In nature, the prize may go to methanethiol or methylmercaptan , which is used to give the smell of natural gas and the main component of halitosis, in addition to being present in our urine and feces . But in the world of synthetic molecules the tickets would be taken by one with a peculiar name: US Government Standard Bathroom Malodor (GSBM) . It was synthesized in 2001 by a team from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, United States. It is made up of eight chemicals, but the exact composition is not easy to obtain. Best; there are things that should not fall into the wrong hands.
The smell of this substance is so disgusting that the reckless volunteers who decided to expose themselves to it began to scream and curse within seconds. It is difficult to describe an odor, but it has been tried: ten times worse than feces, to which we add rotten eggs and a rat. This substance is what is used to test deodorants and air fresheners: if they can cover it, they are good.
The mind behind all this is a friendly, easy-going scientist named Pamela Dalton . To do this, he traveled the world looking for the most disgusting odors and analyzing them to discover what were the key compounds that gave him such a disgusting characteristic. From the product of his research, he has made it clear: “It is not something you want to come across in real life.” But Dalton wanted more and shortly after, in 2002, he gave a new twist and created Stench Soup or Stinking Soup, where the GSBM is its main component.
By the way, and as she confessed to the English newspaper The Times , this researcher’s favorite smell is that of diesel emissions. Neither Chanel nº5 nor bagpipes.
