After Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina-scented candle, we asked an expert what’s going on in the world of fragrances

Last month, at the request of absolutely no one, Gwyneth Paltrow released a candle that smells like her vagina. She was promptly followed by Erykah Badu, who announced she was going to sell her own vagina-scented incense. (“The people deserve it”, she said.)

We asked a perfumer, Christopher Gordon from the Perfumer’s Studio in Los Angeles, whether it is possible to make a candle that smells like a vagina; whether he’s ever made one before; and what exactly is going on in the world of perfume.

Can you actually make a vagina-scented perfume?

Certainly, it’s possible to create those scents. We have thousands of materials to choose from; some are vile, some extremely beautiful, some are very cheap, some very expensive. By combining those we can create virtually any scent – the question is whether we want to or not.

But is the smell of a vagina really strong enough to recreate? How would you even smell it in the first place?

It’s really association and marketing, frankly. The market for celebrity fragrance has been plummeting. Nobody wants to buy celebrity fragrance any more – so the only way they can do this now is to create some kind of sensation. A skin scent is relatively easy to create but whether it is an accurate depiction of a specific person’s scent? I have my doubts.

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If somebody wanted you to make a perfume that smells like their skin, how would you do it? Would you literally be sniffing them?

Not really – we don’t usually get that up close and personal with the client. We could try. Generally it’s association – skin normally smells of something, like a soap that’s been used or a laundry detergent. They all have musks in them, which is why we associate them with clean skin.

Some of the musks are more animal-like, others are creamier, milkier. Some are more like young skin or more like old skin – so we would be looking at the materials and then the person in front of us, like if they’re blonde or dark-haired, young, old, and trying to recreate that.

So you are creating an impression of what they would want themselves to smell like, not what they actually smell like?

Exactly.

Have you ever been asked to recreate someone’s vagina scent?

We haven’t been asked for that, no.

It’s completely unprecedented?

Historically, there is precedent. Initially these [sexual] scents were taken from animals. Civet from the civet cat; natural musk, which is banned; castoreum from the castoreum beaver; and ambergris, which comes from sperm whales. They are all animal products which have been used in perfumery for ages.

How does one get these scents?

We wouldn’t use these now as they are not very sustainable. But all of them come from the back end of the animal, the sexual gland or reproductive gland. It’s what they use to mark their territory.

Beavers are culled periodically in Canada so their sacs are used after that. Ambergris is, well – no one really knows– but it either comes out of the back end of whale or is regurgitated. But it is not usable when it first comes out of the whale. It needs to float around on the sea for a couple of years, then it gets cast up on the beach and you can use it.

So people have been wanting to smell these, er, intimate scents – animal ones at least – for some time?

Absolutely. That’s what perfumery is about. We bathe and we remove our natural scent. So when we put on a fragrance we want it to have at least some element of that [human scent]. We want it to be carnal, but not dirty.

So this is just really taking that to its extreme end?

It is. Yes. I think it’s just an extension with some marketing spin on it.