Resurrected Corpse Flower

Resurrected Corpse Flower is a very interesting one. I smelled a corpse flower in real life a few years back at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden when it was at the height of its stink and it was disgusting. And it got me thinking, what if this disgusting smell died and was born in a beautiful way? And so, I made the scent with lots of different contrasts between dark and light things. Grapefruit, which is already bitter but fresh. Green olive, a little earthy but also has some sort of freshness to it. Bog cedar, it's woody but it's wet. Tuberose absolute, very earthy and floral, but also has a waxy earthiness to it. So all of these things together rebuild the aroma of what a resurrected corpse flower would smell like in all its glory. Madonna lily is at the heart. It's really taking something funky and crazy and making it beautiful.

January 2025 – Brooklyn is in a fury at the rare blooming of a corpse flower at the Botanical Garden. I, part perfumer, part dreamer, needed a sniff at peak stink. When I saw it announced on the BBG socials that it was crowning, I dropped everything and made haste. I waited in line for 10 mins (1 hour later the line was 100+ people long).

As I entered the building where this savage beauty laid bare her treasure, I was assaulted by humid, rotten garbage. The closer I got, the more intense it became. I finally got my turn & stuck my schnoz into the bowels of this corpse flower.

TRIGGER WARNING: it smelled like a baby diaper pail in a rotten fish tank full of rubber lily bulbs & olives. Disgusting. But, in the moment you have to remain calm and search the nose-mind system for a beast so dank.

I left beaming with possibility. Soon the flowers emerged from the ground. Earth was reborn. I thought - What if all that rot in the corpse flower could be cleaned of its stink and made beautiful again: rubber lily bulbs flowering into soft white flowers, boggy wetlands supporting fresh cedar buds, green banana ripening, tuberose absolute (which smells one part flower/one part swamp) acting as a bridge between dark materials & those of radiant light. Contrasts like grapefruit – bitter, yet fresh. Olive – earthy, yet green. Dark papyrus. Light freesia.

The beautiful corpse flower resurrected from dank Earth.