The luxury of smelling "bad" While niche perfumery embraces disturbing scents like gasoline, sweat or garlic, the sense of smell remains deeply political

For decades, perfumery has promised the same thing: comforting, sensual, desirable scents. White flowers, citrus, vanilla, musk. Fragrances designed to erase any trace of the body and its imperfections. Today, however, something is changing. In niche perfumery, more and more scents are emerging that evoke unusual smells – gasoline, blood, sweat, garlic – transforming what was traditionally considered unpleasant into an aesthetic gesture. The fascination with so-called “disgusting perfumes” is not new, and in recent years it has become one of the most experimental territories in contemporary perfumery. Behind this trend, however, lies a more uncomfortable question: who gets to smell bad? Because a scent that on some bodies is perceived as dirty or indecent can on others become sophisticated, provocative, or even luxurious. The answer has less to do with smell and much more with power. Because, as often happens in the history of beauty, even scents can be deeply political.

The allure of disturbing fragrances

The allure of disturbing fragrances comes from a very specific sensory tension: disgust and attraction, from an olfactory point of view, are closer than we might imagine. Some niche fragrances play precisely on this ambiguity, transforming animalic, metallic, or almost “dirty” notes into complex and hypnotic olfactory experiences. From Secretions Magnifiques by État Libre d’Orange, famous for its body accord reminiscent of blood and sweat, to Inexcusable Evil by Toskovat, crafted to evoke the smell of war and trauma, and Bat by Zoologist Perfumes, described as disturbing and primal in its evocation of a cave full of fermented fruit and animal notes, many noses and niche brands have pushed the boundaries in this game between provocation and experimentation. While it’s true that the human nose is naturally drawn to what is ambiguous or borderline, it is also true that not all scents are perceived the same way when the context and the body wearing them change. In other words, a hint of gasoline or sweat can be read as creative and avant-garde in artistic perfumery but as a sign of neglect or poverty in other social contexts.

Scent as a social marker

For centuries, smell has functioned as one of the most invisible social markers. In modern Western culture, the idea of smelling good developed alongside the rise of bourgeois values related to hygiene, body discipline, and class distinction. It is therefore unsurprising that bad odor has historically been associated with poverty, manual labor, or marginalization. Perfume, in this sense, has never been just an aesthetic accessory: it has always been a tool of symbolic control over the body. Erasing natural odor meant proving one belonged to a certain social order, having access to water, leisure, and products needed to maintain a presentable body. This is where contemporary perfumery introduces an interesting paradox. Many niche fragrances are reclaiming smells traditionally considered unpleasant: notes of gasoline, metal, leather, sweat, or wet earth. Elements that evoke workshops, industrial environments, or the body in its most physical dimension. When these sensations are reinterpreted through the sophisticated language of artistic perfumery, however, their meaning changes completely. A scent that in another context might be perceived as dirty or degrading suddenly becomes experimental, conceptual, even luxurious. In other words, the same stink can become an aesthetic gesture if framed in the right context.

The politics of smell

This ambivalence reveals a frequently overlooked truth: the sense of smell is deeply political. Throughout history, odors have been used to construct cultural stereotypes and social hierarchies. The body of the other – whether poor, migrant, or colonized – was often described as malodorous, turning a sensory perception into a tool of stigmatization. For this reason, the recent fascination of perfumery with disturbing scents raises a broader question. When a fragrance evokes sweat, metal, or gasoline, is it really celebrating the imperfection of the body? Or is it simply turning a daily – and often stigmatized – experience into an object of aesthetic consumption? At the same time, the new wave of experimental perfumery is expanding the olfactory vocabulary. More and more noses and independent brands are trying to tell stories through unexpected scents, abandoning the idea that a perfume must necessarily be <strong“good” in the traditional sense. In this context, notes considered difficult or divisive become narrative tools: evoking places, memories, and bodily sensations that classical perfumery has long avoided. It’s a way to make the olfactory experience more complex, less predictable, and closer to the reality of bodies.

Perfumery is not the same for everyone

And here lies the real core of the issue. It’s not just that perfumes today can evoke unpleasant smells, but that some people can wear them as an aesthetic gesture while for others the same odors remain a source of stigma. In an era where beauty increasingly becomes a field of cultural experimentation, perfume stops being just a tool to “smell good.” It becomes a way to interrogate the invisible codes that govern how we perceive other people’s bodies. Because, ultimately, the real question is not whether perfumes can stink. It’s who really has the privilege to do so.