You Can Now Literally Bottle a Person's Scent

Smell is powerful. It can transport you back in time to a specific moment or remind you of a person or place that you haven't seen/been to in years. As anyone who has stopped in their tracks mid-stride as they're overtaken by a familiar smell, we cling to certain aromas, often unknowingly, for their sentimental qualities. Now, you can do much more than that.

Katia Apalategui, 52-year-old insurance saleswoman, and French researchers from the Université du Havre have developed a method to capture a person's scent and bottle it up.

After years of watching her mother embrace her deceased husband's pillowcase, preserving his smell and attempting to cope with his death, Katia Apalategui wanted to find a way to help others longing for a familiar fragrance. Finally, she teamed up with scientists from du Havre and brought her dreams to life.

"We take the person's clothing and extract the odour—which represents about a hundred molecules—and we reconstruct it in the form of a perfume in four days," the university's Geraldine Savary told The Guardian (opens in new tab).

While this innovation is truly groundbreaking for those dealing with loss, Apaltegui also sees the perfume as a great gift between partners or for people living apart from their loved ones.

*adds to wishlist*

Apaltegui hopes to launch the company in September with the help of a chemist and her son. Each perfume will retail for about $600. A small price to pay for a whole lot of comfort.

You should also check out:

Start Making Scents With the Fragrance Foundation (opens in new tab)

Perfume Promiscuity: Why Signature Scents Are a Thing of the Past (opens in new tab)

Hermès Perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena On Why a Signature Fragrance is Like True Love (opens in new tab)