Karl Laden, PhD, is a regulatory and technical specialist at Alpa Cosmetics and now a columnist for Cosmetics & Toiletries magazine. His inaugural column in the March 2022 issue looks at the history of anti-perspirants and deodorants, and touches on the question of whether the aversion to BO is a invention of modern advertising.
Good topic, interesting article, reasonable question.
However, in describing the it’s-all-down-to-advertising hypothesis, Laden cites an article pushing that idea “appearing in, of all places, Smithsonian Magazine.” In doing so he exposes his naiveté regarding Smithsonian’s relentlessly progressive interpretation of American culture and history.
I became aware of the Smithsonian’s political bias in an incident I describe in my book What the Nose Knows:
I had a close encounter with anti-capitalist scent-bashing a few years ago. I was among a group of experts invited by Smithsonian Institution in Washington to help the National Museum of Natural History plan a large traveling exhibit on the science and history of smell. Along with curators, exhibit designers, and high-ranking staff members, we spent the day in the museum’s dark-paneled board room that looks out on Constitution Avenue and the IRS building. It was a typical institutional brainstorming session, with lots of cringe-inducing “exercises” meant to sharpen our creativity. One of these involved free-association with pictures clipped from magazines. We took turns arranging them in domino fashion on the floor and afterwards tried to interpret the pattern. The group decided the pictures fell into two categories: “human” and “environment.” (I was puzzled; aren’t humans part of the environment?) Then a senior curator reached down and removed an Estée Lauder soap ad from the arrangement; she felt it didn’t belong to either category. I grew more puzzled.
For the next exercise, we broke into working groups. The soap-snatcher and I were assigned to the same group. Our task was to think of exhibit topics that would interest teenage visitors. With no prompting, she launched into a heated speech: the exhibit should make teens aware of how companies use smell to influence them. Others in the group gently challenged her, but she wouldn’t relent. Her mission was to alert teens to the sinister corporate conspiracy behind fragrance advertising. I pointed out that subliminal advertising was largely a crock, but still she wouldn’t let go. She was determined to stop America’s youth from being turned into scent-controlled mall zombies. Finally, I reminded her that the Smithsonian was planning to fund the show with donations from corporate sponsors, and that these folks might be reluctant to fork over three million dollars for the privilege of having their business smeared.
The Smithsonian never did get around to doing a smell exhibition.