If corrupt smells are a sign of a corrupt nature, what happens when a holy person dies? It is in this Western mind-body dualism that the concept of the Odour of Sanctity is born.
Category: Lavander
Rebozo de Luto: the Aromatic Mourning Shawl of Mexico
There are many ways people mark time when it comes to death, but one of the most elegant is the rebozo de luto or the perfumed mourning shawls.
If A24 Films Were Perfumes
It’s a tradition around these parts that we ring in Halloween with a special post by pairing fragrances with costume ideas, but that did not feel right this year. As we round the corner on year two of this pandemic, I don’t have the bandwidth to pretend as if I might actually be going to…
Victorian Tear Catchers Are Trash
It seems like every year, my colleagues and I have to dispute the myth of Victorian Tear Catchers. I don’t know how or why disproving internet myths about perfume became my life, but here we are. So let’s go a bit deeper than space would allow in that tweet, and let’s hope I never have to…
The Sketchy History of Four Thieves Oil
The internet has a thing about salacious history. Give the crowd a good old-timey murder, and they will produce 150,000 blog posts and eight true crime podcasts devoted to telling you the real story. While I give them points for enthusiasm, these works often employ some very dodgy research methods. Copy-and-paste is in pretty heavy rotation. Researched and…
The Sweet Smell of Plague Preservatives
This post is part of the Scented History of the Plague series. If you are not familiar with the history of the plague in Europe, you may want to pop over to our primer first or learn about why miasma was important to the Black Death. In today’s post, we will be discussing the deliciously…
The Rise of Miasma
This post is part of the Scented History of the Plague series. If you are not familiar with the history of the plague in Europe, you may want to pop over to our primer first. In this post, we’re discussing the rise of Miasma Theory during the Second Pandemic and how it impacted European olfactive…
A Murder Two Ways (Scent the Scene)
History is painted by the winners, but what does it smell like?
The Death Scent Project 
You must be logged in to post a comment.