New company creates fragrances from dead celebrities' hair

(AFP)

MyDNAfragrance.com offers scents based on hair samples of deceased personalities.

According to the New York Daily News, the Los Angeles-based company uses clippings provided by celebrity hair collector John Reznikoff for its "very scientific" procedure, even though it remains a "secret" how the famous DNA finds its way into the bottle.

"I can't go into our secret process, but we base the fragrance on the genetic code," Dr. Diva Verdun of MyDNAFragrance.com told the paper.

A visit to the website confirms that Verdun has developed scents for everyone from cinema freaks to history fans. 'Obvious' choices include the actress Marilyn Monroe, and singers Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson - but how about enemy of the US state John Dillinger, absolutist French Queen Marie Antoinette, or Tarzan impersonator Johnny Weismuller? Or, even more bizarrely, who really wants to smell like baseball player Joe di Maggio?

However, Verdun says that personalities' original bad body odour won't feature in the actual fragrances."I did a little research on Elvis, and he actually had really bad body odor. So we don't want to clone him in any way or create a fragrance that actually smelled like him," she is quoted in the article.

But what do these perfumes actually smell like? Descriptions on the website leave you clueless, as does this one about the 'Michael Jackson' scent: "M is an exclusive one-of-a-kind fragrance that explodes into an indescribable fragrance, which seemly draws the attention of every person in the room," it reads.

"It is composed of the lightest, but most volatile essences. Much like the performer himself, this cologne is unique and like no other cologne in the world." At least about that last one, Verdun should be right.