)! Part of the Beauty from Within concept, it's set to hit the market at a future date.

“Body architect” Lucy McRae and synthetic biologist Sheref Mansy of Harvard University are in the research phase of exactly that. "Swallowable Parfum consists of scented lipid molecules that copy the structure of fat molecules found in the body. Because our bodies have enzymes that metabolise fat, this perfume works on the basis that the enzymes will also metabolise the perfumed molecules, excreting them through the skin. The proposed digestible capsule will emit an odour unique to the individual the more they perspire, as the perfume emerges as droplets on the skin’s surface.
Harvard biologist Mansy and Amsterdam- based Australian artist McRae have created a video at swallowableparfum.com to illustrate the process." (quote via Irish Times) The clip is tagged with "Go beyond accessory", "express uniqueness" and "a new cycle of evolution". Making a perfume uniquelly your own has always been the Holy Grail in the quest for the perfect scent.

According to the makers: “Once absorbed, the capsule enables the skin to become a platform, an atomizer, a biologically enhanced second skin synthesized directly from the natural processes of the body,” explains the website. “Fragrance molecules are excreted through the skin’s surface during perspiration, leaving tiny golden droplets on the skin that emanate a unique odor. A biologically enhanced second skin synthesized directly from the natural processes of the body,
redefining the role of skin.”
The strength of the scent is determined by varying factors including an individual’s ability to acclimatization to temperatures, reactions to stress, exercise, and sexual arousal. [pic source]

Of course the idea that eating fragrant foodstuff would help aromatize an individual's personal odour is not new: As explained in our article Musk & Civet in Food: Challenging our Perceptions, Chinese concubines were regularly fed on natural deer musk, so that they would benefit of sexy body emissions. Their body would excrete pure musk at every caress...
And who can forget that infamous movie scene in James Ivory's Le Divorce, with Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson, the latter being the paramour of a French politician who mentions that a tisane of rosewater, orange blossoms and mint is to be drunk before lovemaking to perfume "the juices"? (offered as a course of intimate French lessons for the American young girl)

Spraying, dabbing or even dousing will soon be entirely optional....