Do you ever wonder what's in your perfume before you spray it on? You might not want to, because there's a good chance is contains the cooked vomit of sperm whales (called Ambergris) or its synthetic copy Ambrox.
While you might not be aware that you smell (pleasantly) of whale vomit, Ambergris has been used for centuries for anything from perfumes to cocktails and aphrodisiacs. From ancient Egypt to today's high-end perfumers - people do love that whale vomit.
Select perfumes from high-end brands like Creed, Guerlain and Bvlgari contain this vomit simply because the cheap brands can't afford it - it's increasingly rare and unreasonably pricey.
(Source: Just a Random Whale Not Vomiting on Unsplash)
What is Ambergris?
Since sperm (Physeter macrocephalus) whales can't digest the spikey and sharp parts of animals like squids, their digestive tract produces a kind of gooey substance that covers squid beaks and bones. In most cases, the whale will vomit the greyish lump of sticky gooey bile along with the sharp remains of marine life in it, and people will hurry to collect them.
These chunks can be up to 50 pounds in weight, and are nearly worth their weight in gold - quality whale vomit cost around $20 a gram. That's a lot of Steem tokens!
(Source: Wikipedia - Photographer: Peter Kaminski - CC BY 2.0)
At first, these smell very much like feces, which has caused some scientist to theorize that it is not whale vomit but rather something that comes out the other side. Through chemical processing (mostly heating), the substance gets a sweet musky smell and is used in the cosmetic industry as a fixative, helping the fragrance "stick" to the skin for a longer period of time, in addition to contributing its own sweet and musky smell.
Endangered Whales and Synthetic Vomit
Collecting the upheavings of whales doesn't hurt them, but whaling and our damaged environment are. As the number of sperm whales in the wild declined, so did the availability of freely floating ambergris. Some countries (like the US and Australia) made the owning and trading of ambergris on their territory illegal, but that hardly helps save the whale population.
With the price of ambergris rising, scientist have been working on synthetic replacements that are cheaper to produce and don't involve foul-smelling chunks of whale barf. These are now being used in the cosmetic industry, but there's still no lack of demand for whale vomit, and anyone who happens to find some whale puke on their walk on the beach is still looking at a nice pile of cash in exchange.
So if you're a fan of smelling good, you should be fighting to save the whales! If you're currently really grossed out, then you might (NOT) want to browse this list of classic perfumes that definitely include sperm whale vomit in their ingredient list.
(Just a few brands of whale vomit fragrances)
Bonus Fact: Ambergis is one resources traded in Assassin's Creed.
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Notes: My apologies to my readers for the lack of 