It's apparently no longer enough for fragrance companies to simply have a celebrity create a signature scent and market it to adoring fans. Scent developers (or perfumers, as they prefer to be called) are now coming up with all sorts of creative fragrances to grab consumers' attention, sometimes even improbably teaming up with fast-food joints like Burger King and Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut Canada, in fact, announced last year that it had produced a limited number of bottles of its own perfume, called Eau de Pizza Hut. And the out-there fragrances just get weirder and weirder...
1. Eau de Pizza Hut
In August 2012, Pizza Hut Canada dreamed an impossible dream: A fragrance that replicated the smell that wafts from an open box of freshly baked pizza. The pie purveyor asked its Facebook fans to weigh in on what they'd call such an odd creation. After fervent responses from hundreds of pizza lovers, the company decided to actually produce 110 bottles of Eau de Pizza Hut, giving 100 of them away to lucky winners on the Facebook fan page. Sadly, there don't seem to be plans to mass produce the fragrance.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
2. First Response — Boston
If you're into smelling good and doing good, fragrance company Demeter is offering you the chance to smell like a Boston first responder. The cologne, which costs $39.50 for a 4 oz bottle, has notes of spice and flowers "overlaid with white rubber and smoke." Seventy-five percent of the proceeds will go to a fund to aid victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.
3. Macbook Pro aromatherapy
Who wouldn't want to walk around smelling like that first whiff of a new Macbook Pro after it's removed from the box? To create such an aroma, a group of Australian artists hired scent-solutions company Air Aroma in April 2012 to develop a fragrance that "evoked the scent of the box's plastic wrap, the ink on its sides, the paper and plastic packing material, and the aluminum laptop inside." The artists dispersed the fragrance in their gallery using a diffuser to create a special atmosphere during one of its exhibitions. Sadly, you won't be able to spritz yourself with that new Macbook smell in the morning.
4. Burger King's Flame
Before there was Eau de Pizza, there was Eau de Beef, or "Flame by BK," as the Whopper purveyor calls it. In 2008, Burger King unveiled the meat-scented body spray, which was sold in 5 ml bottles for $3.99 at the specialty store Ricky's and advertised through a rather odd website. But Flame actually doesn't smell like burgers and fries. "It's a combination of Axe body spray, TAG and this YSL cologne I have," said one Ricky's store manager. "It's one of those scents that's not sweet, and light at the same time."
5. Play Doh cologne
Admit it. You loved the salty, crayon-y smell of Play Doh as a kid. You probably wanted to take a bite out of the molding putty. Maybe you even did. Now, if you're nostalgic to relive those bygone days, you'll be pleased to know that Demeter Fragrance Library — veritable kings of the strange-scent market (Jelly Belly, Sanrio, Tootsie) — have got you covered. For $20, you can get a 1 oz Play Doh cologne spray.
6. Eau de Stilton
In 2006, the Stilton Cheesemaker's Association created a fragrance called Eau de Stilton, implausibly billing the scent as "an eminently wearable perfume." The scent re-created the "earthy and fruity aroma" of blue cheese, and was mostly meant to get more people to eat Stilton. But at least one woman wore the cheesy fragrance while at work and reported to Britain's Telegraph that no one complained.
7. Circus perfume
Perfumer Olivia Giacobetti, inspired by the circus, created a fragrance several years ago that includes "all of the distinguished fragrances of this wonderful universe" — such as saddle leather and saw dust from the ring, and caramelized candy. Yes, your dreams have come true: For $145 for a 100 ml bottle, you can smell like elephants and sweaty clowns.
8. Garage
In 2010, Japanese fashion label Comme des Garcons went to market with the eau de toilette Garage. The scent is exactly what you think it is, filled with notes of laurel aldehyde, traces of kerosene, plastic florals, leather, vetiver acetate, and Chinese cedarwood — giving you the feeling that you're in an overstuffed garage tinkering on your car. The scent, shockingly, is no longer available.
This article was first published on Jan. 1, 2013, and last updated on May 30, 2013.
