Mandy Aftel, perfumer at Aftelier Perfumes, educator, and author of six books on natural fragrance and flavor, and curator of the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents in Berkeley, California, writes, “Fragrance is fleeting and elusive and enters us stealthily, at the edge of consciousness, transforming mood, unearthing long-forgotten memories, influences us without our conscious assent. This transformative effect is what makes fragrances so beneficial to our well-being. And the ephemerality and liminality of scent, bound up with love and memory and death, make it a vehicle that transports us to states of heightened consciousness.” (From Fragrant: The Secret Life of Scent, by Mandy Aftel, Riverhead, 2014).

In 1879, Charles Darwin called the uncertain origins of flowering plants “an abominable mystery.”

Specifically, he was writing about the appearance of what are called Angiosperms, meaning the flowering plants that emerged on earth during the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era. In geologic time, this is considered recent. If all of Earth’s history were compressed into an hour, flowering plants would exist for a mere 90 seconds. Today, there are roughly 350,000 known species of Angiosperms on earth, and scientists agree that their spectacular success and ecological dominance remains unexplained.

Before flowering plants appeared, huge conifers and ferns created a peaceful, somber, deep green forest dynasty ruled by fish, turtles, dragonflies, and dinosaurs munching in the gloomy canopy.

These plants belong to a much smaller, much older group of plants called Gymnosperms, which appeared more than 400 million years ago. They’re named for their naked seeds, “gymnos” meaning “naked” in Greek – the root of our word, “gymnasium”, since the ancients always worked out in the glorious buff. But it’s the Angiosperm, meaning a covered, contained seed, that’s far more randy. 

Gymnosperms typically reproduce by sending showers of pollen or spores into the air and hoping for the best. By contrast, Angiosperms developed a no-fail strategy for propagation. It’s called sex.

The seeds of angiosperms develop in the ovaries of flowers and are surrounded by a protective fruit. Early Angiosperms, based on the fossil record, looked like a primitive broccoli floret. From there, the resourceful Angiosperm began to improvise, and the first “modern” petals appeared on earth approximately 90 to 100 million years ago, according to Else Marie Friis, head of paleo-botany for the Swedish Natural History Museum outside Stockholm. 

Angiosperms learned that it pays to advertise, and developed nectar-producing glands, or nectaries, to entice pollinators to their spreading petals. Eons passed, and more specific nectar-guides evolved. Flowering plants added visual triggers to entice the ancestors of modern flies, moths, wasps, bees and butterflies to their gleaming, sugary genitals. Today, relative evolutionary newcomers like hummingbirds, bats and a few other small mammals join the botanical bacchanal.

As Angiosperms refined their marketing messaging, brilliant and often contrasting colors beckoned to airborne visitors, in patterns of dots and lines that served as irresistible landing strips and runways guiding the pollinators to the honey-pot sweet-spot. Some flowers, especially the “Fly Orchid” (Ophrys nelsonii) and “Bee Orchid” (Ophyrs Apifera), even learned to produce blossoms which mimic winged insects, inviting pollinators to touch down for a random quickie while scattering the sex-dust of the plant itself. What happens in Paradise, stays in Paradise.

Small wonder that the word “orchid” arises from the Greek term for testicle. Because the hairy, taut, plump, turgid forms of orchids resemble human skin, the ancients waggishly surmised that orchids sprung up where the ever-goaty Pan had nailed a nymph, or where wild beasts had mated. An orchidometer does not measure the density of an orchid, but of a testicle, and an orchidectomy is the surgical removal of same.

But the coup de grace: fragrance. 

In her book Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume, (Gibbs Smith, 2008, pages 99-100), Mandy Aftel states, “As we know, flowers stand for passion and romance. The very word deflowered connotes initiation into sexual experience. Not only in their heady aromas—dramatic, intense, sweet (sometimes sickly-sweet), even narcotic—but in their very form and coloration, flowers are sexy. I like an Indian poet’s description of a rose as like a ‘book of a hundred leaves unfolding,’ but most comparisons are decidedly more erotic.”

This is nothing new. In the Song of Songs, King James Version, verses 13-14, a woman chants to her lover, “A bundle of myrrh (consecrated incense) is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. My beloved is unto me a cluster of camphire (fragrant henna) in the vineyards of En-gedi.” 

Fragrance has a long and complex relationship with organized worship, as well as with the pleasures of the bed. For centuries, the Eastern Orthodox Church has added sanctified myrrh to egg-tempera for the painting (called “writing”) of holy ikons. The Jewish Sabbath traditionally closes with a deep, spicy whiff of besamim, a bouquet of cloves and other aromatics to comfort the soul’s longing for the Divine. 

And no proper High Mass is complete without the “bells and smells”, the latter created by billows of burning incense imparted by a swinging censer (a metal container on a long chain), symbolizing the prayers of the faithful rising to heaven. Christian Brands Church Supply and other online vendors offer “Pontifical Incense” by the pound at amazon.com, and Sensari has even branded an aroma called “Catholic Essence.”

Many contemporary Roman Catholic congregations no longer burn incense, linking it with outmoded notions of worship. And most Protestant churches have shunned the practice for centuries, correctly associating the use of incense with pagan ritual. 

But without a doubt, wafts of burning incense cannot be separated from the experience of church-going for those of a certain persuasion and generation. In his classic book Angela’s Ashes (Scribner, Simon & Shuster, 1996, page 12), Frank McCourt writes, “The rain drove us into the church—our refuge, our strength, our only dry place. At Mass, Benediction, novenas, we huddled in great, damp clumps, dozing through priest drone, while steam rose again from our clothes to mingle with the sweetness of incense, flowers and candles.”

But being opportunists, flowering plants didn’t stop with sweet smells. Carrion-flowers produce odors resembling sap, decaying meat, dung and urine. Lady Gaga’s much-ballyhooed claim that her inky, black-tinted cologne called “Fame” would smell of blood and semen was merely following nature’s ancient template. 

In 2019, Los Angeles-based Heretic Parfum in partnership with Gywneth Paltrow jostled the garden-party with an all-botanical scent called “This Smells Like My Vagina”, followed the next year by “This Smells Like My Orgasm.” Last time we checked, they don’t, but Heretic’s marketing of flowers as florgasm is G-spot-on. Heretic’s “Smudge”, though not floral, is a hypnotic whiff of hexed wood smoke, and “Blood Cedar” invites us into the dark side of scent, like Lord Hades snatching the virginal Persephone down into the underworld as she plucked flowers in a sunny meadow. The brand’s signature scents are classified as “Dirty”, with “Dirty Gardenia” being a lush release for 2021.

Master parfumier Joseph Quartana takes it even further with his current collection titled Les Potions Fatales, phantasmagoric perfume inspired by poisonous flora associated with witchcraft, conspiracy and murder. Among the fragrances: Venetian Belladonna (Deadly Nightshade), Bloodflower, Midnight Datura, Digitalis, Hemlock, Mandrake, Poppy Soma and Wolfsbane. 

Of note, “belladonna” means “beautiful woman” in Italian, and during the Renaissance, women used the extract in droplet form to dilate their pupils, making their eyes look wider and more alluring. The buzz-kill: because the extract tampers with the nervous system, fever, hallucinations and sweating may result. Datura is a vespertine, meaning it blooms at night, and nine species of this poisonous plant have been used by First Nations shamans and others as an entheogen (a substance revealing the deity within), for its psychoactive effects. Wolfsbane, also called Queen of Poisons, was used for centuries to add that extra je ne sais quois to a the arrow-tips of hunters and soldiers, and in bait-meat used to lure large carnivores to their doom without mangling their valuable pelts. It’s also reputed to fend off werewolves, and gardeners are advised to wear gloves when tending this popular garden plant with striking purple blooms. 

Quartana describes Hemlock as “A bondage session in black vinyl”, and Wolfsbane as “Beastly, psychedelic blend of absinthe, dark wood, black truffles and spiced plum.”

Modern perfumes are wise to include a bit of dank and stank, because these dark notes keep a fragrance from smelling one-dimensional and superficial, like room-freshener. Ambergris, a gross, floaty mass of undigested who-knows-what (mostly squid-beaks) burped up by whales and washed up on lucky beaches (it’s currently valued at US$50,000 per kilogram) has been used as a fixative in swanky scents, most famously in Chanel No.5, bearing witness to Coco Chanel’s most famous statement: “A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.”’ Genuine organic musk was traditionally squeezed from scent-glands located beside the anus of a civet (wild cat) or deer.  

Perhaps we resonate with the grosser elements of scent as ancestral memory: for thousands of years, we have embalmed our dead with spices, and wrapped their remains with perfumed linen, not merely to mask their stink but to aid in their transport to an incorruptible realm. Neanderthal graves have recently been found to contain pollen, suggesting that even some of our earliest forebears honored the dead with flowers, presumably fragrant offerings. 

Our sense of smell precedes vision as an essential aspect of our early life as well. Dawn Goldworm is co-founder of the olfactive branding company 12.29, which develops signature aromas for five-star hotels and consumer giants including Nike.  Goldworm explains that “…smell is the only fully developed sense a fetus has in the womb, and it’s the one that is most-developed in a child until about age 10, when sight takes over.”

Human newborns have poor vision, but studies prove that they can identify their caregivers by their scent, especially if the caregiver is their mother, and especially if she is lactating. 

Without a doubt, pre-tech humanity was far more pungent than much of today’s population, and it was no bed of roses. Remember that until the 20th century, indoor plumbing and frequent baths were a rarity in most of the world, so potent fragrances like patchouli oil and saffron were used to mask one’s own body funk, as well as push back again the stench of an unsanitized world where chamber-pots were dumped from windows, and raw sewage ran down the cobble-stoned streets. During the Middle Ages, the polite few wore nose-gays, a small bunch of aromatics tied at the waist or bodice. And during outbreaks of the Black Death across Europe, plague doctors donned a bird-like mask, its hugely protruding linen beak stuffed with dried rose petals, carnation, lavender, peppermint, camphor, juniper berries, cloves and myrrh, to counteract the foul odors of the dead and dying.

Soolip recently chatted with New York City-based author, teacher, custom perfumer and fragrance expert Sue Phillips via telephone about the latest surprising twist in her career. As CEO of Scenterprises, she’s created iconic signature fragrances for stellar brands including Tiffany & Company, Elizabeth Arden and Lancome, but today her focus is Covid19-related anosmia, the soul-deadening loss of olfactory capacity linked to the viral infection.

“I’m not a neurologist, so initially my scent-training sessions were dismissed as ‘Tupperware parties’, and my ideas were scoffed at,” says Phillips. “But now we know that smells trigger the limbic system and deep memories, even if we’re not entirely sure why. Fragrances have vibrations and oscillations. And when people lose their sense of smell, they are miserable.” She notes that olfactory dysfunction, particularly olfactory memory loss, is also a common warning sign of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, preceding the dreaded cognitive decline.

Phillips helps individuals achieve a new appreciation for their sense of smell as their capacity returns by blindfolding them and having them sniff oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, lemons and limes until they can distinguish the differences by fragrance alone. “Peaches and apricots, too,” she says. “Our sense of smell is so uplifting, and such a huge part of what makes us human. When you lose it temporarily, getting it back is such a joyful, healing process.”

If you haven’t got a garden, enjoy the video:

All photos (except where otherwise noted) courtesy of Aaron Landworth, Principal, Garden Concierge, Malibu, CA