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Eau de Toilet: Sneaking the Sexy In

The summer of stink has come and gone: the much-anticipated and literally deadly (smelling) Corpse Flower had a 3-hour wait in Denver, while The New York Times hit the streets with a perfumer and a sommelier, sniffing out trash, taxis and... toilet. Eau de toilette takes on a whole new meaning as IFF perfumer Céline Barel mentions that the superluxe fragrance they’re huffing has “fecal” notes; the daring and provocative note “makes the fragrance literally irresistible,” she says. And it’s true: that “fecal” note actually gives sexy fragrances their depth and sensuality – either in the form of indole or a variety of other animalic notes such as glands from the civet cat, musk deer, castoreum from beaver – all contrived to elicit les responses dangereuses.

Sometimes referred to as “skank” or “body funk,” these perfumes have probably crossed your mother’s dresser once or twice – in their original incantations, Guerlain’s Shalimar was blessed with nether-region odeur, the classic Shocking by Schiaparelli was created to smell like a woman, post-coitus and way post-shower, and even that “grandmotherly scent” Chanel No. 5 exploded with indole. The note appeals directly to the libido, almost like a deep, dark pheromone, so perfumers can essentially create the scent of sex and sell it too. It is the bottling of an aphrodisiac, one that you don’t necessarily even consent to sniffing – it will find you and waft up your nose, sans permission.

Covered by other notes so as to be a little more front door than back, the fragrance usually doesn’t necessarily evoke excrement, but it is lurking underneath. It’s a trademark of white florals in order to attract pollinators: jasmine is a rather popular natural culprit of indole, and even beloved orange blossom and tuberose are guilty of the gutter undertone. On a molecular level, it also has a lot in common with horse sweat. As a fragrance opens, it might smell sweet and fresh – if indole is used sparingly, it smells nothing like waste. If the molecule is used in high concentrations, however, it smells like… well, feces; some people even find it smells like “tooth decay.” Christopher Brosius, creator of CB I Hate Perfume, says, “To me, it smells more like dead flesh – and in high quantities, it gives me a headache and is downright repellant. However, broken down in fractions, and used well, it can be very, very attractive, sensual and human – a deep skin-like quality. If you cross that line, the scent loses its elegance and becomes unendurable.”

It’s in the small traces that the note gives a fragrance complexity, earthiness and that truer humanness; author Denyse Beaulieu paraphrases Dr. Paul Jellinek’s The Psychological History of Scent: “Though repulsive when smelled out of context, these subtle hints of the naked body were most frequently encountered in the act of love and therefore carried positive connotations.” Because it smells like sex, but also like life and death, perhaps indole is the most existential of the notes – and aren’t all flowers inherently sexual as well as morbid? We smell flowers as they are dying. We see flowers as they are boldly attracting pollination. Why wouldn’t they also smell of rot, waste and decomposition?

Neurologist Dr. Alan Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Research Foundation has a more Freudian take on the matter: “we like different odors, even ones that might be ‘disgusting’ because we admire what we create.” And by create, he does in fact mean, your fecal output. In terms of self-absorption, “olfactory narcissism” may be the root of our desire for this uncouth note. How much you like the smell, of course, is dependent on how much it reminds you of your own – or, to put in even more of an ick factor, how much it reminds you of something from your childhood. Perhaps trace amounts of a molecule that reeks of waste reminds you of a simpler, sweeter time rather than the last time you ravaged a partner. Either way, you are more drawn to a perfume with indole than without.

The range of brain-baffling rude scents - sweaty, musky “skank” scents, a word we’re most used to hearing in Mean Girls – give sex or nostalgic appeal through a variety of pungent smells: sweat (cumin), body odor or urine (grapefruit), fecal matter (white florals). They evoke the most sincere appreciation for nature – both in botany and anatomy. While some may turn up their nose, others embrace the stinky: the Corpse Flower garnered tons of visitors in both Denver and Chicago with its anticipated “limburger cheese, feet and rotting fish” odor, a natural emission to attract pollinators (apparently dung-loving insects are all that will do for the extremely choosey Corpse Flower) and people were legitimately bummed when the Chicago flower did not deliver in its grossness. And among perfume connoisseurs, unpleasant notes are an art form, the antithesis of a commercial product, a sign of an adventurous and skillful nose. Plus it doesn’t hurt that the arbiters of all things chic, the French, have been dousing themselves in sexy, elegant malodors for centuries and love it. Luckily for the olfactory anxious, a little indole goes a long way and perfumers know it, so you can inch your way in and smell just a little risqué rather than a whole lot raunchy.