My Beautiful Dark Twisted Carcinogenic Fantasy

This essay is part of Scent Access Memory, our editorial series with Dirt.

The sky sinks towards lapis lazuli as I conduct an abbreviated anthropological survey of my surroundings — the customers, the cameras, the station attendant — when the pump shuts off, I gingerly bring its metal spigot up to my face, a short, sharp whiff of an inhale staring down the barrel. Later, sloshing the contents of a 2.5-gallon plastic jug the way you might aerate a full-bodied wine, the minor facets of the smell of gasoline begin to reveal themselves: beyond its chemical astringency, a belch of fetid sulfur and the overripe sweetness of benzene.

The prickly aroma of hydrocarbons ranks among the world’s most popular fragrances, at least by economic activity, refined into fuel or else chain-grown into the polyester weave of contemporary life. And although their lineage stretches back millennia, modern perfumery and gasoline are rather young inventions, 19th century breakthroughs in chemical processing permutated by technological efficiencies and local regulation.

The two industries made agreeable bedfellows from the outset — the first synthetic perfume, nitrobenzene, smelling of almonds, was produced from coal tar derivatives in the early 19th century. Its heyday was short lived due to an undesirable penchant for leaving its wearers with rashes or dead of methemoglobinemia, since supplanted by the less-toxic benzaldehyde. But nitrobenzene’s legacy lingers in our bathrooms today, marking the advent of cheaply scented soaps and shampoos.

White musks in laundry detergent, citrus scents in dish soap, the smell of your Clorox wipes and your Glade plugins — approximately half of all industrially synthesized fragrance ends up in those places we notice it the least. Even unscented, none of this would be possible without petroleum. Detergents, surfactants, aspirin, asphalt, toothbrushes, bandages, deodorant, linoleum, candles, condoms, waxes, lubricants, fertilizers — leaving aside how gasoline underpins the energy infrastructure of our lives, all of these products are downstream of the oil refining process.

Focusing on fragrance, petrochemicals are frequent precursors for synthetic ingredients, including Javanol (sandalwood), phenethyl alcohol (roses), ionones (violets) and jasminaldehyde (jasmine). The first and last of these are particularly noteworthy given their natural counterparts’ scarcity and cost. Sandalwood trees take 15 years to reach maturity; there isn’t anywhere near enough arable land to generate the sheer volume of sandalwood oil we’d like to consume. The high price of naturally distilled jasmine oil boils down to the immense labor underpinning even a milliliter of the stuff; producing one kilo of jasmine oil necessitates a metric ton of jasmine, approximately five million buds carefully handpicked just before bloom and swiftly moved to industrial warehouses before they can degrade in the Indian heat. Sustainable and predictable, synthetics are not only more affordable, but arguably more eco-friendly than the organic alternative.

Sixty to ninety-five percent of any perfume bottle is ethyl alcohol (ethanol), mostly derived from corn fermentation but occasionally synthesized from ethylene. Styrene, the carcinogenic monomer most famous for its leading role in styrofoam, is added to fragrances as a fixative, helping volatile organic compounds to hang around longer than they could on their own. Much like microplastics, synthetic musks have been found in human breast milk; a variety of toxic phthalates have been detected in numerous cosmetic products.

Nihilists with an olfactive inclination might be drawn to the burning fax machine of Agar Olfactory’s cero, the vinyl baby’s bottom of Pearfat Parfum’s Kewpie Doll or the plasticky edge of Holy Hell by Universal Flowering; the memetic Fragrantica pages of Toskovat Perfumes (Age of Innocence and Born Screaming) or the latex frosting of Marissa Zappas cult favorite Annabel’s Birthday Cake.

I’ve been toying with Comme Des Garçons Parfums of late, specifically a few of the offerings from their Series 6 Synthetic line: Tar and Garage. I’m unconvinced by Garage: despite its pleasingly acrid bite, it still feels too clean, more plastic than kerosene. Tar is:  fresh-laid asphalt, bitumen embalmed mummies, waterproof wooden ships. Imagine laying down in a giant tractor tire and falling asleep.

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Aroma compounds are patchwork regulated around the globe, but the Bible for the majority of perfumers comes from the International Fragrance Association (IFRA), whose membership includes all the major multinationals — Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, Symrise, Takasago, etc. — and produces four-fifths of the world’s perfume. Members voluntarily commit to following IFRA recommendations for safer, lower-allergen fragrances, beyond those enforced by law. IFRA’s restrictions cover plenty of synthetic compounds as well as natural materials like oakmoss.

Like any centrist body, IFRA goes too far for aficionados and not far enough for advocates. Although I fall firmly in the former category, I’m loath to dismiss the latter, even if uninformed or hypochondriac — one need only consider the novelty of unleaded diesel to recognize that corporations could care less if their product is good for us.

Of course, this elides the simple omnipresence of these chemicals — avoiding polyethylene cutting boards will reduce microplastics in your gut, but we’re still inhaling Goodyear rubber every day. It also presumes that we want products to be good for us, and that they might be capable of goodness. We all know the babies are never seeing snow.

Back to the pump. Gasoline is new, but kerosene is actually pretty old, with its extraction from coal tar being written about as far back as ninth century Persia. And that’s the fuel that sent Apollo 13 to the moon. Planting our flag in the stars with the same tools that dig graves. I’m standing at the altar clicking Premium Unleaded 93. They say tetraethyl lead smells sweet — did you know the nitrate radicals in tailpipe emissions prevent pollinators from finding their way to flowers?