Something You Should Know - How Toxic Individualism Is Destroying Relationships & The History of Fragrances

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Nothing ruins a trip like getting car sick. But now there are motion sickness glasses. Do they work? Reader’s Digest tested them out and a lot of people who bought them left reviews. Listen and I’ll tell you what they said. https://www.rd.com/article/motion-sickness-glasses/ How can you be in a relationship and still be an individual? It has always been a tricky balance that has gotten even tougher as we have shifted to a more “It’s-all-about-me” culture. Joining me to discuss this is internationally recognized family therapist, speaker, and author Terrence Real. His latest book is titled US: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship (https://amzn.to/3bLzN6N). Listen as he offers some great insight and very specific advice on improving any relationship. Terry's website is www.terryreal.com What is it about fragrances? Soaps, candles, laundry detergent, perfume – we like things to smell nice. Why? When did this all start? Listen to my guest Elise Pearlstine, a natural perfumer, consultant, and educator and author of a book called Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance. (https://amzn.to/3AtMA8b). If you have ever wondered why flowers or the smell of cut grass or vanilla smell so good, listen as Elise explains. It can be brutal getting into a car that been parked in the hot sun. However, there is quick way to cool the car down before you get in it. Listen as I reveal a simple yet very fast and effective technique. https://www.wikihow.com/Cool-a-Hot-Car-as-Quickly-as-Possible PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Indeed’ is doing something no other job site has done. Now with Indeed, businesses only pay for quality applications matching the sponsored job description! Visit https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING to start hiring now. Hometap is the smart new way to access your home’s equity and pay for life’s expenses without a loan! Learn more and get a personalized estimate at https://HomeTap.com With Avast One, https://avast.com you can confidently take control of your online world without worrying about viruses, phishing attacks, ransomware, hacking attempts, & other cybercrimes! The magic is waiting! Download Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, for free, from the iOS App Store or Google Play today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, do motion sickness glasses really work? If you get car sick, you'll want to hear this. Then, is it possible to be in a long-term relationship and always be happy? I just did a piece for the New York Times on what I call normal marital hatred. You

have to take each other on in skilled loving ways. It's okay to cross from harmony through disharmony into repair, but you have to know how. Plus, the best way to cool down a hot parked car before you get in. And the fascinating history of fragrances and perfume. Different perfumes smell different on different people. Some people can wear florals and they smell great, and on some people they turn kind of sour. When you do wear, especially a very good perfume, it blends with your skin and it becomes a little bit more you. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. You know, nothing puts a damper on a car trip than when somebody says, I don't feel good. I'm going to throw up. I don't feel good at all. If anyone in your family is prone to car sickness, you've probably heard all the home remedies that are supposed to ease the symptoms. And there's a new one you should

probably be aware of. They have these eyeglasses that supposedly prevent motion sickness. Now, I've never tried them because I typically don't get car sick, but recently Reader's Digest tested them out, and if you haven't seen them, they look a little weird. They're kind of these big googly-eyed glasses that contain two holes to look through in the front, and then there's also two holes to the side of each eye. The holes at the side protect the wearer's peripheral vision from becoming sensitive to motion, which is often what brings on that dizzy, sick feeling.

But the glasses don't contain lenses. Instead, they use a leveling liquid to synchronize eyes as they move. Do they work? Well, the Reader's Digest tester said they did, and they have a lot of five-star ratings and reviews on Amazon. And since they only cost about $24, it might be worth giving them a try. By the way, they're not an advertiser. We're not being paid to say this.

It's just that I know how car sickness can ruin a trip, so I figured that's something you should know. Here's a term you may not have heard before, toxic individualism. It refers to the idea that people in our culture have become more focused on themselves, as in, it's all about me. And this has created a big problem for relationships, because how can you be in a relationship which is all about us when your focus is all about you? This is according to Terrence Real. He's an internationally recognized family therapist, speaker, and author who's written some incredibly successful books on relationships, including I Don't Want to Talk About It and The New Rules of Marriage. His latest book is called Us, Getting Past You and Me to Build

a More Loving Relationship, which has already become a big bestseller in just a few weeks. Hey, Terrence, welcome. Well, thank you. It's a joy to be here. So explain your view of relationships as it relates to that term that you have coined toxic individualism. Michael, our relationships are our biospheres. We're not outside of them, we're in them. And once we realize ecological humility, once we realize that you're in your marriage, you're not above it, then everything changes. You can choose to pollute your biosphere by having a temper tantrum over here,

but you're going to breathe in that pollution in your partner's withdrawal or lack of generosity. Okay, but I think the concern is that even in a relationship, we are individuals. We are people. And we don't want to lose ourselves for the sake of the relationship. I'm not saying that there isn't such a thing as an individual. And yes, you are an individual with your own wants and needs. Good. I want you to assert that.

But I want you to assert it in the wisdom of a larger context. We are a team. What are we going to do? You know, it's the difference between saying, Michael, don't talk to me like that, which is fair enough, and saying, hey, look, I want to hear what you have to say. Could you tone it down so I could really listen? It's remembering that you and I are a team and it is in my interest, my enlightened self-interest for both of us to be able to work together to make this work for both of us. That seems very logical and normal and right and yet people struggle with it because in the heat of the moment it is often very hard to take that very measured approach of why can't we just talk about this like grown-ups that's exactly right and when I'm working with a couple the biggest question is who am I talking to which part of you am I talking to you're dead on am I talking to? Which part of you am I talking to? You're dead on. Am I talking to the grown-up part of you? We call it the prefrontal cortex part of the brain. I call it the wise adult. Or am I talking to some triggered part of you that has everything to do with your trauma and how you adapted to that trauma? Fight, flight, or fix. It's knee-jerk, automatic, and that's the reactive part of us that gets us into so much trouble.

And the essence of my work is what I call relational mindfulness. Precisely in that heated moment, how to cultivate the skill, build the muscle of taking a break. I'm a big fan of breaks. Counting to ten, splashing some water, doing whatever you need to do to remember love. Remember that the person you're speaking to is not the enemy and that the reason why you're speaking is to make things better. If you're not in that place, if you're in that reactive place,

take a walk around the block, take a break, have a little chat with your little boy or girl inside, but get centered and then go back into the fray. That's the only way that things are going to get better. One of the things I've always thought wears relationships down is that when there is a problem, when there is conflict, it's often the same old thing. It's you've fought about this before. You've had a conflict over this before. It's not like we're coming up with new and exciting things to fight about. It's the same thing. And it just gets wearing.

Can I tell you a story? Of course. So I deal with couples on the brink of divorce. That's my specialty. And this couple was on the brink of divorce. The guy was a chronic liar. He lied about everything. So that is his repeated adaptive child stance. Over and over again, he lies. All right, so I'm a relational therapist. I think relationally. I ask him something that when you're thinking as individuals, you would think, oh, how did he get that?

I say to him, who tried to control you growing up? See, the guy had a black belt in evasion. Where did he learn that? What was he adopting to? Who did he evade? Sure enough, my father. Tell me about it. Military man, utterly controlling how he ate,

how he sat, everything. I say to him, how did you cope with this guy? And he looks at me and smiles. I like that smile. And he looks at me and smiles. I like that smile. And he says to me, I lied. Smart little boy. I teach my students, always be respectful of the exquisite intelligence of the adaptive child. You did back then just what you needed to do to survive and be whole.

But adaptive then, maladaptive now. He's not that little boy. His wife is not his father. So we surface all this is a true story. They come back two weeks later, hand in hand, all smiles were cured. Okay, there's a tale here, tell me. He goes to the grocery store with a list of 12 things from his wife, and true to form, he comes back with 11. The wife says to him, where's the pumpernickel? He says, every muscle and nerve in my body was screaming to say they were out of it. But in this moment, on this day, I thought of you, I gathered my courage, I looked my wife in the eye, and I said, I forgot. And she burst into tears and said, I've been waiting for this moment for 25 years. That's moving out of that automatic adaptive child response we learned as kids and reaching for something new, different, more mature, and more skilled.

And we can learn to do that. So what's one simple thing people can do to get with the program here? Make a contract to take breaks. I'm a big fan of physical breaks if you can't control yourself while you're standing there okay i'm going to take 20 minutes i'll be back always say when you're coming back don't leave it open-ended and then go for a walk around the block splash some water on your face talk to that little boy who feels so controlled. Do some breathing, do some meditation. There are millions of exercises now to help you get re-centered. But get back in the place where

it's not you versus me in a zero-sum win-lose power struggle. I remember love. I remember that you are someone I care about and it's in my interest to work with you as a teammate to make this work for both of us. Once you're centered there, there's a host of skills you can use, but you won't use any of them until you're out of your reactive brain and into your wise adult. That's the skill to cultivate. Take the break and don't come back until you're in your right mind. So theoretically, if a couple is together, there was something, at least in the beginning, that brought them together and made them commit to each other. And obviously, everybody's different, but what tends to go wrong?

Well, I have a saying. We all marry our unfinished business. We all marry our mothers and fathers. We all become our mothers and fathers. And we think when we fall in love, this person is going to complete me. This person is going to heal me. I'm going to get what I never got.

And, of course, real long-term relationships come when you realize this person is going to re-injure me in exactly the ways I was injured as a kid. That doesn't mean you're in a bad relationship. That's intimacy. I just did a piece for the New York Times on what I call normal marital hatred. It's okay to cross from harmony through disharmony into repair, but you have to know how. You know, there are millions of people who would not throw you into your old wounds, but they didn't blip on your screen. We connect in long-term relationships with someone who is close enough to what we grew

up with that we go back into the old drama, but someone who, unless we're very unlucky, someone who has other skills and resources so that if we do something different, they can do something different and that changes the dance and that's what heals us. Not that we get it out of them, but that when we do something different, they'll come along with us. That's what healing our trauma looks like. We're talking about relationships with therapist Terrence Real. The name of his book is Us, Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called

The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight

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and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly

about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. So Terry, it seems that the experience of relationships is often that things go bad very slowly. Like you hardly notice it day to day and then one day it's broken. Yeah, you're right. I talk about what I call fierce intimacy, that you have to be fierce with each other. You have to take each other on

in skilled, loving ways. And you have to tell the truth to each other. You have to deal with each other. And most couples don't. They say that they're compromising, but really they're settling. Resentment builds. Sexuality and generosity dies. And they look like everybody else. I have empathy for people who stop challenging each other in these passionate ways. Because when we do, most of us just don't have enough skill to be successful at it. The person we're speaking to gets defensive, or we're pretty hostile when we finally talk to

them. You have to know how to do it. For example, how to stand up for yourself and be loving and cherishing of your partner in the same breath. Nobody knows how to do that. How do you do that? Hey, Michael, when you called me an old fat chauvinist pig a minute ago, that pushed me to the other side of the wall, and I'd like to be close to you. Can you say you're sorry and do something reparative so I can feel close to you again? There are ways to be powerful and loving in the same breath, but our culture doesn't teach us. You talk about, you've

mentioned a couple of times the idea of repair. And repair implies that something is broken. And in a relationship, sometimes when it's broken, things get said and they're hard to let go. I mean, even when you apologize, you still said it. You can't unhear it. And sometimes it stings. It's hard to repair. Well, it is hard. Of course it's hard.

But, you know, there's also repair. If your partner says, oh, God, that was terrible of me. I really blew it. And I do love you. And I don't think of you as a chauvinist pig. And I'm really sorry. I hope you accept my apology. My advice would be take a deep breath and accept the apology and make some tea and get on with your life. The problem with holding resentment is that it's bad for you. Someone said resentment is drinking poison and waiting for the other guy to die. Let repair happen. All relationships are an endless dance of harmony, disharmony, and repair. Closeness, disruption, and a return to closeness.

And all of the skills come in when you move from disharmony to repair. The problem is, when you move into that disharmony phase, you often get triggered and reactive, and you have to take a breath and keep your head in the game in order to use the skills of repair. What about when one person in a relationship just feels like, you know, enough's enough. There's nothing more here for me. I can't go on. I would invite everybody onto my website if I could, terryreel.com,

just my name. I have a piece called Rowing to Nowhere, When is Enough Enough, an article I wrote. And I ask people to do what I call a relational reckoning. And it consists of this question. Am I getting enough in this relationship to make grieving what I'm not getting worth my while? Am I getting enough to make the pain of my partner's imperfections worthwhile to me? Okay. And if the answer is no, I'm not, then go and fight and get some help and maybe leave. But if the answer is yes, my partner's a real pain in the neck and this and this and this way, but gosh, they're a love in these ways,

then don't be a resentful victim. Embrace what you get and enjoy it. Something you often hear people say about relationships is, you know, relationships take work, but I'm not really sure what that means. I believe that the real work of relationships isn't even day to day, it's minute to minute. In this minute right now, in the heat of the moment, am I going to look at this person as someone I care about, or am I going to look at this person as the enemy? Am I going to do my same old knee-jerk response, angry complaint, for example, or am I going to reach for something different? And that's our choice in this moment.

And our fate is made up in these momentary decisions over and over and over again. Here's a really unfair question to ask you, but I'm going to ask it anyway, because I really would like to get your opinion on this. What is it, when you look at all the relationships that you see, what is it, if you had to pick one thing, what is it that goes wrong? Most of us, our relationship to relationships is passive in this culture. You get what you get, and then you complain about it. Most of us try and get more of what we want from our partners by complaining about what they do wrong. That's got to be the most stupid behavioral modification program I've ever

heard of. I want people to be more proactive up front and less resentful on the back end. So for example, if I want my wife to listen to me sympathetically because I've had a fight with somebody, she has this great way of turning it into a teachable moment and siding with the idiot I'm fighting with. Well, you know, they really have a point about you, Derek. No, no, no, no, no. And then I'd flip out. Nowadays, on a good day anyway, I would say, hey, listen, Belinda, I just had a fight. I want about 10 minutes of venting. I don't want you to side with my guy I'm fighting with. I don't want you to teach me anything or solve my problem. I just want you to be on my side, say something like,

hey, baby, that sucks. I'm sorry. Can you give me 10 minutes of that? And she will, if I help her by instructing her. If I just leave it to her, we're doomed to failure and then I get mad and then she gets mad. We can help our partners deliver for us by empowering them to give us what we want. Yes, let's speak up for what we want, but let's do it in a way that's skilled and that actually might deliver what we want. Yeah. Well, see that, that's interesting because most people I don't think would think to say that. Can you, here's what I want you to give me for 10 minutes. It's more of, if you don't, I'll get mad, but, but you need to figure out what it is I want. Right. That's exactly right. You know, we don't treat our kids that way. We

make our expectations clear. We don't treat our kids that way. We make our expectations clear. We don't treat our pets that way. We don't train a pet by punishing him every time they don't get it right. We help them out. We teach them what we want, and then we reward them when they get it right. I would like us to treat our spouses as well as we treat our pets. Well, but it begs that question. Why don't we? Why is that not just a natural way of doing it?

Because we live in an anti-relational, immature, narcissistic, individualistic, patriarchal culture that gives lip service to relationships but doesn't really value them. We do not teach our sons and daughters the skills they need, the basic skills of relationship. And yet, we've never wanted more out of our relationships. We want to be lifelong lovers, but we simply don't have the basic skills to pull it off. We need to know what the hell we're doing. There are skills to learn, and they're not even that hard. You just have to know what you're doing and you have to keep your wits about you in those heated moments. One thing I want to get you to talk about is that when you're having a disagreement and you feel strongly about your point of view, how do you stand up for yourself and not, you know, not be a jerk about it but still make your case

I'm sorry but I gotta tell you a story so I was at my friend the standing up for yourself with love first came to me with a friend Alice Lebonic I was on his porch a summer's day with the families and I was mad about something and I let him have it and he looked at, this is absolutely a true story, and he was vibrating with feeling. I mean, it was intense between us. I had just really core dumped on the guy. And he said, look, Terry, the first and most important thing

I want you to understand is that I love you. You're one of my best friends, you're gonna be one of my best friends to the day we die nothing I'm about to say has anything to do with that now having said that you come into my porch in the middle of my family in the middle of my dinner that I've invited you into and you dump a kind of righteous anger in me that you know I grew up with, I've spent my whole life protecting my family from. I don't like it. Now, let me be clear. I don't want to control you, and I can't. You do what you do. But every time you dump that kind of nasty energy on me,

I'm going to tell you just how much I don't like it, and I don't't and I looked at him and Michael he had me with I love you if he had just led with his rebuttal I'm a fighter I wouldn't know just what to do with that but when he started off by cherishing our relationship and then said his feelings, I could hear it. And I looked at him and to my own surprise, this is a true story, I said, you're right, you don't deserve it, I'm sorry. And then we had dinner together. That's the first instance that I was woken up to this idea of standing up for yourself with love. Well, I think anybody who's in a relationship or has been in a relationship or is thinking about being in a relationship ought to download this episode,

if they haven't already, and save it and pull it out and listen to it from time to time, especially maybe when things get tough. I've been speaking with Terrence Reel. He is an internationally recognized therapist, speaker, and author. The name of his book is Us, Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. I'll also put in the show notes his website, a link to his website as well. Thanks, Terry. This has been a lot of fun. Yeah, thanks, Mike. It has. It's been a great pleasure talking to you. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan,

the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown

wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our

listener poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. You and I are surrounded by fragrances. There are fragrances in everyday products like soaps and shampoos and laundry detergent, as well as in very expensive perfumes. We seem to like things that smell good.

And a lot of those good smells come from nature. So what is it about fragrances that we like so much? And how did putting those fragrances into bottles and then spraying it on ourselves become such a big industry? It's actually a pretty interesting story, and the person to tell it is Elise Perlstein. She is a natural perfumer, consultant, and educator who conducts classes for corporate and private events and instructs students on the biology, artistry, and history of perfume ingredients. She's author of a book called Scent, A Natural History of Fragrance. Hi, Elise. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me here. I'm glad to talk about fragrance. Well, here's something interesting that I hadn't thought about until I saw your book, and that is we all walk by plants and flowers all the time that smell good, and we enjoy that smell, but clearly the plant didn't do it for our benefit. That's absolutely true. And over the years of teaching about fragrance and teaching perfume classes, one of the iconic fragrances is jasmine. It's gorgeous. It's complex. We love it. It's almost in every perfume, you know, some version. And yet the jasmine plant does not make that fragrance for us. Its flowers put out

probably several hundred molecules that are each a little bit different in fragrance, but the purpose and the goal is to attract moths. Those little flying, not butterflies, but the nocturnal version with big antenna that are very sensitive to fragrance. And the reason it's moths is because jasmines are white flowers and they bloom at night. Their fragrance is best at night. What it does for the moths is create what they call a scent plume. If the moth is flying through the garden, it will key in on that fragrance back to the flower, where then it will pollinate that jasmine flower. So at some point, someone must have said, you know, that flower smells so nice, we should do something with that smell. We should, you know,

put it in a bottle and have perfume. But are flowers also bred for fragrance or we just find the fragrance in the flowers in nature and try to duplicate that or what? I don't know why we haven't done more with it. There is actually very little breeding for fragrance. And the story of roses kind of points that out. Roses, now that you find in the store don't smell. Everybody puts their nose down, but there really is not a fragrance that compares in any way to the wild roses, which are out there attracting pollinators. And there's a theory that somewhere in the last couple hundred years, people have moved from paying attention to all

of our senses, where smell is as important as hearing is as important as vision. But we moved into being very primarily focused on our vision, our sight. So we appreciate the way the petals of the rose curl so nicely, or we appreciate bright colors in our garden. And so we've bred fragrance out, not on purpose, but we've put a primary emphasis on color and form in those visual things. There are some exceptions to that. You know, lavender is a very, very important aromatherapy and perfume plant. I'm sure there's breeding for that. So at what point did people start taking the fragrance of flowers and put them in a bottle and call it perfume? And how did they do that? Up until really the Industrial

Revolution and the invention of distillation which was before that but there were a lot of pieces that had to come together to be able to make perfumes. It takes a lot of roses to make a rose extract you know on the order of two or three million roses to make about a pound. And so for centuries, perfume was relegated to the wealthy and the people who could afford that luxury. But as chemists became involved in fragrance, somewhere in the late 1800s, they began analyzing the molecules in the plants with the idea of, well, if we can make this molecule in a lab and we can take some of the things that jasmine uses to make that gorgeous fragrance, maybe we can recreate a more affordable version of a jasmine. And so it really took moving away as much, but not totally, from using actual flowers

to finding out the molecules that were in the flowers and using those to recreate a white flower fragrance or a rose. So in today's fragrance world, are a lot of perfumes not made from flowers but manufactured in a lab? Yes. For example, violets were always extremely expensive to extract from the flowers. There's very little. But you can take iris roots, which have a very similar fragrance, and you can grow irises a lot easier. But then chemists took those iris roots and

analyzed them and came out with a chemical called ionone that has that violet fragrance. Very much less expensive. And if you remember, I talked about jasmine having, you know, several hundred different ingredients. And jasmine and all of our scented plants have a terroir. Like wine, they will change with the year, or they will change with the soil. And that's great. That's wonderful. But if you're producing perfumes on a massive scale, you want to be able to replicate the same perfume year after year. And so the industry has moved to use single molecules in particular blends to replicate flowers so that you've got replicability, you know what you're going to get, and you've got affordability. And this is where you also made the change into perfume as kind of a fashion statement,

more part of a way of life. So today, are there perfumes that are still made from real flowers or is that just gone? It's not gone. It is your higher end perfumes, especially those made in France in the little town of Grasse, which is on the south of France. That's the kind of the home of the perfume industry. Some of the big houses grow their own jasmine, and they put some jasmine in. And I'm not a commercial perfumer, but I am fairly sure they also use some of those single aroma chemicals to beef up the jasmine. So a lot of the higher-end perfumes will have some floral notes from flowers in them, but a lot of them do depend on these either synthesized

or isolated chemicals to make up the bulk of the formula. So throughout history, though, has fragrance been used to kind of pretty up the fact that a lot of the world smells bad? Yes. Until basically the late 1700s or early 1800s, smells were very personal and the perception of smell was maybe a little bit different. Good smells, pleasant smells were a force for good. They meant good things. They meant health. They meant lack of disease. Whereas bad smells denoted, you know, disease, bad things, evil, and so on. You know, the Black Death and the plague is a case in point. People turned, especially the poorer people, they turned to rosemary and oranges and lavender because they smelled good.

They had uplifting fragrances that they felt would help counteract that evil invisible thing that was making everybody sick. So many of the products, whether it's soap or perfume or anything, seems to be floral-based. A lot of the scents are either they smell like flowers or they're trying to smell like flowers, but there's a lot of really great smells that don't smell like flowers, like cinnamon rolls, but I don't know that anybody's captured that in a fragrance. Well, there's a whole area of perfumery called gourmand perfumes. And not so much cinnamon, but vanilla is very popular. Some of the sweeter candy sort of scents. There's also, and this is going back to the laundry soap aisle, kind of the smell of clean.

A hundred years of research have led to these particular, you know, kind of a white musk or clean scent that those of us, at least in the Western world, identify with cleanliness. If you spend a lot of time maybe in a spa, the scent of lavender, you know, and some of those are very clean or refreshing. Let me say refreshing and uplifting. There seems to be, I don't know if you would call it like a backlash against everything having some aroma, some fragrance to it. I'm part of that backlash, I guess, because I have a sensitivity. I don't know if it's an allergy or what, but there are a lot of fragrances, a lot of perfumes that, you know, make my nose stuffy. I don't enjoy the smell. And I know a lot of other people have that sensitivity to being overwhelmed by so many fragrances. I totally agree with you.

And my house is as absent from smell as I can make it. We make soap, I make perfume, but I put all the ingredients in little plastic boxes and put them away. And there are a lot of people and it's probably more sensitivity than allergy. And these little chemicals, if you think about it, they are made to go out into the air, some of them to persist so that they carry their message to the moth or the butterfly. And we are breathing those in. You know, if the air is moving and you're outside, it's really fun. It's nice. But if it's in your nose all the time, some people like that. For me, I'm totally with you. Too much is too much. And more and more people are becoming sensitive. The other thing, too, is that people get used to fragrances. Like when you walk into a room that has a very particular smell, you quickly get used to it and you don't smell it anymore.

Right. Basically, you're wearing out the neurons that are passing that message to your brain. And so you don't smell it anymore. You know, if you leave your house for a couple of days and come back in, you say, oh, this is what my house smells like. And hopefully it's like, oh, it feels like home. Right, right. But if you're, once you're in it for 10 minutes, you completely don't smell it anymore. Right. So when the idea of wearing perfume, of taking this liquid and putting it on your body so that you now smell like that smell. Why? Why do that? What's the theoretical basis for this is a good idea? It probably goes way back to where you were covering up the fact that you hadn't had a bath for a month or two. It goes way back to the idea of luxury and rich people could afford musk and spices and things. But somewhere

between the late 1800s and the World Wars, perfume became a statement of fashion, somewhat of luxury. And it's packaged up. You know, people put it in a pretty Lalique bottle. Or you put it in a gorgeous package and it becomes an indulgence. And then in the past 40 years, 20 years, you know, you see TV ads all the time with this star or that star pushing their particular scent. And you look at that and you say, well, if I wear that perfume, am I going to be as alluring? So there's a lot of messaging. And I would say a lot of the budget for perfumery comes down to messaging and packaging to support that one ounce of mostly alcohol. So I don't know much of anything about perfumes that people wear.

I don't wear them because of what we talked about. I'm very sensitive to that. But the only perfume I could even pull out of my mind that I remember is Chanel No. 5. It seems to have become iconic. Everybody knows it. People still wear it. You can maybe identify the smell. What's so special about Coco Chanel's No. 5? For perfume aficionados, it was very groundbreaking. She wanted a perfume that didn't make people smell like their mother, roses and violets. She wanted something very groundbreaking. She wanted a perfume that didn't make people smell like their mother, roses and violets. She wanted something very different. And the perfumer she hired

really broke ground on adding unique ingredients. They call them aldehydes, which is kind of perfume talk, but it added an entirely different feel. But then she was one of the early perfumers that tied that perfume to fashion, the famous little black dress, the elegance, the packaging. Her packaging was very spare and very elegant. Instead of big flowery bottles and pictures. It's a simple black box with her name and the bottle was square. So hers was a big departure and a step ahead, I think, in the perfume business and the concept of perfumes, if that makes sense.

But it has really stuck around. I mean, I imagine a lot of perfumes come and go, but that seems to, I mean, that's been around since when? The early 20th century, right? Yeah, you are absolutely right. She started a movement. She knew what she wanted to do, and people still appreciate that. And it was beautifully composed. But a lot of people use that perfume and isn't part of the thing about perfume is you don't want to smell like everybody else. But if everybody's wearing it, then we're all smelling like Coco Chanel. I really, I don't have any numbers on that. And I think a lot of people do. But from, you know, people I know, they have their signature perfume. And it may be Chanel number five. But there's this

thing where our skin makes a difference. Different perfumes smell different on different people. Some people can wear florals and they smell great. And on some people they turn kind of sour. And so when you do wear, especially a very good perfume, it blends with your skin and it becomes a little bit more you. We've talked a lot about perfumes, but there are a lot of fragrances that I like, that I'm sure other people like, that aren't in perfumes. And I know maybe they've tried. For example, one of my favorite fragrances is that smell of freshly cut grass and also the smell of the beach. And I know they say they've tried to, you know, bottle that, but it doesn't smell what I think of as freshly cut grass or the beach. What is it? What is it about freshly cut grass that makes it so pleasing?

Small molecules, little volatile that send the message out that the grass is basically being eaten and danger, danger. And it actually communicates to other. So it's a protective smell. And pine trees have a similar smell. And if you've ever been to the Great Smoky Mountains, the smoke in the Smoky Mountains is actually from all the aromatic molecules that those pine trees and the other trees are putting out. Well, I find those fragrances, those scents in nature to be very relaxing and therapeutic, and I'm sure other people do too. So it's interesting to hear about the purpose and the history and the benefits of all these fragrances. Elise Perlstein has been my guest, and the name of her book is Scent, A Natural History of Fragrance, and you will find a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes.

Thanks, Elise. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. I appreciate being able to tell some fragrant stories. How many times have you walked up to your car that's been parked in the hot sun, opened the door to get in, and it's just too hot? You can't get in it. So what's the fast way to cool a hot car down? Well, here's what the experts say. First, you roll down the passenger side window. Then go to the driver's side and open the car door using the door handle. With the passenger side window down, you're ready to create a low pressure area

that sucks the hot air out and lets the cool air in. Then what you do is you open the driver's side door and fan the door. In other words, rapidly push the door towards the car, stopping just short of actually closing it, open it up again, and repeat that six to eight times. Then get in your car, turn on the air conditioner, and roll the windows down a bit, because you know when you first turn on the air conditioner,

it blows hot air. So you roll the windows down, that lets the hot air out, and within a few minutes, your car is nice and cool. And that is something you should know. You learn a lot listening to this podcast, and I bet you know people who would love to learn a lot as well. So please share something you should know with someone you know. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.

In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer,

unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce.

That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.