Neat+Stuff

Some neat facts and videos about scent:

- Albinos have no sense of smell; olfaction seems to depend on the pigment of the olfactory membrane (which is at the top of the nasal cavity, protected by mucus) and, because albino animals have no pigment, they have no sense of smell.

-Making sachets (bundles of scented flowers) used to be a coming-of-age rite for young girls in England.

-Romans used to use scented doves, dogs, and walls to spread pleasant odors at feasts, and Nero supposedly threw a feast during which he covered Lake Lucinia in rose petals. He also reportedly slept on a bed of rose petals and could not sleep if one of them started to curl.

Here is a trailer for the movie "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer." It speaks for itself, but I should warn you that it does get a little graphically gruesome and is not for the faint of heart! media type="youtube" key="c91f41NqCcU" height="315" width="420"

-Chanel No. 5 is so iconic because it was manufactured when perfumes were switching from natural essential oils to synthetic oils that mimicked the natural scents, but Chanel No. 5 embraced the new semi-chemically harshness of the synthetic oils rather than try to smell like a flower. There were other perfumes that did this too, but apparently Chanel No. 5 was the best.

-Cleopatra soaked the sails of Mark Antony's barge in her own perfume, so that he would think of her as he left.

-In 18th century France, there lived an aristocrat named Madame Tallien who started each day by bathing in a tub filled with 20 pounds of crushed strawberries, then being scrubbed by milk and perfume.

-Young women in ancient Jerusalem would fill the tips of their shoes with myrrh and basalm and shake their feet at attractive young men to pique their interest.

-A "Scent Dinner" created by Chandler Burr, perfume critic for the New York Times magazine. He's created two eight-course meals, one culinary and the other olfactory; this is worth watching both to see the idea in practice, and to see the earnestness of the chefs who've executed it. media type="youtube" key="ClN3pBf2Q7g" height="315" width="560"

-Part of the fun of eating ice cream (assuming that you are somebody who likes to eat ice cream) comes from the fact that it barely has a smell, so you get to taste it only as it melts in your mouth - it's a sweet surprise.

-There is a museum in France completely dedicated to rare scents that have been manufactured in the past, and in order to visit (or get a whiff of some of the irreplaceable products, you have to a perfumer of renown.

-Although it never was marketed, a scent was once made that captured the smell of hundred-dollar bills, freshly printed.

-Some ants found in Costa Rica, when squished, smell like mint.