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Could the search for the perfect top note be connected to some of the world’s most influential scientific discoveries? A new article in the journal Isis argues that while the study of scent has inspired scientific endeavour for over a century, perfume’s contributions have been overlooked due to its stigma as a frivolous, feminine luxury item.
In “Musk and Polymer Manufacturing: Perfume and Polymers in the History of Organic Chemistry,” author Galina Sindriaeva explains how tracing the history of perfume production clarifies and enriches the history of chemical innovation and industrial development.
Leopold Ruzicka, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1939, was awarded the honor for his discovery of muscone, or the synthesis of artificial musk, while working for a Geneva-based perfume manufacturing company. Sourcing natural musk, a vital ingredient in perfume production, was expensive and time-consuming, as stags had to be hunted in Russia and the Himalayan region, and musk sacs costing up to $50 to produce one kilogram of musk.
Ruzicka chemically recreated this substance by identifying a molecular structure containing large rings, contrary to the then prevailing theories about its atomic composition. This breakthrough was not only of great value to his employer, M. Naef, and the perfume industry as a whole, but also paved the way for other scientific research, including “the study of previously unknown arrangements of atoms in space, new ring-closing techniques, and the identification of other biologically important molecules with large ring structures, such as oxytocin.”
Ruzicka’s work on muscone and the large rings paved the way for further investigations by American scientist Wallace H. Carothers, a research chemist for the industrial giant DuPont. During World War I, DuPont and other American industries expanded greatly, and by the late 1920s and early 1930s the company was taking advantage of this prosperity to diversify its holdings and develop new products.
Although Carothers was not directly involved in perfume research, he and organic chemist Julian W. Hill used Ruzicka’s discovery of large rings to devise new polymer synthesis methods that ultimately led to the invention of nylon and polyester.
“The joint development of knowledge about perfumes and polymers demonstrates what motivated Ruzicka and Carothers’ work – the investigation of some of the most relevant theoretical questions about chemical structures at the time,” Sindriaeva writes.
The under-appreciation of perfume studies reflects a general disdain for scholarship on the “aesthetics-industrial complex,” Sindriaeva says. Some historians, particularly women historians, have attempted to redress this imbalance, examining “the importance of appearance and attractiveness as attributes mobilized for national and political agendas, and as essential elements for understanding race, class, and gender.”
The article argues that the history of perfume is not just a frivolous footnote in the history of science, but rather intersects with the legacies of war, molecular structure, and global networks of commerce and development. The study of scent and other trivial subjects could lead to a richer and more diverse study of history, offering “new avenues for reflection.”
Further information: Galina Shyndriayeva, “Musk and the Making of Macromolecules: Perfumes and Polymers in the History of Organic Chemistry,” Isis (2024). DOI: 10.1086/730307
