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Selects: How Perfume Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Saturday Select episode. I am Chuck,
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Speaker 1: your curator for this weekend. You know how perfume works? Well,
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Speaker 1: if you have less than an hour, we can explain
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Speaker 1: it to you. This one goes back to February. How
0:16
Speaker 1: perfume works right here, right now. Welcome to stuff you
0:49
Speaker 1: should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and
0:58
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W
1:01
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and Jerry Jaers. That'd be great if that
1:06
Speaker 1: was her name, Jerry Jerry Jaars like Tony, Tony, Tony.
1:11
Speaker 1: My friend used to call them Tony, Tony, Tony. Why
1:15
Speaker 1: is the spelling? Okay? But I thought the last one
1:18
Speaker 1: was an E with a little accent. Well that was Tony,
1:22
Speaker 1: but he didn't say tony accent. Well, but the point
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Speaker 1: is it's E, I, Y are the three letters when
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Speaker 1: Jerry Prester Court, did you think we were gonna be
1:34
Speaker 1: talking about Tony Tony Tony. I never know what the
1:37
Speaker 1: heck we're going to talk about. For the first thirty seconds,
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Speaker 1: I would not have predicted that one. I was gonna
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Speaker 1: tell the story, but I'm not going to. Now, what's
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Speaker 1: the cent You're wearing is Oh did didn't chuck musk?
1:52
Speaker 1: It's called chusk in French that means water of chuck musk. Gross. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm wearing drecarn no air. Are you really? No? Do
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Speaker 1: you think you'd be able to smell it? Well? Yeah, sure,
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Speaker 1: I never know. I don't want to. Like, I'm very
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Speaker 1: sensitive to making fun of people and what they choose
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Speaker 1: to do. You know, I'm not making fun of anybody. No,
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Speaker 1: but I didn't want to say you're wearing cologne. You
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Speaker 1: were wearing drekar noir. Gross. I used to love drecarno
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Speaker 1: war back when I was in like seventh eighth grade.
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Speaker 1: I believe it, man alive. Those are the cologne days.
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Speaker 1: I looked it up and I was like, what does
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Speaker 1: drecarno R mean? No? Are black? Right? Um? What is
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Speaker 1: dr car? Apparently your car or duck car is a
2:37
Speaker 1: name for a Viking ship. Nice, So drek car has
2:41
Speaker 1: kind of come into um French colloquially as like a
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Speaker 1: big ship or a yacht. So I think drekarn no air.
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Speaker 1: Here's the fact of the podcast sad like, uh means
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Speaker 1: black yacht. Nice. That means you are very fine because
2:57
Speaker 1: all you see is white yachts. You ever seen a
3:00
Speaker 1: black yacht? Nope, that would be pretty slick. Yeah, it'd
3:03
Speaker 1: be very hot. That's why they don't paint yachts black.
3:05
Speaker 1: I would imagine. Oh yeah, I guess so, because he
3:07
Speaker 1: sat up in the sun all day. Um, so I
3:12
Speaker 1: wore Benetton colors. I never wore that one. And um,
3:17
Speaker 1: that smell today is still very evocative. Because I have
3:22
Speaker 1: the bottle, I don't know if I still had it.
3:25
Speaker 1: I had it? What? Yeah, I key stred it in nine.
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Speaker 1: Every once in a while, when you feel in nostalgic,
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Speaker 1: you just shed it. No, I can't find it. I
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Speaker 1: just oh, where is I thought you were saying you
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Speaker 1: still had the bottle. I key stred it and I
3:39
Speaker 1: can't find Um. No, I had it for a long
3:45
Speaker 1: the longest time. I don't think I still have it though. Um.
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Speaker 1: And as we'll see, cologne can go bad. But this
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Speaker 1: was in a dark drawer and it seemed to smell
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Speaker 1: the same to me. Yeah, that sounded like a perfume
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Speaker 1: industry propaganda. Oh to keep you that it. No matter
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Speaker 1: what usual to protect it, it's still going to go bad.
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Speaker 1: Into It's like these vicadin are no good anymore exactly.
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Speaker 1: Don't believe that for a second. No, but definitely don't
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Speaker 1: just assume that they've downgraded in potency and take like four. Right,
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Speaker 1: although I do think I do think cologne and perfume
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Speaker 1: could definitely go bad if not cared for correctly. Right,
4:23
Speaker 1: But if you care for it correctly, yeah, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: we should probably just go ahead and say, if you
4:27
Speaker 1: keep it out of the sunlight, yeah, keep the artificial
4:29
Speaker 1: light to a minimum, keep it in its original bottle.
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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, um, supposedly it stays good for two years. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's what happened. I thinks as long as you don't
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Speaker 1: expose it to the outside air, right, keeping it in
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Speaker 1: a sort of Joe bottle and the sunlight's not saying
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Speaker 1: they're breaking its molecular chains, it's it's gonna be fine
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Speaker 1: and stable. Yeah. I mean I had literally had proofum
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Speaker 1: cologne and Vikadin. I'm happy to come out on the
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Speaker 1: record about that's great man, all right, this is a
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Speaker 1: good article. I thought, Well, a nice choice. Yeah, I
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Speaker 1: I agree. I think perfume is surprisingly interesting. It's one
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Speaker 1: of those things where you just take for granted or
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Speaker 1: you think like, oh, that's just for the fashionista glitteratti
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Speaker 1: types or you know Madison Avenue folks kind of thing.
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Speaker 1: And then you dig into it and you're like, no,
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Speaker 1: it's pretty cool perfumes for everyone. Even if you don't
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Speaker 1: wear it, it's still interesting to know about, like, for example,
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Speaker 1: the history. Do you read much of the history? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's aw, um, you sent me some pretty cool stuff
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Speaker 1: that um. And this isn't necessarily perfume, but I guess
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Speaker 1: perfume is really anything that smells. Yes, you know, it
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Speaker 1: doesn't have to smell great. Yeah, we're we're generally talking
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Speaker 1: about perfume meaning like a product that you go by
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Speaker 1: too and to change or enhance your scent. Right, yeah.
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Speaker 1: That but if you look around, like everything is perfumed
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Speaker 1: unless it's specifically marketed as unscented or non perfumed. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but just about everything else has some sort of perfuming
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Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, but it's got it has to be
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Speaker 1: a substance. That's what is the distinction between like a
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Speaker 1: perfume and an odor. Yeah, yeah, Like I guess the
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Speaker 1: odor actually comes off and say the plant. The perfume
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Speaker 1: is when you go to that plant and squeeze the
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Speaker 1: odor out of it, put in a bottle, put it
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Speaker 1: on your skin. Yeah, well you don't even to put
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Speaker 1: it in a bottle. Yeah, I guess not. You rub
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Speaker 1: those leaves all over you. Um. But like I said,
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Speaker 1: back in the day, ancient priest, do you sent me
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Speaker 1: these things? That they burned incense initially to cover up
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Speaker 1: stinky dead animal carcasses that they were sacrificing, Which makes
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Speaker 1: sense that the Latin uh translation is through the smoke.
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Speaker 1: Perfume means yeah, like you can smell it through the
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Speaker 1: smoke of I guess he's burning dead animals, or through
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Speaker 1: the smoke you feel a lot better about sacrificing animals
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Speaker 1: because you can't smell the death. Yeah. Uh. The ancient
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Speaker 1: Egyptians very quickly, so, like originally these were priests using
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Speaker 1: refume to cover up animal sacrifices, the ancient Egyptians said,
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Speaker 1: we got a better idea. Let's use the glands from
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Speaker 1: those animals to scent ourselves for loving. Well, yeah, let's
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Speaker 1: put it on our stinky parts. Yeah. Originally it was
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Speaker 1: the animal sacrifice, and it went very quickly into sexuality
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Speaker 1: and ever since then, the purpose of perfume has remained
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Speaker 1: virtually unchanged. It is to um stimulate sexuality in some
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Speaker 1: form or fashion. Yeah, especially men wearing cologne. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: what we'll get to some of those reasons in a bit.
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Speaker 1: But um, that's a good primer. I never really thought
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Speaker 1: about that. But I guess you're right. You're wearing it
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Speaker 1: um to smell more attractive, even in a on the
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Speaker 1: friendship tip. Sure doesn't necessarily have to be sexual. I
7:51
Speaker 1: don't think. Well, it depends because some of the early
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Speaker 1: um ingredients that stuck around until in some cases of
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Speaker 1: the nine nineties and are still being used in other
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Speaker 1: cases are from basically the sex glands the scent glands
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Speaker 1: of animals. Yeah, And this article points out it's like
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Speaker 1: it's funny to think about the first person who saw
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Speaker 1: a skunk and said, you know what I'm gonna I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna get all up in that anal gland and rub
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Speaker 1: some of that on me. Or the musk deer. The
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Speaker 1: musk deer you get some of that. The beaver um
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Speaker 1: produces cat storium, the civic cat, which is a Himalayan cat. Well,
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Speaker 1: that's that's the skunk. There's like a dozen animals they
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Speaker 1: classify as civic cats. And then ambergriss yeah, or ambergrie
8:40
Speaker 1: I don't. I can't remember which way to pronounce it.
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Speaker 1: Let's just say it's both are acceptable. We'll agree to disagree.
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Speaker 1: Amber Gree, I can't remember anyway. That's it's the whale stuff. Yes,
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Speaker 1: So supposedly everybody said, well, it's whale vomit when a
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Speaker 1: whale eats a squid and it's beak gets end of
9:00
Speaker 1: in its stomach and it needs to dislodge it. Yeah,
9:04
Speaker 1: squid beak Okay, I thought I think that. Yeah, Oh,
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Speaker 1: it's a beak. It's probably the most disturbing part on
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Speaker 1: any animal on the planet. The fact that a squid
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Speaker 1: has a hard beak just like a bird is disturbing.
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Speaker 1: It just keeps me up at night because the squid
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Speaker 1: is like gelatinous and flimsy. It's not supposed to have
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Speaker 1: a hard beak that can break bone. Well, I think
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Speaker 1: it is supposed to. That's wrong to me. Uh So,
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Speaker 1: if a whale has that beacon its stomach after eating
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Speaker 1: a squid, it needs to get rid of it. So
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Speaker 1: the common wisdom was that it puked up this stuff.
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Speaker 1: And that's what Ambergriss is. Yeah, this is the sperm
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Speaker 1: whale specifically, right, Yeah, but but in this ambergriss is
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Speaker 1: like this, Well it's just like vile and puke and
9:53
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, But it floats on the on
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Speaker 1: the surface of the ocean and photo deg raids and
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Speaker 1: hardens and turns into this waxy substance that's actually flammable,
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Speaker 1: that can have its own scent, that has long been
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Speaker 1: and instill in some cases used as a major ingredient
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Speaker 1: in perfume. Right, yeah, I think it's supposed to, uh
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Speaker 1: make perfume stick to your body more right, It's affixative,
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Speaker 1: is what it's called. Um. The weird thing is is
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Speaker 1: there recently finding out that it's possible that ambergriss it
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Speaker 1: comes out of the bottom end of the whale, the
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Speaker 1: mouth they poop it out. It's basically whale diarrhea that
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Speaker 1: you're using in your perfume. So consider this. Depending on
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Speaker 1: the perfume and the fixatives that uses, you could be
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Speaker 1: using anal glands from a beaver and diarrhea from a
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Speaker 1: whale in order to make yourself smell sexy. Yeah. What's insane, chuck,
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Speaker 1: is that it actually works. Uh well, sure, that's debatable
10:56
Speaker 1: depending on who you are. I guess right. I hate
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Speaker 1: the smell of perfume, all perfumes. There's not a single
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Speaker 1: perfume sent even a component of a perfume that you find.
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Speaker 1: I don't like perfume. Scented perfume for women specifically, is
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Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. As far as working sexually, um
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Speaker 1: and I and no, it doesn't. I don't even mean
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Speaker 1: like sexually necessarily that like you're worked up, getting a
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Speaker 1: little hot under the collar, even just relaxing, not pleasing
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Speaker 1: to me at all. Really, Nope, don't like it? Are you? Do? You?
11:32
Speaker 1: Do you like sense of anything? I mean, like Emily
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Speaker 1: makes all sorts of soaps and stuff. Do you like
11:36
Speaker 1: any of those? Sense? Those are all natural? That's the difference.
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Speaker 1: Most every perfumed product is synthetic. It's on the market.
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Speaker 1: It depends, for sure. The cheaper ones definitely are, but
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Speaker 1: not all of them are most of them, I mean,
11:50
Speaker 1: there's still plenty of that use like ambergris what's more
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Speaker 1: natural than whale diarrhea? Well, that's true, you know, uh
11:57
Speaker 1: not here in the US, so we should point out
11:58
Speaker 1: is illegal to use that perfumes in the US of A.
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Speaker 1: But the Europe yes, But the European perfume houses still do.
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Speaker 1: But no I'm very specifically averse to most sense because
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Speaker 1: we don't use uh chemical products as much as possible,
12:14
Speaker 1: So like I don't use scented sprays, scented deodorants like
12:19
Speaker 1: fabrize to me, is like the most disgusting thing you
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Speaker 1: can do to your home, fabric softener, sheets, UH laundry
12:28
Speaker 1: detergent like nothing nothing with with sense. I hate it.
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Speaker 1: There's nothing to me worse than like going to a
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Speaker 1: hotel and smelling scented sheets that have clearly been washed
12:42
Speaker 1: with some kind of perfume E detergent. What if it
12:45
Speaker 1: smells like something pleasant though, I mean like there's nothing
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Speaker 1: like I understand what No, they're all supposed to be pleasant,
12:51
Speaker 1: Like this smells like lavender, and none of it does
12:53
Speaker 1: to you. It's just like this is synthetic, so it
12:56
Speaker 1: feels bad to me. It smells bad. Yeah, I got
12:58
Speaker 1: to um the the idea you just rattle off a
13:02
Speaker 1: bunch of like um uses for perfume beyond actual perfume,
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Speaker 1: and that that's actually kind of an old concept. Um
13:10
Speaker 1: the what's long been considered the seat of Europe's perfume
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Speaker 1: industry is a gross I think g R E S
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Speaker 1: S E in the south of France, and it's got
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Speaker 1: this unusual microclimate to where all of these wonderful plants
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Speaker 1: um like jasmine and orange blossoms and lavender and all
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Speaker 1: this stuff can grow. And the locals figured out number
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Speaker 1: one that they needed to grow the stuff, but also
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Speaker 1: to extract it in different ways. You can extract the
13:39
Speaker 1: essential oils, you can extract absolute you can extract concretes.
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Speaker 1: But what you're doing is this extracting these odorant molecules
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Speaker 1: from plants and using it to perfume. But what they
13:53
Speaker 1: were originally using it to perfume. And I think like
13:55
Speaker 1: the fourteenth or thirteenth century where leather gloves. So remember
14:00
Speaker 1: Catherine de Medici, she's been coming up a lot, a
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Speaker 1: lot um. She was given some scented gloves by the
14:08
Speaker 1: tanners of Gross, France, which was originally there. That was
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Speaker 1: their gig, was making leather goods. But they stunk like death.
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Speaker 1: So just like those ancient priests, the people of Gross
14:20
Speaker 1: said we need to perfume these. They came up and
14:23
Speaker 1: started this whole trend of perfumed leather gloves by sending
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Speaker 1: a complimentary pair to Katherine de Medici, who loved them.
14:30
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, bam, Gross is not
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Speaker 1: only making these awesome leather goods, it becomes the perfume
14:35
Speaker 1: capital of the world and stays that way for a
14:38
Speaker 1: very long time because she essentially was the first celebrity
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Speaker 1: sponsor of a product, and she was in the copies
14:44
Speaker 1: of the local rag saying I love the smell of
14:47
Speaker 1: my lavender leathers exactly. Uh, that's pretty cool story. Yeah,
14:52
Speaker 1: and so that was the heart of it all. Then. Yeah,
14:54
Speaker 1: and Gross still makes not nearly as much as they
14:57
Speaker 1: used to, but they still produced tons of control oils
15:00
Speaker 1: every year of all these wonderful plants. Nice. Yeah, see,
15:04
Speaker 1: I'm done with the essential oils. That's different, right, But
15:07
Speaker 1: that stuff is frequently used in perfumes. I mean, they
15:10
Speaker 1: might not be using it in like you're you know,
15:13
Speaker 1: tied or anything like that. That's probably a synthetic scent.
15:16
Speaker 1: Not probably, it's absolutely a synthetic. But there are still
15:19
Speaker 1: plenty of perfumes that do use essential oils in there
15:22
Speaker 1: as as smell molecules. Well, the reason people they don't
15:26
Speaker 1: is because it's expensive. Um. All right, So let's talk
15:30
Speaker 1: a little bit about what perfume as the stinky stuff
15:35
Speaker 1: that you use an atomizer if you're fancy to spray
15:38
Speaker 1: on your body to smell sexy um, And a little
15:43
Speaker 1: bit about smell in general. I guess the liquid perfume
15:46
Speaker 1: that we're talking about is basically just a concoction of
15:50
Speaker 1: alcohol and water and these smell molecules. Um that basically
15:55
Speaker 1: what you're smelling is evaporation into the air and um.
16:00
Speaker 1: They do point out the article not everything you know,
16:03
Speaker 1: it's light up to float, but not everything that's light
16:05
Speaker 1: enough to float has that has a smell. Um And
16:08
Speaker 1: what do they point out? Carbon monoxide is the common danger. Right,
16:12
Speaker 1: you can't smell it, you might be dying. That's why
16:14
Speaker 1: you have the detectors in your home. Yeah, if all
16:16
Speaker 1: of a sudden you can't think, right, Yeah, and there's
16:19
Speaker 1: no other reason why, it's probably carbon oxide leak in
16:21
Speaker 1: your house. There's no old lacutting around used to check
16:25
Speaker 1: the battery on your carbon monoxide detector. So them not
16:28
Speaker 1: only do some molecules not have a scent, they're just
16:33
Speaker 1: not odorance. Some odorance aren't smelled by all people, Like
16:36
Speaker 1: apparently sandalwood natural sandal would is the most commonly uncensed odorant. Yeah,
16:44
Speaker 1: the natural original the o G right. Yeah, so even
16:48
Speaker 1: even if you are making a perfume or something like that,
16:51
Speaker 1: you may be making something that can't be smelled by
16:54
Speaker 1: a significant portion of the population, which is a challenge
16:57
Speaker 1: in making perfume and the whole cilantro thing up the
17:00
Speaker 1: posted a link to a story about that. I know
17:02
Speaker 1: we've talked about it before. It's like ten percent of
17:05
Speaker 1: the population as a genetic marker that thinks it tastes
17:09
Speaker 1: or taste and smells soapy. Yeah, And this article points
17:12
Speaker 1: out that what's going on is not that there's some
17:16
Speaker 1: alteration of the smell or taste of cilantro, but that
17:20
Speaker 1: there's a note to it missing. So that's incomplete what
17:23
Speaker 1: people are sensing, and therefore they find it gross. But
17:27
Speaker 1: I saw another study that showed that of odorant receptors
17:33
Speaker 1: are different from person to person. Take any two people,
17:37
Speaker 1: of their odorant receptors are going to be just wildly different. Yeah.
17:41
Speaker 1: So it is a real challenge to make perfume that
17:46
Speaker 1: is pleasing to enough people. And as a result, some
17:49
Speaker 1: people have gone the opposite way and they're just making
17:51
Speaker 1: exactly what they think is super cool and if you
17:53
Speaker 1: like it, awesome. If it smells good, great, if not, whatever.
17:56
Speaker 1: But that's kind of counter to the main mode of
18:01
Speaker 1: thinking in the perfume industry, which is based audience as
18:04
Speaker 1: the best exactly because more people are gonna buy and
18:07
Speaker 1: you're gonna make more money, and if it's a really
18:08
Speaker 1: good one, it'll be a classic that people do develop
18:12
Speaker 1: like a brand loyalty too, and buy again and again
18:15
Speaker 1: and again year after year. Number five. Yeah, which classic
18:19
Speaker 1: perfume it is? And it was the first perfume to
18:22
Speaker 1: use synthetic ingredients. Did you know that? I did not,
18:26
Speaker 1: And apparently it was not a hit right out of
18:28
Speaker 1: the gate. It was created in the twenties um for Chanelle,
18:32
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until Marilyn Monroe, in an interview in
18:35
Speaker 1: the mid fifties, said that all she wears to better
18:37
Speaker 1: two drops of Chanelle number five, that all of a
18:40
Speaker 1: sudden it was like, sure, forever, the forever perfume. So
18:46
Speaker 1: every guy bought it for his wife. I get, yeah,
18:49
Speaker 1: because it would make him think of Marilyn Monroe. But
18:51
Speaker 1: it's just stayed that way ever since, even even though
18:54
Speaker 1: the Marilyn Monroe story has been kind of lost mostly
18:57
Speaker 1: to popular culture, there's a documentary on co Oceanelle I
19:00
Speaker 1: haven't seen yet. Supposed to be good. Oh yeah, yeah,
19:03
Speaker 1: I have to check it out. Um. So, perfume oil
19:06
Speaker 1: specifically is a super you know, this is what we're
19:11
Speaker 1: talking about, being like steamed or pressed out of like
19:14
Speaker 1: a fruit or a plant or something. It's super concentrated,
19:18
Speaker 1: so it's only it's going to be an alcohol and
19:22
Speaker 1: two percent water. So that's the solvent. Yeah, and then
19:26
Speaker 1: you take the solvent and the amount of solvent that's
19:28
Speaker 1: combined with perfume oil, you have different types of perfume. Yeah, exactly,
19:32
Speaker 1: so parfume and you know it'll say this on the
19:35
Speaker 1: bottle if you if you go to if you've ever
19:37
Speaker 1: read the back of a perfume bottle um, which I haven't,
19:41
Speaker 1: but parfume P A r f U M is at
19:44
Speaker 1: least perfume oil. Uh. Oh departfume. Oh de toilette or
19:51
Speaker 1: toilet water is ten percent and oh de cologne is
19:55
Speaker 1: um X body spray. It's light. It's very light. Yeah, back,
20:02
Speaker 1: unless you're talking about like just a straight up cologne.
20:07
Speaker 1: Can also mean a man scent, which is sometimes way
20:12
Speaker 1: more than five percent. Yeah, I think I've said this before.
20:16
Speaker 1: When I lived in you my Arizona UM post college,
20:19
Speaker 1: there was a lot of dudes wearing cologne, and I
20:24
Speaker 1: was like, you guys are still wearing cologne. Huh. Like yeah, man,
20:27
Speaker 1: you don't work cologne. I was like, nope, where's your curve? Yeah?
20:31
Speaker 1: And um, yeah, it was it was. It was a
20:33
Speaker 1: very strange thing to me because I'm just I don't know,
20:36
Speaker 1: I don't see a lot of guys that work cologne anymore. Oh,
20:38
Speaker 1: it's definitely falling away again. Maybe I'm in the traveling
20:41
Speaker 1: in the wrong circles. Well, in America, it was. It
20:46
Speaker 1: was cool at first and then it kind of fell
20:48
Speaker 1: away and then um, thanks to Marilyn Monroe and Chanelle,
20:51
Speaker 1: it kind of came back big time. Um, and then
20:55
Speaker 1: it kind of peaked I think in the nineties for
20:58
Speaker 1: men especially UM, but it's still going strong, like one
21:03
Speaker 1: uh one armani geo d ARMANI. I think I can't
21:08
Speaker 1: remember what it's called. Um. It made like several hundred
21:12
Speaker 1: million dollars in you know, two thousand six. Is that
21:16
Speaker 1: one of the unisex ones? Nobody's from men? Okay, yeah, yeah,
21:21
Speaker 1: if I always thought that whole new uh well, it
21:23
Speaker 1: seems new. The unisex cologne always thought it was interesting
21:27
Speaker 1: well to asign something for both men and women. Right,
21:29
Speaker 1: that's a throwback. Actually, Um, originally there were no gender
21:34
Speaker 1: differences among any perfumes, especially in France. UM. And the
21:38
Speaker 1: French men like to smell like lilac as well, right,
21:42
Speaker 1: and that you know nothing wrong with that. The idea
21:44
Speaker 1: that lilac is a feminine scent is new in social
21:48
Speaker 1: construct you know. Um. Or the idea that cedar is
21:52
Speaker 1: a manly scent. That's a new and social construct too,
21:55
Speaker 1: and very American as well. Sure. So when it comes
21:58
Speaker 1: to categorizing, like we're just talking about, there are terms
22:01
Speaker 1: that they are used in the biz. But um, it's
22:05
Speaker 1: not like there's any rule about it. It's just basically
22:08
Speaker 1: how people have grown to talk about perfume there in
22:12
Speaker 1: the business of perfume. But generally there are these categorizations. Uh,
22:16
Speaker 1: floral it's a no brainer. Fruity that's a no brainer.
22:22
Speaker 1: Green that might be grassy or leafy. I like stuff
22:25
Speaker 1: like that. Um, like the olive oils that tastes like grass.
22:30
Speaker 1: You ever had those? Yeah, man, those are good? Or
22:35
Speaker 1: wheat grass shot that is not good. Oh, I love it.
22:38
Speaker 1: You don't like it? O, Man, I love it. It's
22:40
Speaker 1: like drinking down some grass clippings. I think I would
22:44
Speaker 1: rather drink grass clippings than wheat grass. Well, it is
22:47
Speaker 1: crass clippings actually, like fescue or something. Sure, we'll take
22:50
Speaker 1: a fescue shot. Then herbaceous like herbs, woody like wood,
22:57
Speaker 1: amber tree resin. I thought that was interesting. Every time
23:00
Speaker 1: I want to say uh and uh, animal like I
23:03
Speaker 1: want to say animaniac for some reason, bodily smells that's gross. Well,
23:09
Speaker 1: that's like from that's musk. Yeah, it's a bodily smell. Well,
23:13
Speaker 1: but then there's musk as its own category too, because
23:15
Speaker 1: it's just so singular, right, But I mean, like, um,
23:20
Speaker 1: there's also supposedly also I guess either I don't know
23:23
Speaker 1: if it's a subtype of musk or animalk or whatever.
23:27
Speaker 1: But fecal is another thing too. Calvin Klein's obsession is
23:32
Speaker 1: among the perfume industry, well known as a very famous
23:37
Speaker 1: fecally perfume. Yeah, yeah, which one obsession obsession? Yeah, like
23:44
Speaker 1: a hugely selling, very popular perfume being worn by people.
23:48
Speaker 1: If you walk past someone in the perfume industry. They're
23:51
Speaker 1: gonna be like, there's some real fecal notes to that one. Well,
23:54
Speaker 1: they said in this the top notes, they say, sometimes
23:56
Speaker 1: can be something really nasty just to attract you. I
24:00
Speaker 1: don't know what attract means, but I guess to get
24:02
Speaker 1: your attention maybe, But that'll wear off the quickest. It's
24:05
Speaker 1: not what lasts on your body, which we'll get in
24:08
Speaker 1: that in a second. Let me just finish this little list.
24:10
Speaker 1: Here you have the oriental UH and it's proper usage
24:14
Speaker 1: here um amber and spice UM, and then a few
24:19
Speaker 1: other ones are categorized by the actual molecules like phenolic
24:25
Speaker 1: might smell like tar, or lactonic creamy, lactic lactose obviously,
24:30
Speaker 1: or alda heideck, which is fatty. So those are the
24:35
Speaker 1: main categories UM. And we will get a little bit
24:37
Speaker 1: more into that chemistry that we teached you with right
24:40
Speaker 1: after this. So, Chuck, we talked about um perfume being diluted,
25:04
Speaker 1: like heavily diluted. What a rip off. It's almost all alcohol, yeah, rip.
25:10
Speaker 1: The reason why though it's not it's not a rip
25:13
Speaker 1: You would not want the perfume oil, which again is
25:16
Speaker 1: just essential oils or synthetic versions of those oils and fixatives,
25:22
Speaker 1: or synthetic versions of the fixative. So it might be
25:26
Speaker 1: essential oil of lavender, it's a muskrat anal gland, and
25:30
Speaker 1: then solvent is most of the other stuff. It's I'm laughing,
25:34
Speaker 1: but it's true. And then bam, you've got a perfume
25:36
Speaker 1: right there. But the reason why it's so dissolved, and
25:39
Speaker 1: why so much of it is alcohol is because the
25:41
Speaker 1: way that perfumes are designed is so that the different
25:45
Speaker 1: types of molecules, when they interact with the alcohol and
25:48
Speaker 1: the alcohol evaporates, will evaporate in a certain progression of time. Yeah,
25:54
Speaker 1: I thought this is the most interesting part of this
25:56
Speaker 1: whole thing. The alcohol actually makes it possible to separate
26:00
Speaker 1: those notes. Um. And they likened this article to hearing
26:04
Speaker 1: all the parts of a symphony at once, like a
26:07
Speaker 1: lot of pleasing things all at one time. Is not
26:09
Speaker 1: necessarily good thing. No, And that's what you would get
26:11
Speaker 1: if you stuck your face in a one ton barrel
26:13
Speaker 1: of perfume oil. Yeah, you might say, man, this is sweet,
26:16
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't pick up on the subtle subtleties of
26:19
Speaker 1: those odors. Yeah, exactly, But what alcohol does is it
26:22
Speaker 1: takes that concentrated form. It not only dilutes it, but
26:25
Speaker 1: it again spreads it out temporally. So when you first
26:29
Speaker 1: put it on, UM, you put on a little perfume, right.
26:33
Speaker 1: The immediate notes, the top notes are what you smell immediately,
26:37
Speaker 1: and they go from anywhere like immediate to maybe um,
26:42
Speaker 1: a few minutes usually, Yeah, the first ones you'll smell
26:45
Speaker 1: and the first one to leave your body exactly. That's
26:47
Speaker 1: the top notes. And a perfume is designed so that
26:51
Speaker 1: as each set of notes, and there are three, there's top,
26:54
Speaker 1: heart and bass notes, um, as each one is leaving,
26:58
Speaker 1: the next one is starting up. So you have this
27:02
Speaker 1: this basically flowing transition. Comparing it to a symphony is
27:06
Speaker 1: so apt, sure, because it's just like this kind of
27:08
Speaker 1: flowing melody of sense that worked together by um, I guess,
27:17
Speaker 1: dissolving evaporating. Yeah, at a certain time, at a certain rate. Yeah.
27:21
Speaker 1: And like we said before the break, there a lot
27:24
Speaker 1: of times they will put something unpleasant in that first
27:26
Speaker 1: top note, UM, and I guess it will just get
27:29
Speaker 1: your attention in the store. Yeah, you're just like, oh,
27:32
Speaker 1: that's so fecal exactly, or like, um, what was it?
27:36
Speaker 1: An anchorman. Oh the musk, Yeah, it was like Puma musk.
27:41
Speaker 1: Ohh that one the woman urine or something yeah alone. Yeah,
27:46
Speaker 1: well I can't remember like exact line, but like seventy
27:49
Speaker 1: percent of the time, it works all the time. Um,
27:54
Speaker 1: what was it Panther? Yeah, it was Panther something man.
27:58
Speaker 1: That was a funny movie. Um. And then you've got
28:01
Speaker 1: your heart notes next, right, Yeah? How long did they last?
28:04
Speaker 1: They kick in anywhere and last for starting it two
28:08
Speaker 1: minutes to about an hour from what I saw. Um,
28:13
Speaker 1: and those are gonna be It can be entirely different.
28:17
Speaker 1: It depends, as we'll see what you're trying to get across.
28:20
Speaker 1: But you could do woody top notes with a vanilla
28:26
Speaker 1: base or heart note, so it'll go from wood to
28:29
Speaker 1: vanilla to lemon citrus bass note. Right sure, Or you
28:34
Speaker 1: could do it completely opposite. You can just mix and mast.
28:38
Speaker 1: It depends, right. It depends on the um, the the
28:43
Speaker 1: type of molecule you use, and as you're making synthetic
28:47
Speaker 1: um odorance, you can make it synthetic odorant that's gonna
28:51
Speaker 1: stick around as a bass note, even though if you
28:54
Speaker 1: had an essential oil of that lemon, it would be
28:57
Speaker 1: just a top note, because it's gonna go away so quick.
29:00
Speaker 1: And as we'll see later when you when it's when
29:02
Speaker 1: you're making these perfumes, it's a real science of a
29:06
Speaker 1: balancing act of getting exactly what they want because these smells,
29:10
Speaker 1: as you said, are coming and going and um it
29:13
Speaker 1: is sort of like composing and symphony again again man um.
29:18
Speaker 1: So the base note, that's the one that's going to
29:20
Speaker 1: stick around the longest, though, right, and come out latest. Yeah,
29:23
Speaker 1: it can come out starting usually about thirty minutes after
29:26
Speaker 1: you put it on, and can stick around for a
29:28
Speaker 1: day if you're not careful and didn't you find something
29:31
Speaker 1: where the no perfume is going to smell the same
29:34
Speaker 1: on any two people exactly right. Not only is it
29:37
Speaker 1: not going to smell the same on any two people,
29:41
Speaker 1: it's going to smell different to any two people, right
29:46
Speaker 1: because again thirty percent of our odor receptors are different
29:49
Speaker 1: in every single person. Plus also, an odorant can activate
29:53
Speaker 1: different kinds of receptors depending on the person. And then lastly,
29:57
Speaker 1: that person is going to encode it different because scent
30:01
Speaker 1: is definitely its own thing as far as our senses go,
30:06
Speaker 1: and it's the only sense that's um directly hardwired to
30:10
Speaker 1: the brain, so the odorant receptors go straight to the brain.
30:14
Speaker 1: It doesn't send it to a nerve cell that's nearby
30:17
Speaker 1: first exactly. So it's like hard our sense of our
30:21
Speaker 1: sense of smell is hardwired to our brain, so it
30:24
Speaker 1: evokes some serious reaction brain. And there's also a hypothesis
30:30
Speaker 1: that our brain, the lobes of our brain evolved from
30:34
Speaker 1: old factory buds, that that's what they started out as,
30:38
Speaker 1: and then it just grew and grew and grew, and
30:39
Speaker 1: then we were all like brain stem and olfactory buds,
30:42
Speaker 1: and then we the brain grew from that, which would
30:45
Speaker 1: be like hats off to the sense of smell because
30:48
Speaker 1: that's what started at all. Interesting, But there's there's the
30:51
Speaker 1: point is that our sense of smell is it's a
30:54
Speaker 1: big deal, um, but it's different in each of us.
30:58
Speaker 1: And when you factor in our body chemistry, our skin, sure,
31:02
Speaker 1: that's when it's it's it genuinely does smell differently on
31:07
Speaker 1: different people. Well, I would think it has to because
31:09
Speaker 1: everyone has a natural um scent. I think just as
31:13
Speaker 1: a person that's different from one another. When you combine it, yeah,
31:18
Speaker 1: it's got to make a different thing. You know. It's
31:20
Speaker 1: like if I smell like a cherry pie, which you do,
31:23
Speaker 1: throw some cool whip on me, which I would gross.
31:29
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do anything. I just throw cool with you know,
31:32
Speaker 1: um in the form of a pie to the face.
31:36
Speaker 1: That old gag. Um. But when you're putting on the perfume,
31:40
Speaker 1: this is this is all coming around to this point. Um.
31:43
Speaker 1: There are ways to do it supposedly that will get
31:47
Speaker 1: the proper um I get, get the most out of
31:50
Speaker 1: your perfume. Like, you shouldn't put it in, rub it
31:53
Speaker 1: in your skin real hard. You don't want to heat
31:55
Speaker 1: it up right away or anything like that. No, because
31:57
Speaker 1: then you break the chains of the top notes and
31:59
Speaker 1: you wear them out before your finger even comes away
32:02
Speaker 1: from your skin. Yeah. Kind of dab it on lightly, Yeah,
32:06
Speaker 1: surely you just did, like the old lady moved dab
32:08
Speaker 1: it behind the air maybe, or I've seen the other
32:11
Speaker 1: lady move to uh to do it on the wrists
32:14
Speaker 1: and maybe rub that together a little bit and then
32:16
Speaker 1: um my. My big trick was too because I never
32:20
Speaker 1: I liked the Benetton colors, but even back then I
32:23
Speaker 1: didn't want to be super colone. So you know, I
32:27
Speaker 1: did the deal where I spray it in the air
32:29
Speaker 1: then like walk through it. You know. That's even I
32:31
Speaker 1: think mentioned in this article is as a method. Yeah,
32:34
Speaker 1: that's a method. Okay, Um, I was really onto something.
32:37
Speaker 1: I think even rubbing your wrists together though, no, because
32:41
Speaker 1: you're you're you don't want to generate heat. And one
32:44
Speaker 1: of the reasons why people put it behind their ears
32:47
Speaker 1: or on their wrists stinky behind your ears for one,
32:51
Speaker 1: that's one. You can also smell it yourself right there.
32:53
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, But if you put your fingers behind your
32:55
Speaker 1: ears and then put them, like, I don't know, on
32:59
Speaker 1: your head or something, you'll see that behind your ears
33:01
Speaker 1: is warm. Yeah, on your wrists is warm. These are
33:04
Speaker 1: pulse points, right, So you're hot blood is close to
33:08
Speaker 1: the surface of your skin. So then that heat will
33:11
Speaker 1: start to break up. The alcohol will make it evaporate,
33:15
Speaker 1: and we'll hence make those different notes come out. That's
33:18
Speaker 1: all the heat you need. Any friction is too much heat, right,
33:21
Speaker 1: So you say no on the wrist rub, No wrist rub, okay.
33:26
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to waste your money and
33:27
Speaker 1: just get heart and base notes and no top notes,
33:30
Speaker 1: go for it, all right, Josh. So let's say, I
33:34
Speaker 1: thought this was all pretty interesting too. Actually, let's say
33:37
Speaker 1: you want to lart launch um Josh nous. You work
33:41
Speaker 1: for Polo and you just you want to do Josh
33:43
Speaker 1: no this. Um. You're in their perfume department and you say, guys,
33:46
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a trust me on this one
33:49
Speaker 1: be a top seller. Right, So you got a Polo
33:51
Speaker 1: your bosses and they say, all right, Josh, what we
33:54
Speaker 1: need here is a brief, um. And the brief is
33:56
Speaker 1: gonna outline um. As you know again, you can't say
34:01
Speaker 1: this is a perfume everyone's gonna love because they're like,
34:04
Speaker 1: there is no such thing. So write up a brief.
34:06
Speaker 1: Tell me who was gonna love it, who it's gonna
34:08
Speaker 1: appeal to? What do you want it to smell? Like? Yeah,
34:11
Speaker 1: what do you want this to say? Even so, tom
34:14
Speaker 1: Ford launched one became very successful called Black Orchid, and
34:17
Speaker 1: he said, I want this to smell like a man's crotch.
34:20
Speaker 1: That was one. Can I give you another brief please? Um?
34:25
Speaker 1: For Pure Poison from de or The brief included what
34:30
Speaker 1: is it like to have something soft and hard at
34:32
Speaker 1: the same time? Oh, I think we all know that
34:35
Speaker 1: all right? And then um, here's another one. I don't
34:38
Speaker 1: know what this one was for. That's a rat so
34:42
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I don't know which one this is, but um.
34:45
Speaker 1: One brief described what they were after as give us
34:49
Speaker 1: the scent of a warm cloud floating in a fresh
34:51
Speaker 1: spring sky over sicily raining titanium rain drops on a
34:55
Speaker 1: woman with emerald eyes. That's what somebody wrote down when
34:59
Speaker 1: they were trying to describe what scent they wanted. Yeah,
35:02
Speaker 1: I mean that's those are legit briefs. That's that's how
35:05
Speaker 1: you're supposed to do it. Describe not just um, the
35:09
Speaker 1: specific sense that you want, but what do you want
35:11
Speaker 1: it to say? Uh, generally is probably more something like
35:15
Speaker 1: you know classy or you know prosperous or something like that,
35:20
Speaker 1: fecal fecal um. Then you want to write out what
35:26
Speaker 1: how you're gonna sell it, like, um, what form it's
35:28
Speaker 1: gonna take. Um. You also want to have a marketing plan,
35:32
Speaker 1: like I think we could sell this in the in
35:35
Speaker 1: South America for the next like five years. They're going
35:38
Speaker 1: to go crazy for yeah exactly. So then after that
35:41
Speaker 1: it's gonna go um to a chemist and it's gonna
35:44
Speaker 1: get mailed to what are called fragrance houses. Well, because
35:47
Speaker 1: Polo doesn't make it themselves. They don't come up with
35:50
Speaker 1: it themselves, that is, and the chemist is employed by
35:52
Speaker 1: the fragrance houses. And they send this brief out to
35:55
Speaker 1: a bunch of different fragrance houses and and basically started competition.
35:59
Speaker 1: Who who's going to land this account? But what we
36:02
Speaker 1: want see what you can do. So this fragrance house
36:05
Speaker 1: they do a couple of things. They have the perfumers,
36:07
Speaker 1: who they actually are, the chemists who come up with
36:10
Speaker 1: the formula. Yeah, they've got all these scents in their
36:13
Speaker 1: head and then they know like, oh, I know exactly
36:15
Speaker 1: what smells like a woman with emerald eyes. Sure super smellers,
36:17
Speaker 1: I would imagine. Yeah, oh yeah, you know. Yeah, there's
36:20
Speaker 1: an older tester job out there that's supposed to be great.
36:24
Speaker 1: I don't know if I do so hot on that.
36:26
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you have to have like just a naturally
36:28
Speaker 1: wonderful nose. Yeah, my nose is not naturally wonderful. It
36:31
Speaker 1: has to make like a curly to Uh. These fragrance
36:36
Speaker 1: houses also have they don't just um, right, the formulas,
36:40
Speaker 1: they also have the stuff in stock, um, all these
36:43
Speaker 1: different ingredients in warehouses or they will work with another
36:48
Speaker 1: company who has it. If they're like, we don't have
36:51
Speaker 1: UM you know, papaya, oh papaya, we need to work
36:55
Speaker 1: with a company who does, they will sub that out.
36:58
Speaker 1: And they have these chemists that actually work with UM
37:01
Speaker 1: gas chromatography mass spectromety, which we've talked about in something
37:05
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was. It's gonna be used
37:07
Speaker 1: for other things. It basically analyzes odorant molecules, yeah, to
37:11
Speaker 1: to say here's here's what it's made of, and here's
37:13
Speaker 1: how you can make a synthetic version of it exactly right, exactly.
37:17
Speaker 1: So then you have those people, those UM chemists, analysis analysts,
37:23
Speaker 1: and then you also have synthetic chemists who say who
37:26
Speaker 1: take the readouts from the guests UM chro chromatography and say,
37:32
Speaker 1: oh I can build this, and then they build the
37:34
Speaker 1: synthetic molecules exactly and all just mind blowing. It is
37:37
Speaker 1: mind blowing. All of these people are employed by the
37:42
Speaker 1: fragrance houses. That's right. Uh. One thing that they do.
37:46
Speaker 1: We we did talk earlier about UM. You know how
37:48
Speaker 1: they have this stuff in stock. A lot of times
37:50
Speaker 1: it can be the actual oils from pressing it and
37:54
Speaker 1: steaming it UM. But there's another headlock exactly. Uh. There's
37:59
Speaker 1: another cool thing they have though, called headspace, and that
38:02
Speaker 1: is when if they want an odor um or fragrance,
38:06
Speaker 1: they will they will put like an avocado in a
38:09
Speaker 1: jar and um suck out the air every hour or
38:14
Speaker 1: constantly for hours, right, and then they use gas chromatography
38:17
Speaker 1: to analyze that and analyze that. There you go, and
38:19
Speaker 1: then somebody goes and builds that, right, And that's what's
38:22
Speaker 1: called the headspace. The headspace is basically a synthetic version
38:27
Speaker 1: of an existing natural scent that somebody trademarks and then
38:34
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it becomes part of the perfume
38:36
Speaker 1: industry's repertoire. Yeah. I mean that's the space in the jar.
38:41
Speaker 1: That's the literal headspace. That is is got the odor.
38:45
Speaker 1: There's a dude name um Christopher Brosius, and he started
38:51
Speaker 1: a company called Demeter, and they're known for making like
38:53
Speaker 1: really weird perfumes like birthday cake, baseball, mit, baby aspirin,
38:59
Speaker 1: just your stuff like that. But what's neat is they
39:03
Speaker 1: nail it. And one of the ways they nail it
39:05
Speaker 1: is by using by making headspaces. One of the first
39:09
Speaker 1: ones they did was called Soaked earth. He took some
39:12
Speaker 1: um dirt from his parents farm, put it in a
39:15
Speaker 1: bag and took it to New York and threw it
39:17
Speaker 1: on the table and said I want this. And they
39:20
Speaker 1: analyzed it, and by god, that came up with dirt
39:23
Speaker 1: the smell of specific to his Yeah, yeah, you know,
39:27
Speaker 1: I think Pennsylvania interesting. Um, I guess here we can
39:32
Speaker 1: briefly mentioned that um. Knockoff colognes and perfumes is a
39:37
Speaker 1: very common thing because uh, your copyright. I mean, you
39:42
Speaker 1: can tweak your formula slightly, and it's totally legal, you know,
39:46
Speaker 1: to to sell that essentially same thing that's just oh
39:50
Speaker 1: so slightly different under a different name. It's like the
39:52
Speaker 1: same thing as design or drugs, except with perfumes. Yeah,
39:56
Speaker 1: remember that, like the gas station if you love if
39:59
Speaker 1: you like Georgia, you'll love whatever we're calling. What was
40:03
Speaker 1: the knockoff name for Georgio Georgie, But there was like
40:07
Speaker 1: a whole generic rip off line called if you like Blank,
40:11
Speaker 1: You'll love Blank. It's hilarious, So chuck, Um. You take
40:16
Speaker 1: all this stuff, you take your head space, you take
40:18
Speaker 1: your existing headspace, you take your essential oils, and you
40:21
Speaker 1: put them all together to create that um emerald, I
40:25
Speaker 1: woman who has titanium rain drops raining honor in Sicily
40:28
Speaker 1: on a spring day. Yeah, well you do anywhere from
40:31
Speaker 1: ten to a hundred of them each Fragrance House does. Yeah.
40:35
Speaker 1: Then they send them to their oder testers and the
40:37
Speaker 1: oder tester goes no, no, no, this one's a maybe no. No,
40:42
Speaker 1: I like this one. No no, maybe again yes, and
40:46
Speaker 1: then no, and then Polo at this point has not
40:48
Speaker 1: smelled any Josh in this yet. No. This is all
40:51
Speaker 1: they're trying to weed out the gunk because they don't
40:53
Speaker 1: want to waste Polos time, right, you know, Yeah, they
40:56
Speaker 1: don't want to send them four Josh Josh, and this
40:58
Speaker 1: is exactly no. They want to send them like one,
41:01
Speaker 1: maybe two, And they do. Sure, so Polo, well then
41:05
Speaker 1: get it, say I like the second one, but it's
41:09
Speaker 1: a little too strong on this one, cent Um. So
41:12
Speaker 1: they'll go back again. And it's just a process basically.
41:15
Speaker 1: Maybe they nail it on the first time, probably not,
41:18
Speaker 1: but probably not. It's a back and forth basically. It's
41:20
Speaker 1: it's just like working with an editor and they'll swap
41:23
Speaker 1: in ingredients and they'll you know, like we said earlier,
41:26
Speaker 1: it's a science basically of the right combination in the
41:29
Speaker 1: right order of evaporation. Um. I think it's just super interesting.
41:33
Speaker 1: They put it through product testing, of course, um to
41:36
Speaker 1: see what people think of it, because they're not just
41:38
Speaker 1: gonna launch it out of the blue. They want it to,
41:40
Speaker 1: like you said, appeal to either the right demographic or
41:43
Speaker 1: the most people possible. And so the one that um
41:48
Speaker 1: Polo decides that is josh nous. Yeah. Um they win.
41:52
Speaker 1: That perfume house wins, and so they get a contract
41:55
Speaker 1: to produce X number of tons or gallons of this
42:00
Speaker 1: particular perfume. Well of the of the the perfume oil, yeah,
42:07
Speaker 1: the undeluded stuff, yeah Polo actually produces. They take that
42:10
Speaker 1: and produce the perfume. Right. They add the solventure to
42:13
Speaker 1: produce the perfume, the oda toilette, the de cologne, all
42:17
Speaker 1: that stuff in the different concentrations. They will probably also
42:20
Speaker 1: use it and maybe like a deodor in a body lotion,
42:22
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But they deliver them in like one
42:25
Speaker 1: ton drums of the perfume oil that you don't want
42:27
Speaker 1: to smell until it's been diluted, and then all of
42:30
Speaker 1: a sudden, the joshness is released into the world literally
42:33
Speaker 1: and becomes the number one selling cologne of all time. Well,
42:36
Speaker 1: and um Polo never knows the exact concoction that makes
42:42
Speaker 1: joshness either, which I thought was super interesting. It's literally
42:45
Speaker 1: the perfumer knows this little secret. It's gonna so after
42:51
Speaker 1: this we're gonna talk a little bit um about the
42:53
Speaker 1: science of scent and whether or not it's something that
42:57
Speaker 1: we're born with or that we learn. Alright, So Chuck,
43:21
Speaker 1: why do people wear perfume? Depends on who you ask. Um.
43:25
Speaker 1: There's a lady named Rachel Hurts Uh from Brown University.
43:30
Speaker 1: She wrote a book called The Scent of Desire Colin
43:32
Speaker 1: Discovering our enigmatic sense of smell, and she postulates that, Uh,
43:39
Speaker 1: depending on how old you are and what gender you are,
43:41
Speaker 1: you have your different reasons. Did a young men do
43:45
Speaker 1: it to attract women, That's why I did it, all right?
43:49
Speaker 1: Older men do it out of gratitude to the women
43:51
Speaker 1: who gave it to him. Howey, you'd smell nice with
43:53
Speaker 1: this on, so sure, I'll wear it, dear. Uh. Women,
43:59
Speaker 1: depending on how old you are the twenties, you're more
44:01
Speaker 1: affected by I guess inspired by your friends in the media. Beyonce,
44:05
Speaker 1: sure she has a perfume dungy. Yeah. You know who
44:07
Speaker 1: has like a surprise runaway smash hit right now is
44:10
Speaker 1: Sarah Jessica Parker. That doesn't surprise me. It does me
44:14
Speaker 1: a little bit. Wouldn't surprise me in like two thousand two,
44:19
Speaker 1: but like it is a top seller right now. She's
44:22
Speaker 1: like a goddess to a certain uh age group of women.
44:25
Speaker 1: Though yeah, still I guess you're right. But even still
44:29
Speaker 1: you'd think, like, yeah, I don't know, maybe they're right
44:31
Speaker 1: in the perfume Wheelhouse could be an awesome smelling perfume.
44:34
Speaker 1: I've never smelled it. I was just surprised because you know,
44:37
Speaker 1: you're like Beyonce, Derek Jeter, like, these are the celebrities
44:41
Speaker 1: that have that. Yeah, it's top selling that have these
44:44
Speaker 1: top selling like cologns, and then Sarah Jessica Parker. It's
44:48
Speaker 1: just I just don't think of her like that. I
44:51
Speaker 1: don't I like her. She's great, Like, I just don't
44:53
Speaker 1: think of her as that, and I'm I'm happy for
44:55
Speaker 1: her success. Yeah, she's iconic a certain demographic. Yeah, um,
45:01
Speaker 1: not to me. She's she's an icon to Emily. I
45:05
Speaker 1: think she was a big fan of that show. Um.
45:10
Speaker 1: Women in their thirties, they say, follow no particular pattern.
45:13
Speaker 1: There's I don't know what they're doing. They don't know
45:16
Speaker 1: what's going on yet. They just like what they like.
45:18
Speaker 1: I think is what that means. Well, by the time
45:20
Speaker 1: they're forty, they say, that's uh, simply because they like it.
45:24
Speaker 1: Like I just like the way the smells, and I'm forty,
45:27
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna just wear it. I don't care what
45:29
Speaker 1: my husband thinks at this point or what my friends
45:32
Speaker 1: think at this point. Um. And their sixties, they say,
45:36
Speaker 1: women think of other people's which is like, uh, their
45:39
Speaker 1: friends are loved. Ones say they like the way it smells,
45:43
Speaker 1: which is a really nice thing. And then a lot
45:45
Speaker 1: of um, people choose perfumes apparently that their mother or
45:50
Speaker 1: or in the same scent family. Yeah, either knowingly or not,
45:53
Speaker 1: but probably knowingly because um, there's an associative learning theory
45:59
Speaker 1: of smell. All you were saying before the break, We're
46:02
Speaker 1: going to talk about whether you know smell is learned
46:05
Speaker 1: or forborn with it. The idea that smell is learned
46:08
Speaker 1: is called the associative learning hypothesis. Yeah, that like, we
46:14
Speaker 1: come to like smells based on social constructs, based on experience,
46:18
Speaker 1: there's supposedly evidence that smell learning begins in the womb,
46:23
Speaker 1: even that odor and molecules can be passed along from
46:26
Speaker 1: mother to child, and that the stuff you're exposed to
46:29
Speaker 1: in the womb you can show a preference for later
46:32
Speaker 1: on down the road. Yeah. And Rachel Hurts is a
46:34
Speaker 1: member of that camp. Yeah. And by the way, I
46:36
Speaker 1: want to give a shout out. Rachel Hurts wrote a
46:38
Speaker 1: chapter for the book Neurobiology of Sensation and Reward, which
46:43
Speaker 1: is a gas in general, right, But she wrote chapter seventeen.
46:48
Speaker 1: Perfume is the title of it, and it's on UM
46:51
Speaker 1: the n I H website, the n c B I website.
46:54
Speaker 1: Just search for that and he will come up. The
46:56
Speaker 1: whole chapter is right there, and it's really interesting and exhausting.
47:00
Speaker 1: But she is one of the ones who's like, this
47:03
Speaker 1: is a learned behavior and lays out something really great
47:06
Speaker 1: um evidence for it. Yeah. One of her points is that,
47:09
Speaker 1: um that babies basically don't think anything smells bad or good. Um.
47:17
Speaker 1: I don't know how they know this. I guess wafting
47:19
Speaker 1: things under a baby's face to see what the face
47:21
Speaker 1: they make, including poop. Well, yeah, you never never see
47:24
Speaker 1: the baby like yeah, like all wallow and poop. I
47:29
Speaker 1: don't care. I'm a baby. I don't mind the smell.
47:31
Speaker 1: You ever farted right in a baby's face, No reaction,
47:34
Speaker 1: they just blink nothing a couple of times. They're delighted.
47:38
Speaker 1: Well plus also um. Other studies of adults, not even
47:42
Speaker 1: babies have shown that the same smell can be preferred
47:46
Speaker 1: or disliked in very similar groups. In the UK, the
47:50
Speaker 1: smell of winter green in a study after World War
47:53
Speaker 1: Two was found to be just generally disliked. In the US,
47:58
Speaker 1: like a decade later, the smell of winter green was
48:01
Speaker 1: found to be generally preferred. In the US. Winter green
48:04
Speaker 1: is used for like candy and gum, and it's associated
48:07
Speaker 1: with positive stuff. In the u K. Winter green was
48:10
Speaker 1: used during World War two, um for medicines that were
48:14
Speaker 1: used in the field, so there's associations with battle war
48:18
Speaker 1: maiming disease. So that's what winter green is the people
48:21
Speaker 1: in the UK, whereas in the US the exact same
48:24
Speaker 1: smell is pleasant. And you know, I mean it's not
48:27
Speaker 1: like the Americans and the Brits are the exact same people,
48:31
Speaker 1: but they're in the same cohort, you know, are very
48:34
Speaker 1: similar cohort and they showed like opposite preferences, which is
48:38
Speaker 1: really great evidence for associative learning hypothesis. Yeah, and it's
48:43
Speaker 1: also a reason why in the early two thousand's the U. S.
48:46
Speaker 1: Army was not able to come up with a stink
48:50
Speaker 1: bomb that was universally upsetting to people's noses across cultures.
48:57
Speaker 1: They contracted out them mol Chemical Sense the Center in Reilly,
49:00
Speaker 1: and they tried to curate a universal stink bomb smell.
49:06
Speaker 1: And they said, you know, because of cultural specific products
49:11
Speaker 1: and things, we had to avoid anything like food related.
49:15
Speaker 1: Even if we think it really stinks, some other culture
49:17
Speaker 1: might like it exactly. Um. So they had to basically
49:20
Speaker 1: go to They focused on stuff with biological origins like
49:24
Speaker 1: vomit and human wate and burnt hair and uh. They
49:29
Speaker 1: made synthetic versions of all these and got some people
49:32
Speaker 1: in Philly and put them in a hood and introduced
49:35
Speaker 1: these people and I thought it was funny that was
49:37
Speaker 1: Philly though they're probably like, it's not so bad, um,
49:42
Speaker 1: and introduced They slowly infused it, and they said people
49:45
Speaker 1: thought it was the worst thing they ever smell. Their
49:47
Speaker 1: heads would jerk back, they would contort with revulsion and
49:49
Speaker 1: then basically just try and hold their breath as long
49:51
Speaker 1: as possible or take little shallow breaths. Sounds like a
49:54
Speaker 1: great stink bomb to unleash on people in Philadelphia at least. Yeah,
49:58
Speaker 1: but they couldn't. Basically, they couldn't come up with anything
50:00
Speaker 1: that was universally hated. So do you remember the Air
50:05
Speaker 1: Force also tried to come up with a gay bomb
50:08
Speaker 1: that used like some sort of perfume to turn like
50:10
Speaker 1: enemy combatants into like just gay lovers. So silly. Um.
50:16
Speaker 1: It's a shame, though, because the stink bomb is actually
50:18
Speaker 1: really like it's a great idea. You know, it doesn't
50:21
Speaker 1: hurt anyone, there's no, it's not like a chemical like
50:25
Speaker 1: you know, what do you call it the sprays irritant? Yes,
50:28
Speaker 1: not an irritant in anyway. It just stinks, and it
50:30
Speaker 1: would keep people out of a sensitive area if they
50:32
Speaker 1: didn't want them there. Well, chemical um irritation is a
50:37
Speaker 1: sensation that your nose experiences along with odors. So it
50:43
Speaker 1: is technically a stink bomb like pepper spray is a
50:45
Speaker 1: stink bomb. Oh yeah yeah, but it has like an
50:48
Speaker 1: actual physical effect on your skin, which a stink bomb wouldn't. Um.
50:53
Speaker 1: But The other school thought, though, is that it's uh,
50:57
Speaker 1: you know, it comes via evolution basically, Yeah, that it's innate. Yeah,
51:01
Speaker 1: which this kind of makes sense that they both make
51:03
Speaker 1: sense to me. I think it might be a mixture
51:05
Speaker 1: of both. Um. But what's his name, Gilbert or hill Bear?
51:11
Speaker 1: Hill Bear, one of the two. So if you're in
51:13
Speaker 1: the Gilbert camp, though, you're gonna you're gonna go with
51:16
Speaker 1: the evolution because he points out that, UM, when we
51:20
Speaker 1: were evolving, you know, apples smell good because you're meant
51:25
Speaker 1: to eat them and you're meant to spread the seed. UM,
51:28
Speaker 1: So that smell is associated with living and living well
51:33
Speaker 1: by eating fruits. Conversely, the smell of poop and vomit
51:37
Speaker 1: and urine um, which convey disease and bacteria and all
51:41
Speaker 1: the stuff you're not supposed to be with. Under innate hypothesis,
51:46
Speaker 1: it would be that's why we avoid those, because we
51:49
Speaker 1: do avoid the the substances that carry those obnoxious smells.
51:55
Speaker 1: Makes sense. Oh, it totally makes sense. So I just
51:58
Speaker 1: think to me, the evidence is more than or for
52:00
Speaker 1: associative learning. Yeah, I think I think it can be both.
52:03
Speaker 1: I don't think it has to be mutually exclusive and
52:05
Speaker 1: I think it can be overwritten by the by the
52:07
Speaker 1: learning as well. Whatever. In eight things we have UM
52:12
Speaker 1: and I don't remember, we did a bit on a
52:14
Speaker 1: study years ago about UM people looking for their mates
52:20
Speaker 1: according to having a different immune system, which would in
52:24
Speaker 1: turn make their children immune to more possible things. Yeah,
52:30
Speaker 1: more robust immunity and the kids. Because you take immunity
52:33
Speaker 1: A and immunity B, and putting together you've got immunity C,
52:35
Speaker 1: which is the best of A and B. Right, So this,
52:38
Speaker 1: this is like a whole idea of why or how
52:41
Speaker 1: people select mates is based on that which is scent based.
52:45
Speaker 1: That's what they think, and apparently it's this is evidenced
52:49
Speaker 1: by study after study after study that finds consistently that
52:53
Speaker 1: women rate a man scent as the number one factor
52:57
Speaker 1: and attractiveness more than his pearance, more than wealth, more
53:02
Speaker 1: than anything else. Scent is perennially the number one most
53:06
Speaker 1: important thing. They think that's possible that the reason why
53:09
Speaker 1: is because um our senses are attuned or scent is
53:13
Speaker 1: a tune so that we can sniff out somebody with
53:16
Speaker 1: a different immune system so we can reproduce more robust kits.
53:20
Speaker 1: The problem is if you factor in cologne. What you're
53:23
Speaker 1: doing is deceiving that natural drive, and all of a
53:26
Speaker 1: sudden you're gonna have kids with like zero immune system
53:29
Speaker 1: because the guy was wearing cologne. Yeah, that makes total sense. Uh.
53:34
Speaker 1: You don't want to confuse your potential mating mate. It's
53:37
Speaker 1: a pretty good argument against warring cologne. Yeah. Um. And
53:41
Speaker 1: then there is the uh, of course the whole does
53:44
Speaker 1: this stuff work anyway as far as being a sexual attractant? Uh,
53:48
Speaker 1: And there's there's zero scientific proof that there was any
53:51
Speaker 1: kind of um ahdusiastic assic fords ac Ick compound you
54:00
Speaker 1: can concoct that will literally, um draw someone to you sexually,
54:04
Speaker 1: as much as they've tried and tried to advertise that
54:07
Speaker 1: subtly or not so subtly. Um. We are not pigs,
54:12
Speaker 1: who apparently do have mating pheromones that actually work that way.
54:18
Speaker 1: They have something called a accessory olfactory system. Uh. And
54:22
Speaker 1: in pigs, they have something in their nose called the
54:25
Speaker 1: vomar nasal organ which is specifically specialized to pick up
54:29
Speaker 1: on these molecules. And we don't have them as humans.
54:32
Speaker 1: We don't have the curly tails either, or they say
54:35
Speaker 1: we may have them but it just doesn't work. I
54:36
Speaker 1: don't know which is which is the case. Who knows.
54:41
Speaker 1: Maybe we just use their normal olfactory senses and it's
54:44
Speaker 1: not pheromones. It's just smells. Yeah, you know, or you
54:48
Speaker 1: know they say maybe it'll make you think that you're
54:51
Speaker 1: more sexually attractive, so that I'll make you more confident
54:53
Speaker 1: and thus make you more sexually attractive. Um. I got
54:57
Speaker 1: one more thing which I mentioned. Georgia. Yeah, Georgio is
55:01
Speaker 1: a huge, hugely popular maybe the number one cent of
55:05
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. Um. And it was famously banned from
55:10
Speaker 1: some restaurants because it was so stinky. Yes, because some
55:14
Speaker 1: restaurateurs are like, if you've got a couple of people
55:16
Speaker 1: were in Georgio in here, it's gonna overpower the smell
55:19
Speaker 1: of the food and the taste of the food. So
55:21
Speaker 1: they banned Georgio, which all it did was accelerate sales. Well,
55:26
Speaker 1: there are some people in this building that I wish
55:28
Speaker 1: would be banned from our elevators. I almost never run
55:32
Speaker 1: into that anymore. Boy, I've smelled some stuff that they're
55:37
Speaker 1: not even on. In the elevator car. It's a vehicle,
55:39
Speaker 1: and I step in. I'm like whoa is it like obsession?
55:42
Speaker 1: That's usually like super perfuming lady stuff? Oh I got you? Yeah?
55:47
Speaker 1: You got anything else? No, I mean there's plenty more. Yeah,
55:51
Speaker 1: but yeah, we got so much time. If you want
55:54
Speaker 1: to know more about perfume, you can type that word
55:56
Speaker 1: in the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
55:58
Speaker 1: And since I said search parts time a listener mail,
56:02
Speaker 1: that's right. I'm gonna call this a little Nostre Damas
56:04
Speaker 1: bit from a Canadian. Hey, guys, I would like to
56:07
Speaker 1: say how great. First of all, that you make my
56:10
Speaker 1: hour long commutes to work every morning. So thanks, um,
56:13
Speaker 1: it's a pleasure to listen to the show, especially on
56:15
Speaker 1: Nostre Damas. I thought i'd give you another example of
56:18
Speaker 1: what he supposedly said. Quote from the Calm Morning, The
56:22
Speaker 1: end will come when of the dancing horse, the number
56:26
Speaker 1: of circles will be nine. It's from Nostre Damas three
56:31
Speaker 1: she said. She says. It was said that Nostre Damas
56:35
Speaker 1: predicted in the world and was explained as follows. Korea
56:38
Speaker 1: is the calm morning country. Sigh dancing as in doing
56:44
Speaker 1: the dancing horse is Gangham style. On December one, that
56:48
Speaker 1: song reached one million views on YouTube nine zeros. In summary,
56:53
Speaker 1: people were claiming that damas Is prediction was the into
56:56
Speaker 1: the World would be on December twenty one. So that's it. Guys,
56:59
Speaker 1: keep on doing what you do. You do a great
57:00
Speaker 1: job and you're always a pleasure. And oh the sound
57:03
Speaker 1: effects are awesome. Kudos to Jerry. Wait to go to Jerry.
57:06
Speaker 1: That's from Julia Ka in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hey, we
57:10
Speaker 1: love Toronto, AK Toronto. Right, that's right, we love it. Well,
57:15
Speaker 1: let's see what we want to hear from you. Let
57:17
Speaker 1: us know about your perfume preference. Uh. You can tweet
57:21
Speaker 1: us your favorite perfume of all time or your most
57:23
Speaker 1: hated perfume of all time at s y s K podcast.
57:27
Speaker 1: You can let us know on Facebook, dot com slash
57:29
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email
57:32
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, and
57:34
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57:37
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57:42
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