Hannibal is the last person you want close enough to smell you, yet ironically he would be an excellent perfume shopping buddy. In the films, TV series and novels, there are multiple scenes where Lecter identifies someone’s fragrance in seconds. In the 1986 film Manhunter (adapted from the first novel, Red Dragon), he whiffs Old […]
Advice on male grooming from 1964
I do not think there exists a woman who does not like a man to smell nice; by nice she means a smell which is as far removed as possible from the kind of scent she uses herself; something clean and herby is required.
Ada Marie, Ada Marie, Said Not a Word till the Day She Turned Three
Some of my favourite children’s books are the lovely series by Andrea Beaty. These books are joyous representations of the positive hopeful side of America, and show us that history isn’t just rich white dudes tellin’ everyone what to do. The series features young plucky racially diverse girls learning to be engineers (inspired by Rosie […]
Scent in literature – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, 1963
“What are you sweating over that for?” Doreen lounged on my bed in a peach silk dressing gown, filing her long, nicotine-yellow nails with an emery board, while I typed up the draft of an interview with a best-selling novelist. That was another thing — the rest of us had starched cotton summer nighties and […]