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…
Category: Research
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 doggy research methods. Copy and paste is in pretty heavy rotation. Researched…
Introducing Our New Newsletter!
I am so excited to announce I will be publishing a monthly newsletter, Aromatica de Profundis, starting August 1st, 2021, with enrollment opening July 1st! Why a newsletter? Well, I have multiple areas of interest and research. I’ve found that some people know me from one aspect of what I do but have no idea…
The Putrid and the Divine Book Club 2019
A few years back, after receiving several requests for more information on topics covered in the blog, I made a lengthy list of over 50 books to indulge our olfactive bookworms. In retrospect, that list was a bit daunting. At first, I was planning to just do an updated tighter edit of that list but instead,…
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before I Started My PhD
So I rarely go off on tangents here, but given the number of questions I’ve received about my PhD since starting the blog, I thought it might be a good idea to have a little sideline chat. Don’t worry, more smelly death stuff to come shortly, but here are a few words of advice from someone at…
The Death/Scent Reading List
Over the last year I have had several requests for more information and deeper reads on subjects brought up on the blog. So after banging around my shelves a bit, here is the Death/Scent reading list. Some of them are staples of both olfactive and death literature, others are weird and wonderful deep cuts. This…
Disasters, Mysteries, and Perfume: Unearthing the Philistines
In this post, we explore what we know and what we don’t about Philistine culture, thier death practices and how perfume may have played a role in their cosmology.
Bottling Ghosts: Can & Should We Try to Capture the Scent of Our Dead Loved Ones?(for $650 a bottle)
In 2015 Kalain, a French start-up opened to a flurry of news articles. They claim to bottle the olfactive essence of your dead relatives for bereavement purposes. The process is simple; send them a scent infused item like a pillowcase, they work their magic, and bada bing bada boom you get a bespoke essence of your loved one Patrick…
The Chemistry of Death and Desire
What does fleshy tuberose, cooked Brussel sprouts, chocolate, the musk of human sex, faeces, and a decomposing body all have in common?
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