FOSSILS ET AL
Perfumes from Hairy Labyrinths of Loins and Such
I remind Saffron not to forget to get out the mouillettes as she sets up the lesson in preparation.
The question I’m guessing you’re asking is why she’s setting up to set out with a session of a succession of volatile expressions?
“So then, it’s true that the biota dwelling on our skin are fond of epidermal flakes?” arriving guests anticipate the theme of tonight’s gathering.
Whereas we think of the term muskiness as denoting the fragrant character of certain materials of the perfumer’s palette, this attributive, musky, which we assign to describe the nutty pungent buttery animalic sweet sensory aspect (alluring to many crepuscular moths and bats … and preferred by formulators to aromatize laundry detergents?), is also depictive of the elicitative cocktail of steroidal compounds produced by microbes metabolizing apocrine secretions around hairy labyrinths of human loins and especially underarms.
“Those bodily sites facilitate odorful infochemical flights,” Saffron says.
Since those sheltered body regions are so positively suited for microscopic creatures to live and lodge and perform their work, with all the surface area for wicking and launching, they’re like semaphores of scent, conducive to the production and dispersion of messaging metabolites.
“A courtship attractant in that brew, found elsewhere in Nature too, happens to be at issue: androstenol is a wee controversial, being a purported human-male chemical come-on.”
Yet that steroid is not of single (hominid-armpit) origin, but is the very same pig saliva component so notable for its pheromonal swine-seducing sway, and is produced and discharged also by fungi such as truffles.
“Still, we agree, that the term muskiness olfactively characterizes people’s pee?”
On account that many of the compounds at issue, that the emissive subjects of our inquiry also pass with urine, the perfume of this fluid waste material is judged to be musky. Also, urinous odors are considered steroidal because there are metabolites within the yellow ammoniacal stream that are breakdown products carrying indicators of sexual condition.
“Meanwhile, our underarms turn out aromatic references to cows and goats, truffles and pigs and fish, eesh.”
Axillary diffusers most prevail upon us, claiming our attention as they host the effusive liftoff of evaporating molecules so rousingly acrid and perhaps hircine, even rancid by the microbial metabolism of sebum to short-chain fatty acids.
“And something more is connoted, like charred hamburger?”
Heavier substances of greater mass are modified by the unseen activity of microorganisms to yield compounds of low molecular weight that provide burnt notes. And the distinction of fishiness is principally perceived upon the ascent of nitrogenous perfumes issued from female genitals during special observances, including though not limited to semen lingering around the vagina.
“Much as the scent of foreskin secretions is comparable, we sense your uneasiness to call it cheesy? as if this cheesiness makes you queasy? and your queasiness sure comes easy.”
Well, that’s not my area of expertise.
“And elements extricating from the ecosystems of our scalps?”
The chemical couriers set loose for dissemination from head hair are principles nurtured by sweat, which reveal muted tones and lactonic chords, peachy coconut nuances and expressions of crumbled cheese sprinkled around due to yeasts incubating.
“And morning breath?”
Propelling fumes of exhalation are contrastingly like malodorous projectile weapons issued by bacterial metabolism of saliva, sometimes comprising volatiles of indole and skatole, sometimes sulfurous, sometimes steroidal, sometimes just like garlic oil, which provokes us to recoil.
“And sweaty feet?”
Armies of microbes work to supply sulfur-containing molecules for distribution among vapors that emanate from feet, which have been cut off from exposure to circulating air.
“And the transmission of fecal odors, you know?”
I’ve heard.
“Of our antecedents, the anus was an unavoidable part of genital inspection, which is to say that there’s an erogenic suggestiveness owing to a genetic retentiveness bearing merely on body location.”
Published in Fossils et al. Follow to learn more about Paleontology and Evolution.
