This week’s guest is Dr. Kate Lister – ‘a history sleuth with a passion for uncovering the wild tales of the past’ who happens to be a fellow perfume-lover. From Kate’s early experiments with perfumes she and her peers dabbed and dabbled with in their youth, through to expressing her personality, and finding fragrances she’s now fallen madly in love with; of course, the conversations took an historical turn…
Among the discussions: what people in the past actually smelled like (did they stink, as many people assume?), the cultural controls over what women were supposed to smell of, why Kate and Suzy have a deep longing to smell like forest witches, and a disturbing revelation of how and why Lysol was first marketed to women…
You might know Kate best from her bestselling books, ‘A Curious History of Sex’ and ‘Harlots, Whores, and Hackabouts: A History of Sex for Sale,’ where she spills the tea on our ancestors’ sex lives.
When she’s not ‘deep-diving into historical hanky-panky’, Kate hosts the award-winning History Hit podcast, Betwixt the Sheets, where she and her guests (including an episode with Suzy on historical fragrances) ‘time-travel through the sauciest and most scandalous stories in history.’
But there’s something else that Kate’s become passionate about – other than her eternal quest for the best red lipstick in the world – which makes us love her even more... In this episode we delve deeper into Kate’s burgeoning olfactory obsession, which she fully admits was Suzy’s fault, as Kate purchased the perfumes Suzy spoke about when she was a Betwixt guest – and as we all know, it’s a slippery scented slope from there.
We think you’ll agree that Kate was an utterly fascinating guest, and we’re determined to get her back for a Part Two! (Once she’s tried even more of the fragrance recommendations Suzy is going to send her. Sorry in advance, Kate...)
Find On The Scent podcast on Apple podcasts here or wherever you download your podcasts – or listen to it and read the show notes on our website, via PODCAST on our menu.
Suzy Nightingale
Are you a regular listener? We know we’re biased, but any perfume-lover who isn’t tuning in on a regular basis is missing out. On The Scent podcast was part of the inspiration for this website (and our magazine): a podcast destination for anyone fascinated by fragrance, or keen to learn more. A place where perfume snobbery is stripped away, and fragrance is accessible to all.
What began as a monthly sniff-in on the Outspoken Beauty podcast soon became so popular in its own right (and with so many listeners sending in questions and asking for more), that On The Scent just had to go weekly – this time on its own perfumed platform! Today, the podcast regularly attracts over 40,000 listeners per show.
Encompassing everything from icons and all-time classics to what’s new on the high street via the more niche indie brands, beauty broadcaster and columnist Nicola Bonn and award-winning fragrance journalist and expert Suzy Nightingale give personalised perfume prescriptions, describing fragrances in such an intoxicating way you can almsot smell them and help navigate the thousands of scents out there to find the truly incredible ones. Also, expect interviews with well-known figures, delving into their favourite scents of all time, and opportunities to get to know some of the most exciting perfumers in the world.
Nicola Bonn
