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If you’re looking for a fragrance with a story (a real story, not one concocted by a marketing team), your search may be over. In 1960, perfumer Raoul Pantaleoni created a perfume for a Smell-O-Vision movie called Scent of Mystery, which was emitted into the cinema to indicate the presence of an elusive character played by Elizabeth Taylor. The film was a flop — as was the ahead-of-its-time concept of a scented movie — and the fragrance was lost to history. Until now.
Marissa Zappas, an indie perfumer with a cult following and a reputation for concocting cerebral pop-culture-inspired scents, has re-created the fragrance for “Her Scent of Mystery,” an exhibition at Manhattan gallery Olfactory Art Keller. The show, which was co-curated by MIT assistant professor Jas Brooks and Tammy Burnstock, director of the 2020 documentary In Glorious Smell-O-Vision!, showcases artifacts from the film, including the only known sample of the original scent, which would have been sold commercially by fashion house Schiaparelli had the film not bombed. Fans of cinematic ephemera will definitely want to check it out — and vintage fragrance lovers can pick up a bottle of Zappas’s perfume, which may be one of the rarest scents on the planet.
For decades, it was believed that all samples of the fragrance made for Scent of Mystery were gone. The one that sparked the idea for the exhibition was found on eBay by Susan Todd, daughter of the film’s producer Mike Todd Jr. (his father, Mike Todd, was Taylor’s third husband). Although the fragrance had oxidized and lost its top notes, Zappas was able to use chemical analysis — and a surviving formula written by Pantaleoni — to determine what it smelled like in 1960. “I felt intimidated at first because there were ingredients in there that I had never even heard of,” says Zappas, “but it turned out to be very seamless. I got it right in one try. It made me feel like, Wow, Elizabeth Taylor always has my back.” Zappas collects memorabilia of the star and even has tattoos of her eyes on her forearms. “This project was like a gift from the cosmos,” she says.
Photo: Rebekah Delaney
This is a photo of a one-off bottle priced at $1,400.00. The perfume, though, is available for pre-order below.
Champagne and hairspray, flowers and talcum powder. In other words, it smells insanely glamorous — like something you would find on the mirrored vanity table of an Old Hollywood film star. It opens with a burst of aldehydes — the same effervescent molecules that make Chanel No. 5 seem to leap out of the bottle — along with citrusy bergamot. The body of the scent, Zappas says, is “a spicy floral composition with rose and jasmine,” and the base is earthy oakmoss “with a slight burnt-tire note.” Although she cleaved closely to the original, she added some modern musk to round it out and breathe life back into it. “My intention was to make it just slightly more wearable,” she says.
The effect is reminiscent of many famous vintage perfumes. “One of my family members compared it to Caron’s Narcisse Noir, while perfumer friends noted echoes of Miss Dior, Lanvin’s Arpège, and even Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds,” says Brooks. Like those perfumes, it is heady — and it leaves a long trail. This is a perfume that announces your presence before you enter a room and doesn’t allow anyone to forget that you’ve been there. It’s a power perfume worthy of Liz herself.
The film’s novelization described the character who wore this perfume as “the girl at the far end of the rainbow.” This is a perfume for people who can’t resist that kind of description. It smells like a time capsule, so it’s probably most likely to appeal to the same person who would rock a vintage ball gown to a party. It’s definitely not an everyday perfume, but it would be a knockout secret weapon for those occasions when it’s essential to make an impression. Plus, it’s a collector’s item.
Her Scent of Mystery runs at Olfactory Art Keller until September 20. The perfume ($54) is available to buy there and also online.
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