Skank, or the Queer Fascination with Animalic Notes in Contemporary Niche Perfume

This article looks at the popularity and overt foregrounding of animalic notes in contemporary niche perfume. Although the natural animal notes are rarely used in contemporary perfume and are usually replaced by synthetic aroma chemicals, the idea of them still intrigues. This article proposes the importance of understanding this desire for the animalic in terms of the psychology of disgust, theories of the abject, and a Western history of scatologic art. It examines some of the spaces and places in which the author encounters perfume and the related affects. The article also proposes that the fascination with animalic fragrance also speaks to the ontology of the sense of smell, a fragile ontology that rests on the unreliable narration of memory. The possibility of developing a queer understanding of this subjectively disrupting fascination with the animalic through the lens of postcontinental queer theories is examined.