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.
-=-=-=-
Notes: My apologies to my readers for the lack of @mistress chapter last night. I will make it up to you!
Oh my gosh. Whale vomit! When I read the title, I thought it's going to be about STEEM whales, LOL.
I already don't use perfume very often, but this will make me think about it whenever I see any kind of perfume!
It's like boots n' cats. I will see whale vomit when I see perfume!
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It's called targeted click-baiting. :)
Think of saving the whales! For their vomit, if nothing else!
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Haha, I figured it was targeted click-baiting :P
Yes, save the whales and their vomit!
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dammit!
I got click-baited too, but decided to read on and 'til' also.
Happy to say that I don't (currently) own any aftershave (or is it donkey jizzy for men's perfume?) and so this is an excellent reason not to buy any more, thanks!
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OMG! I'm thinking this falls into the TMI category!
I ran quickly to the site of all the fragrances and am relieved to report I do not now, nor have I ever worn whale vomit!
I was, however, surprised to find a fragrance called "Libertine Fragrance: Sex and Jasmine" - who knew someone bottled that scent? (And with whale vomit no less.)
Thanks for teaching me something awesome for cocktail party conversation. 😘
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You had me in sperm
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Wow I had no idea whale vomit was used to create fragrances, very cool. We need to make sure these majestic creatures don't go extinct
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A refreshing post!
I did know that there is a use to the musk produced from deers glandular secretions but didn't know about whale's vomit and that's really fascinating and amusing me right now!
The whole alchemy of the fragrance industry is also really interesting - I didn't bother checking is, but I do remember most of the companies buy from some central companies that has a man called "the nose" that has an outstanding smell capabilities and can discern between a plethora of smells. I should really Google it, but for now I wrote what i somewhat remember.
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חחח מזל"ט
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Hello @techslut
Kudos to you for nice use of words there. I've been accustomed to Steem Whales, that the first thought I had was that of a whale dropping all his vote on you. And sincerely I was grinning 😀😀, for who doesn't like a whale vomit that is so valuable.
But here, I've learnt about Ambergeris, hope I got that right and how its being used for perfume. I guess it will be safe to protect the whales from going into extinction.
That would be a step in the positive direction.
Keep being amazing, and thanks for informing me on the need and importance of saving a whale.
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Thats right men. Now a days, people doesnt appreciate things until, only when its gone.
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Clickbaiting, unlike whale-baiting, can be useful and helpful to all. :)
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I would change ambergris from being unreasonably pricey to reasonably pricey since you have to kill a whale to get the stuff. Whales are often endangered so maybe a synthetic alternative would be more palatable.
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You can't get ambergris from dead whales. That's the point. You can find ambergris floating in the water or washed up on the beach. And there are synthetic alternatives but not because it endangers the whales, but because it's pricey.
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Ha ha. The price of beauty. in Russia there is a hand cream, it is called Spermaceti. I never wanted to buy it, a terrible name for a cream. Now I understood why he so is called.
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Ambergris never knew this but its so unfortunate that its impact on their population will be immense, considering how greedy todays world is..Endangered the species for vested interests..We can do things for our benefits but i hope they turn to their world and try to save them ,so that we can benefit naturally from thr naturally occuring resources
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I read this somewhere. The vomit itself has some sort of an oil that is used to make perfume. Thanks for the post, now i know what exactly is used for perfumes. Haha
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There's a really good Bob's Burgers episode centered around Ambergris
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5a0gk0
(Watch in 1.25 speed).
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haha and i wondered at the beginning where i have heard and seen the term Ambergis! (Assassin Creed rules)
Also i had no idea about all this especially that it is used in perfumes. this world never cease to amaze me every day and not in a good way...
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In all the hours I've spent on the beach looking for sea glass, I've never been lucky enough to find whale vomit. However, it's on my
chumbucket list.via GIPHY
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Too bad we can't make it out of human vomit, that would be a sight.
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It wouldn't be expensive if thats the case... Haha
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Too bad we can't make it out of cat vomit - it would be a business plan!
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Well, I learned several things about whale vomit today thanks to you techslut ;-) I had NO idea. I'll have to tell my son in the morning. He will love this little nugget!
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Save the whales!
Save the rhinos, too, and tigers!
Not to mention little girls, because some believe raping a virgin will cure AIDS. Where are the schools teaching science and logic and common sense? How could so many people miss the boat on that, and do horrible things to innocent creatures for petty, selfish reasons? eeep! Thank you for the information, Ilana. I had no idea present-day colognes were still made with ambergris.
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That is so interesting. Great descriptive post. Keep on keepin' on. (Including those @mistress posts.)
Joe
@joe.nobel
science fiction, fantasy, erotica
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Interesting article @techslut.... you can include beaver and deer next time they also source of perfume raw material.....
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MMMMM that was some tasty clickbait :) I thought you were making some allusion to whale votes or something of that nature lol
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Trolololololo. :)
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Dear i never new it but you give me amazing information.
I use perfume occasionally because i think men own flagrance is better then perfume but for this you have to clean yourself daily without interrupt bath.
Vomiting of Whale: I am curious to know that how they collect the vomiting of Whale.
I can't even imagine that even Vomiting of something is so precious.
I think i have to get ready my boat for search of Whale Vomiting to become rich. LOL it's a Joke.
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Next time someone I know, puts on designer perfume, I will tell him he/she is wearing whale vomit
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Only now did I know that the perfume I sprayed was most likely to contain a sperm whale thrust cooked (called Ambergris) or a synthetic copy of Ambrox. Thank you for the information @techslut. Let's save the pope to avoid extinction. Allow me to be your loyal reader my best friend.
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Wow I’m actually in shock. I actually learned something today
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I'm getting myself a boat and getting myself some vodka to make the whale barf!
But now for real, it's a shame what we humans are doing to the enviroment, we are ruining it one day at a time , the marine's life population has been consistently decreasing because we humans love to polute and ruin our world...
And the worst part is that we can build almost everything we need without resorting to other species but we choose to go to the source and hunt it to extenction just to have one more perfum, or one more gucci bag, or anything that provides "status" in nowadays society...
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I'm so happy I don't use eau de toilet or after shave or something like that :) hahaha
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My feelings when we chat about it
My Feelings after reading
Good Night!!
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So, on one side, perfumes might be synthesized by using a whale vomit. On the other, the vomit is not actually a vomit, it might be faeces. Now, that's gross. Thank you for the input.
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At least that's whale vomit and not something that would worth killing the whale for. Since that is already a stupid thing to do, yet we still have commercial whaling going on, despite the International Whaling Commission (IWC) act on whaling prohibition.
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Now that was some very important piece of information, thank you for sharing it with the Steemit world!
Luckily I don't use any of those perfumes on the list, but I honestly didn't think that whale products are still being used in cosmetics.. not that I should be surprised though, they do after all still make some shades of eyeshedows from scmushed bugs :P
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