Tap into a woman’s inner animal with the right fragrance…Found in high concentrations in most towns and cities, the wildcat stays out late to indiscriminately sink her claws into those who take her fancy. A fragrance containing musk is a must – its high molecular weight means it releases slowly, and will still be giving off signals long after the chip van has packed up. Try Boss Bottled Night (£36.00 for 100ml, boots.com). Don’t say you weren’t warned. (Men’s Health 2011).
There are four main animal ingredients in perfumery: musk, civet, ambergris and castoreum. Musk originates from the musk deer, Moschus moschiferus, civet from the civet cat, Civettictus Civetta, ambergris from the sperm whale and castorem from the beaver. In the fragrance world the ingredients taken from these species are known as The Big Four, and they translate into Big Bucks. Lately, most of the off-the-shelf perfumes that we wear contain, not real animal ingredients, but synthetic imitations, designed to replicate the fragrance (and presumably the effect) of the real deal. This does not show a touching concern for the species, as much as a concern for the economic bottom-line. The musk deer, for example, is endangered, and does not thrive in a farmed environment. Supply, therefore, is unstable at best. The most stable supply, and so still used in many perfumes, is civet. Unfortunately for the civet cat, it has shown itself to be able to survive even in tiny cages, and is farmed extensively in Ethiopia, where civet keepers routinely torture and enrage the beasts, because the volume of excretions goes up the more agitated the animal gets.
It seems strange to think that humans could be so attracted to the idea of wearing another animal’s glandular excretions on our skin, particularly in light of the normal associations that we make with the ‘animal’ or ‘animalic’ . In The Odour of the Other (1992) Constance Classen speaks of olfactory codes ‘pervading classificatory thought’, i.e. that odours can be as totemic as the visual. Yet throughout most of our human history any association with the animal has been contextualised in derogatory terms, i.e. dirty, unsophisticated, lowly, bestial. So why the seemingly contrary urge to associate ourselves with the smell of a beast?
Well, despite the fact that the animal ingredients (or in our age, predominantly synthetics) are used in both male and female fragrances, traditionally it is the male fragrances that have tended to be based around these smells. Strong, musky, sweaty, heady odours are the realm of the male eau de cologne. In contrast, female fragrances have tended to use the musks or civets as a subtle background to the more obvious fruity or floral notes. So do men want to see themselves as beasts, and do women want to see themselves as flowers? Absolutely not.
I think my point can be best illustrated by examining current day fragrance advertising. The male is depicted, not as an animal, but as an explorer. He is on a horse. He is captain of a ship. He is sailing a boat. The female, on the other hand, is depicted as an animal. A pussy cat or a tigress, an exotic bird, even a unicorn. The man, depicted as adventurer, or indeed coloniser, is very much a human. If he is shown with any animals, he is in a position of dominance over them. Eventually, it becomes clear that the man is willing to associate himself with the animal because this is the way to attract the exotic, the animal female. By wearing animalic fragrances the human male attempts to send ‘come hither’ signals to the female. It is the female that the male is associating with animal-ness, not himself. While the female, the animal, is sometimes predator and sometimes prey, the male is always, and simply, conqueror.
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