Haunting Smells

This New Yorker article chronicles haunted houses that utilize smells in strange and disturbing ways.

Some excerpts:

New Yorker Quote of the Day: "Egner’s personal favorite haunted scent experience was another bait-and-switch scene: as visitors approached a dimly lit table, they could smell roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, and see dishes piled high with food—which turned out, on closer inspection, to be cured hog guts and other viscera. 'I’m sure that we ruined somebody’s Thanksgiving that year,' Egner told me gleefully."

But the only time that a smell has been toned down midseason was this year—and it was for the benefit of the staff rather than the visitors. “There’s a really strong cat-urine smell this year, and it is really sticking with us,” Egner said. “Our clothes, our hair … I have a dog, and he is very confused when I get home.”

Perfumery

Firstly, an artist decided to distill her sweat and tears, quite literally, into a perfume.

I mean, there is always Das Parfum to freak us out about smells, and at least this one comes from the source.

According to Wikipedia "The word perfume is used today to describe scented mixtures and is derived from the Latin word, "per fumus", meaning through smoke."

Hungary Water was the first alcohol-based perfume, allowing us all to suffer through the sprays of torturous mist that envelope the cosmetics counters at malls and other places. 

Sachets and pomanders were used prior to this.

A pomander on the end of a rosary bead

The Quotable Elias

For those who have never read Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, it recounts a number of rules for proper behavior in society over time.

Here are a few examples: