Smelly Facts: The First Celebrity Scent?

Hello everyone! I've been busy getting into my new program (I've just started my Research Master and it's full on statistics all the way to June!) but I am preparing a review for an AMAZING fragrance I'd never heard of before for Friday (including contest for a sample)! For today though, I present you with another installment of Fragrance Bouquet's Smelly Facts, this time with a story I've been wanting to share with you ever since I came back from my vacation.

Celebrity scents are currently so very ubiquitous that new ones have come to elicit no more than an eye-roll and perhaps a tired, snide comment (deservedly so, might I add). The Celebuscent Phenomenon might truly only have come into its own in the past decade, but at the same time perfume enthusiasts are well aware of the fact that it is, after all, nothing new. One point of contention however is which was the celebrity scent that started it all. Blogs as well as fashion glossies have attributed the honor (?!) to various celebrities over the years: was it Michael Jackson? No, no, it was Cher! Was it Deneuve? No, Sophia Loren came before that, didn't she? Well, I've come across a particular excerpt that indicates that the first celebrity scent might have come much, much earlier that we all imagined after all. The year would be 1932; the celebrity in question, Colette.

Judith Thurman's astoundingly detailed biography of Colette (which made for a fabulous summer companion by the way) devotes only a few pages to Colette's entrepreneurial venture into the beauty world. However short though, the piece allows us to draw powerful comparisons between then and now: was such a celebrity venture regarded differently back then? The answer is no. Would the primary admirers of the brand then, as now, be the hardcore fans? The answer is a definite yes. Colette did not just launch a single scent, she went the whole proverbial hog and created a brand which she installed into an elegant, Art Deco decorated shop on the rue de Miromesnil, all against the worries of her loved ones (such as those of her last husband, Maurice) that it would "tarnish her image" as Thurman eloquently describes (Thurman, 1999, p. 394). The first products to be ready were a perfume and two tonics. Make-up and creams followed. From Thurman's writing, it transpires that Colette's venture in turn was inspired by the duchess Sforza, who owned an "elegant apothecary" from where she sold perfumes using her name and the prestige of her title to attract clientele. Similar tactics were used by Colette: her own profile decorated the labels of her products while her signature was used as the brand's logo. What followed after the launch of her brand was eerily similar to what happens today: the press, eagerly lapping up the story generated "50.000 francs worth of publicity" (idem, p. 395) for the new entrepreneur, while fans flooded the shop for a chance to sit in her beautician's chair and, of course, to have one of their books signed. At the same time, there was an enormous backlash and outrage, both from the press as well as from fans: Had Colette sold out? Yet more parallels between then and now: Other celebrities of the time would endorse her makeovers, which would in turn lead to appreciation from Colette herself who knew her fortune depended highly on the publicity she would get were the pretty young things of Parisian society to be seen entering or emerging from her shop. Whether it was due to the economic depression however, the fact that you should stick to what you know, the fact that the famous author expanded too fast (she opened two more branches in the same year, one in Saint-Tropez and another in Nantes), or perhaps a combination of all of the above, the enterprise failed by the middle of 1933, ending the prolific writer's break from her books.

Literature:
Thurman, J. (1999). Secrets of the flesh; A life of Colette. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Smelly Facts: The Making of a Best-Seller

Have you ever wondered what it takes to make a best-selling perfume? The obvious answer should be a combination of quality (first and foremost one would argue), capturing the zeitgeist of the period of release and of course some sort of universal appeal. But of course as we perfume lovers well know, far from all best-selling perfumes comply with these or similar criteria. In fact, most of the time it is marketing that drives a best-seller, with unfortunate, deleterious consequences for the sensitive noses and sensibilities of connoiseurs who end up disparaging the mainstream market as a result. For me one such perfume whose continuing success leaves me rather bewildered is Dior's J'Adore, a veritable golden goose for the company. Countless women profess their adoration (ugh, forgive the accidental pun) for J'Adore, much to my dismay and confusion. Well, I seem to have come across an (at least partial) explanation for its success while studying for Consumer Psychology, one of my elective courses this year, and now that I've more time I finally get to share it with you. According to Hoyer & MacInnis (2008, p. 34) it is not uncommon for modern marketing efforts to be driven by neuroscience:

Neuroscientists are seeking to understand consumer behavior by looking at brain activity using functional resonance imaging (fMRI). To do this, they examine which parts of the brain become activated when consumers are engaging in activities such as making a decision, viewing an ad, or selecting an investment. For instance, Christian Dior used fMRI research to test consumer's reactions to music, colors, and ad placement when planning its highly successful introductory campaign for J'Adore perfume. Although neuroscience research raises concerns about manipulation, one advertising executive notes: "Observing brain activity and setting up models for behavior is not the same as forcing a brain into making a consumption decision."

Although I cannot with certaintly refute the validity of this claim without further information, one has to question the extent of its truthfulness. Specifically, in the event that marketing is heavily based on automatic brain responses, what sort of defense is left for us against it? What do you think? Considering that not every household currently contains a bottle of J'Adore it is clear that freedom of choice still remains secure, but with more technological advances in the future I foresee this ethical debate heating up.

To briefly return to one of my initial points regarding universal appeal in perfume, I found another interesting little tidbit elsewhere in the book (idem, p. 84). According to the authors "Only one smell is universally regarded as pleasant. No, it's not vanilla... It's cola! Considering this, I am surprised we've yet to come across a perfume with cola notes! Or have I missed something?

References: Hoyer, D. W. & MacInnis, D. J., 2008. Consumer Behavior. North Way: GB, South-Western, Cengage Learning

Emphasis in original text added by author.

Smelly Facts: Sense of Smell & Pregnancy

A few years ago, in 2007, I had reported here on Fragrance Bouquet on the mistaken, yet still propagated belief that the adult brain does not produce new neurons. In that post I explained that one of the two identified areas in the brain that constantly see the birth of new neurons is the olfactory system (the other is the hippocampus). As I reported back then, neurons in the olfactory system constantly die off, mostly due to their constant exposure to harmful agents and thankfully, they are constantly replaced. Recently, while reading the astonishingly interesting and very humorously written “Why Zebras don’t Get Ulcers” by Robert M. Sapolsky as part of the obligatory books to be learned for my exams in Health Psychology, I came across the following related excerpt which I provide here for your pleasure:

“It turns out that there is a huge burst in the production of those new olfactory neurons early during pregnancy. They are fully on line just around the time of birth, and the scientists who discovered this speculated that these new olfactory neurons are tagged for the task of imprinting forever on the smell of your offspring (a critical event for mothers of most mammals). And what happens early in pregnancy, when those new olfactory neurons are showing up, but not quite making sense yet? I bet this has something to do with the famed nausea of pregnancy, the food aversions and olfactory sensitivities.”

- Sapolsky, R. M., 2004. Why Zebras don’t Get Ulcers. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, LLC

Image: Flickr by Raphael Goetter

Smelly Facts: Wrongfully Accused - Does Coumarin Deserve its Bad Rep?

Are our favorite fragrances getting reformulated for no good reason? Ingredients like coumarin and oakmoss are increasingly getting a lot of bad publicity and gaining in notoriety. But are the claims against them substantiated? Some researchers tend to think that it might not all be as black and white as so far presented. Perhaps judgment has been passed too quickly - at least in the case of coumarin.

The main problem with coumarin is that it is suspected to cause skin allergies, namely contact dermatitis. The most commonly accepted way to test for contact dermatitis, is by doing a patch test. But can we actually accept a positive patch test as clear indication of contact allergy to the tested chemical itself? According to some researchers, some confounding variables might be at play. Specifically, as Vocanson M, Goujon C, Chabeau G, et al, state in a 2006 article, "contaminants and derivatives rather than the suspected chemical itself could be responsible for the allergic skin reactions”. They chose coumarin for their experiments, since it had already produced conflicting results in previous research exploring its allergenic potential (for example Frosch et al. observed positive patch tests to coumarin in less than 0.3% of the 1,855 Allergic Contact Dermatitis patients tested). After testing both mice and humans with three different coumarin preparations, Vocanson et al found that “Pure coumarin did not exhibit irritant or sensitizing properties in the local lymph node assay. In contrast, two other commercially available coumarins and three contaminants that were detected in these coumarin preparations were identified as weak and moderate sensitizers, respectively. In humans, pure coumarin was extremely well tolerated since only 1 out of 512 patients exhibited a positive patch test to the chemical.” The researchers concluded “that the coumarin chemical is extremely well tolerated. In contrast, derivatives contaminating some coumarin preparations are responsible for both the irritant and sensitizing properties previously attributed to coumarin.” and further emphasized that “purity of chemicals is mandatory for the assessment of their allergenicity.”

Reference: “The skin allergenic properties of chemicals may depend on contaminants - Evidence from studies on coumarin”, source: International archives of allergy and immunology [1018-2438] Vocanson yr:2006 vol:140 iss:3 pg:231 -238

Image: Chemical Structure of Coumarin, commons.wikimedia.org

Smelly Facts: Perfumed Lovin’

A couple of weeks ago, in a different Smelly Facts post, we saw how bees gather and use perfume in order to communicate with each other. Today we turn our attention to a very different animal and they way it uses fragrant chemicals. Alloanointing is the transfer of chemicals among members of the same species – an activity that has long been documented in mammals. According to Hector Douglas, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Alaska, his research is the first to document this behavior in birds. According to Douglas “The crested auklet (Aethia cristatella), a colonial seabird of Alaskan and Siberian waters, alloanoints during courtship with fragrant aldehydes that are released from specialized wick-like feathers located in the interscapular region. Crested auklets solicit anointment at the colony, and prospective mates rub bill, breast, head, and neck over wick feathers of their partners. This distributes aldehydes over the head, neck, and face where the birds cannot self-preen.” You are probably curious what the aldehydic perfume of choice for this magnificently billed bird smells like. As it turns out, it smells intensely of citrus, and more specifically, of orange! Apparently, unlike us humans, crested auklets do not shy away from strong sillage either; according to Douglas, “a stronger chemical signal (is) more attractive”. But this perfumed courting behavior is not just good for flirting, apparently. It also serves a practical purpose: the aldehydic scent is a great insect repellent, which protects these birds against tick infestations!

Reference: “Prenuptial perfume: Alloanointing in the social rituals of the crested auklet (Aethia cristatella) and the transfer of arthropod deterrents”, Die Naturwissenschaften [0028-1042] Douglas yr:2008 vol:95 iss:1 pg:45 -53

Image: commons.wikimedia.org

Smelly Facts : A Bit of Old News

Since speculation about which of our favorite, classic perfumes have been reformulated has been a rather hot topic in the last couple of years among perfume lovers, I decided to include an excerpt from a 2006 issue of New Scientist I found this week for today’s Smelly Facts post. We might not yet be 100% sure about most of the fragrances we are suspecting to be reformulated, but slowly, we are weeding them out. There’s yet another suspect we no longer need to deliberate over: Chanel’s iconic No.5...

“Chanel No 5 is considered to be the epitome of a timeless fragrance, but its subtleties may have changed over the years. “Regulations introduced since it was created in 1921 have forced many of the original ingredients out of the perfumer’s palette,” says John Ayres, Chairman of Fragrance Foundation UK, in London. If new European legislation is passed in December, other cosmetics may have to be reformulated or removed from the shelves entirely. Last week, members of the European parliament’s environment committee voted in favor of a draft version of Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals. REACH calls for manufacturers importing more than 1 tonne of a chemical substance per year to test it for safety and then register it in a central database. Many chemical manufacturers worry that this will force them to retest chemicals they have been using safely for years. Smaller companies may have to stop producing some cosmetics ingredients completely because they are unable to afford the tests, warns Chris Flowers of the Cosmetic Toiletry and Perfumery Association in London. “Inevitably, there will be a range of everyday products that suddenly won’t be available on the shelves because we won’t be able to make them,” he says.”

I apologize for including something that is indeed rather old news, but since I had not -before encountering this article- seen a definitive answer on Chanel No.5’s reformulation, I figured it would be useful to lay the rumors to rest with the truth of the matter.

Excerpt in italics is a direct quote from source: New Scientist [0262-4079] yr:2006 vol:192 iss:2574 pg:14 -14

Smelly Facts : Bee as Perfumer

Bees commonly use odors in order to communicate with each other. This behavior is especially prevalent in the context of mating. These odors, are most often produced by the bees themselves – that is, they are chemicals produced by their glands. Some bees however, make use of odors found in their environment in order to communicate. The males of the neotropical orchid bee genera, which count more than 200 species, collect volatile chemicals from their environment (from flowers, fruit, tree wounds, feces etc) and deposit those in leg pouches in order to create different fragrances which they then use to perfume territorial sites where mating occurs. The role of these fragrances is yet unknown. What is quite astounding, is that these bees use a form of enfleurage (a method of extraction of floral scents by means of a lipophilic carrier, in other words, grease – a method widely used in the perfume industry)! Specifically, in order “to collect fragrances, the bees apply large amounts of straight-chain lipids to odoriferous surfaces from their cephalic labial glands, which dissolve the volatiles, and the mixture is then transferred to voluminous hind-leg pockets.” (...) “From the hind-leg pockets (...) deuterated derivatives of carrier lipids (are) consecutively sequestered, shuttled back to the labial glands and reused on consecutive bouts of fragrance collection. Such lipid cycling is instrumental in creating complex perfume bouquets.”

Reference: Adaptation of text and quotes, “Enfleurage, lipid recycling and the origin of
perfume collection in orchid bees”, Eltz et al., 2007, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 274.

Image: www.scielo.br

Smelly Facts: Making a Good Impression

Smelling pleasantly can certainly improve the chances of being positively evaluated – for example a pleasant smelling man will be perceived as more attractive than an unpleasant smelling one, as the experiment presented in a previous Smelly Facts post a few weeks ago demonstrated. But making a good impression does not just depend on how attractive we look. The pitch of our voice, our style of dress, what we say, and importantly, how we act all play a role in the way others perceive us. Recent research provides evidence that perfume might have the power to affect not only how attractive others perceive us as being, but also to improve the overall impression we make by affecting the way we actually act. The study dealt with non-verbal cues that affect interpersonal relations. Such cues can be either positive (smiling, maintaining eye-contact), or negative – in which case they are commonly termed as “Nonsymbolic Movement”. The non-verbal behaviors that fall under this category are generally seen as being evident of a self-denigrating posture, such as anxiety, tension and embarrassment (Harrigan, 1988, LeCompte, 1981). Examples of Nonsymbolic Movement include self-touching, such as touching the hair or nose, or shifting posture, such as crossing one’s legs while talking. Frequent Nonsymbolic Movement can, presumably, project a negative image. A study by Higuchi et al. in 2005, demonstrated that neutral observers of two groups of women (one group wearing perfume and one group not wearing perfume) found that the perfume-wearing group showed significantly less Nonsymbolic Movement. The observers also rated the perfume wearing group as much more self-confident. The researchers speculate that these effects occur either due to the fact that the pleasant smell of the perfume has a positive effect on the mood of the wearer, or due to its making the wearer more “self-conscious” in the social context.

Notes: The observers were blind to the state of the women they were observing, that is, they were not informed which of the women they were observing were wearing perfume and which were not. The participants were Japanese and the perfume used in the experiment was Shisheido’s ‘‘Breath Garden–Tenderness Time’’.

References: Higuchi et al., 2005

Image: Originally uploaded by Brokenchopstick on Flickr

Smelly Facts: A Collection of Little Facts

Do we take our sense of smell for granted? Do we lament the fact that it is nowhere near as sensitive as that of many other animals? It is still pretty remarkable. A few random facts today to remind us how special our sense of smell is.

· “We can smell smoke at concentrations well below that needed to trigger even the most sensitive of household smoke detectors.”
· “We can distinguish among roughly 10.000 different chemicals by their smell.” (Axel, 1995)
· “Blind people regularly identify other individuals by each person’s unique odor, and sighted people can do that too when they try.” Where does our special, identifiable odor come from? “In humans, specialized scent-producing glands (apocrine glands) are concentrated most highly in the axillary region (underarms) and also exist in high concentrations in the genital area, the alveolar area (around the nipples), the navel area, on the top of the head, and on the forehead and cheeks.” (Stoddart, 1990)
· “Much, if not most of what we call the flavor of foods is actually smell, not taste.”
· “As we get older, our sense of smell declines. By age 65, about 25 percent of people have serious olfactory impairment, and by age 80 the number is 75 percent." (Doty et al., 1984)


Note: All of the above facts are direct quotes from Peter Gray’s Psychology, 4th Edition, Worth Publishers

Image of navel: commons.wikimedia.org

Smelly Facts: Odors & Perceived Attractiveness

Visual cues -such as symmetrical features- are of great importance when judging how attractive a face is. Sensory cues however (such as a person’s voice) also play a big role in whether a face will be perceived as attractive. (Demattè et al., 2007) Could the presence (or indeed absence) of certain smells affect the perceived attractiveness of a face as well? “Olfactory Cues Modulate Facial Attractiveness”, a recent article by Demattè, Österbauer and Spence explores this question with a most interesting experiment. In this experiment, the participants (all female) were asked to rate the attractiveness of different male faces presented on a computer monitor, while simultaneously being presented in each trial with either one of four different odorants, two of which were unpleasant and two of which pleasant (geranium or male perfume VS body odor and rubber) or a neutral odor (clean air). (For those of you wondering, the judgments on the perceived pleasantness or unpleasantness of these odors were derived by a pilot study) The results demonstrated (with statistical significance) that the participants judged the faces as being more attractive when they were paired with a pleasant or neutral odor (geranium, male fragrance or clean air) and less attractive when the faces were paired with the unpleasant odors (body odor, rubber). Since clean air and pleasant odors did not differ significantly between them in the effects they exerted on the participants’ judgments, the best interpretation of these results seems to be that only unpleasant odors seem to have a modulatory effect on perceived attractiveness. I would love to see more research on this subject, especially in regards to specific fragrances that people judge as generally pleasant or unpleasant. Yes, even though taste in perfume is subjective, I do believe that there are fragrances that are generally perceived as attractive or repulsive. Related to this last thought and for all of you (us!) Shalimar lovers out there, I include the following excerpt from the aforementioned, extremely interesting article by Demattè et al.:

“The only previous study that we are aware of in which the presence of an odor was shown to modulate people's ratings of the facial attractiveness of others was reported in a book chapter by Kirk-Smith and Booth (1990). The authors found that in the presence of a perfume (the brand Shalimar; once described by Paukner 1965 as being similar to an "ideal erogenous perfume"), both men and women rated half-torso clad photographs of men and women as being significantly sexier and softer as compared with a no-perfume condition.”

References: Demattè et al., 2007
Image: commons.wikimedia.org

Smelly Facts: Olfaction and Gender Differences

Perfume enthusiasts often marvel at the individual differences that emerge when one person’s experience of a scent is compared to another’s. Our individual perception of a scent is likely tied not only to life experiences that have shaped the way we perceive certain smells, but to constitutional differences as well. One very surprising and important variable that plays a role in olfactory differences is gender. “On the average, women detect odors more readily than men, and the brain responses to odors are stronger in women than in men.” (Doty et al., 1985) Additionally, women are apparently more attentive to smells as well. For example, the smell of a potential partner plays a bigger role for women than it does for men. Furthermore, when repeatedly attending to a particular faint odor, women have the ability to become gradually and progressively more sensitive to it, until they can detect it in concentrations one-thousandth (!) of what they could at the start. (Dalton et al., 2002) However, it must be noted that this effect is not exhibited in prepubertal girls and menopausal women, so this ability seems to be tied to female hormones.

What effects might this increased sensitivity have on the different ways men and women perceive the same fragrance? Are there any implications for professional perfumers? It seems unthinkable, considering the time and enormous effort involved in training a professional nose. On the other hand, according to studies, only women of sexually reproductive age are able to detect faint odors in such minute concentrations as mentioned above. Surely that should make a difference? I realize I am following a controversial train of thought at the moment, and one I am certainly underqualified to make any assumptions on. It certainly is an interesting topic though, wouldn’t you say?

References:
Dalton, Doolittle, & Breslin, 2002
Doty, Applebaum, Zusho, & Settle 1985
Kalat, 2007

Image: www.gutenberg.org
Dalton

Smelly Facts: A Glance at Anosmia

Anosmia, the general lack of olfaction, can be congenital – that is, a person can be born anosmic. Alternatively, anosmia can occur later in life, either due to brain damage or because of vitamin A deficiency. In contrast, Specific Anosmia is the inability to detect the smell of a single chemical. A small percentage (2%-3%) of the general population for example, is unable to detect the smell of isobutyric acid – the component that makes sweat smelly. (Next time you find yourself suffering next to someone who has forgone the use of deodorant in the bus, you can perhaps distract yourself by wondering whether the reason behind their thoughtless behavior is the fact that they are anosmic to sweat and thus unable to detect their own funk!) Among perfume enthusiasts, the most commonly cited specific anosmia is of course musk anosmia, but in reality, specific anosmias span a much wider range of odors. To give a few examples aside from the aforementioned sweat and musk, other specific anosmias include fish, urine, sperm, camphor, mint and malt.

References: Amoore, 1977, Pelosi & Viti, 1978 and Kalat, 2007.

Smelly Facts : Neuron Renewal

Have you ever heard others say that the adult brain has a fixed number of neurons and is unable to generate new ones once these die out? Indeed it was traditionally believed among scientists that the adult vertebrate brain could only lose neurons, never gain. (Kalat, 2007) Recently though, a small number of exceptions have been found. Among them, and of special interest to us of course, are the olfactory receptors. Indeed, these only tend to survive a couple of months at best, due to the fact that they constantly come into contact with harmful chemicals, as well being subjected to natural wear and tear, exposed as they are to the natural world. Thankfully, the dying olfactory receptors are constantly replaced by new developing cells! Too, adult stem cells within the brain have the ability to propagate daughter cells. These “migrate to the olfactory bulb and transform into glia cells or neurons" (Gage, 2000).


References: Graziadei & de Han, 1973, Gogos et al., 2000 and Kalat, 2007.

Image: Coronal section of olfactory bulb, http://commons.wikimedia.org