Classics

Perfumes Inspired by Dead Writers

Amanda Nelson

Staff Writer

Amanda Nelson is an Executive Director of Book Riot. She lives in Richmond, VA.

dead writers perfumeFalling down the Etsy rabbit hole is one of my internet-ish weaknesses, and upon one of these bottomless falls I came across this Dead Writers Perfume, which is made with “black tea, vetiver, clove, musk, vanilla, heliotrope, and tobacco.” The combination reminds me of an old, worn book and maybe a dude with a dusty velvet jacket using a feather pen to write an opus, and I got to wondering what perfumes based on individual dead writers might look like. A few ideas:

Ernest Hemingway: Salt water, rum, coconut and lime, cigar smoke, Spanish wine

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Gin, citrus, oak (prep school, amirite), in a champagne-flute shaped bottle with gold flecks in it

Jane Austen: Darjeeling tea, snowdrops and pansies (flowers from her garden), meadow grass

Dorothy Parker: Whiskey sour, vanilla, mandarin, white musk

Edgar Allan Poe: Poppies, absinthe, sandalwood, and mold

Flannery O’Connor: Church incense, soap, vanilla, ginger

Jack Kerouac: Cigarettes, cheap beer, unwashed youth, patchouli, car leather

the Bronte Sisters: Heather, sea air, vetiver, primrose, black tea

Louisa May Alcott: Fir tree, red currant, blood orange, coffee beans

Tolstoy: Vodka, musk, black tea, black peppercorn, cedar

Sylvia Plath: Freshly washed linen, vanilla, daffodils, lavender

Margaret Mitchell: Musk, magnolia, tea, sugar, gardenia blossoms

Dickens: Cloves, tobacco, patchouli, brandy water, river water

Anne Sexton: Vodka martini, tobacco, lemon verbena, peppermint

 

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