PERFUMATIC

The means by which perfume is distributed, advertised, sampled, sold and worn is continually evolving. Innovations in technology, shifts in the retail landscape, developments in popular media, greater disposable incomes and the proliferation of scents available, have all acted as agents within the shifting arenas via which the public can access, test and purchase perfume.

This paper will consider the routes by which scents, and knowledge of their brands, are disseminated outwith dedicated retail and advertising spaces. Particular attention will be given to the Perfumatic machine, a germolene-pink, coin operated, wall-mounted perfume dispenser that, for six pence a shot, allowed customers to sample one of four branded scents. Invented by Mercury Steel Corp these machines were located in ladies toilets and gas stations throughout the Americas and Western Europe from c.1950. Recalling the coin-operated dispensers of holy water invented by Hero of Alexandria in 215 BC, and the perfume taps depicted in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, these communally accessible dispensers provided many with their only access to perfume.

Drawing upon oral testimony as well as theories of material culture and multi sensory experiences, a case study of the use of Perfumatic Machines in the dancehalls of Glasgow during the early 1960s will be developed. Attention will be given to the affective qualities of sampling and sharing perfume within social settings, the multi-sensorial nature of the Perfumatic transaction, how perfume is experienced in everyday life and the tension that exists between the phenomenological and the culturally constructed in our olfactory preferences.