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Dr. Pamela Dalton is a chatty, mild-mannered scientist—a sensory psychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia—who just happens to have authored the world’s worst smell. Her client: The U.S. Department of Defense, which wanted a world-class stink bomb, a violently potent, no-kill weapon all but guaranteed to make enemies drop their weapons and run away.
Here’s how Dalton made her Frankensteinian creation, affectionately named “stench soup.”
The Recipe: Research shows that certain smells are hated in cultures the world over. Dalton surveyed the vilest odors from around the globe (fish oil factories, old toilet brushes, etc., ad nauseum—literally) and identified the key elements. Specifically, she focused on two kings of the stench world—rotting corpses and human waste—and recreated them in her lab. To these she added sulfur (that yummy rotting egg smell) and a sweet, fruity overtone. The exact recipe, of course, is a secret—we can’t have Al-Qaeda running around cooking up batches of stench soup, after all—but suffice it to say that the final product smells something like a putrescent corpse lying on a mound of human excrement laced with rotten eggs and overripe fruit. Only worse.
How She Knows It’s The Worst: Dalton tested her smell on volunteers. That’s right—for the sake of science, people signed waivers saying that, yes, they were about to whiff something mind-blowingly, paint-peelingly hideous. Happily, all of the volunteers completed the study uninjured; Dalton says that it’s very unusual for a smell, no matter how bad, to cause actual physical harm.
Why People Love Stench Soup: Once completed, stench soup got a lot of press—and a surprisingly enthusiastic responses. After reading about her creation, hundreds of people wrote and called Dalton to tell her about the God-awful smells that only she, as an expert, would appreciate.
Unsolicited “discoveries” shared with Dalton:
Burning cat poop (This person confided that, in the spirit of discovery, she had actually put her cat’s poop on a lit barbeque.)
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Five pounds of raw shrimp left in a vacation home over the winter
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The fluid excreted by a dog’s anal glands
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“My mother’s basement”
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The socks and underwear of a guy named Gary. Wrote a friend of Gary: “All you would have to do is throw a pair of his socks in the Taliban caves in Afghanistan and I promise you they would come running out.”
(For the record, last year Dalton told The Times of London that her favorite smell was diesel exhaust.)
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Comments (33)
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yeah, anal glands (dog or cat) are the worst. it’s a stench that reeks for days.
posted by Breanne on 1-7-2009 at 1:12 pm
I don’t know what is the worst smell ever, but the worst thing that I have ever personally smelled was a potent cocktail of a 110 degree summer afternoon, a packed cattle lot, and hot asphalt from a construction site. Not pleasant!
posted by Kyle on 1-7-2009 at 1:29 pm
Pig urine (at least I think it’s the urine) is awful. It has this ammonia-like stench that makes breathing difficult. You have to really, really like pigs to run a swine operation.
And I ask this without sarcasm: under what circumstances does one encounter dog or cat anal glands? I’ve had dogs and I’ve had cats, but this is new to me. Is it something that flares up when the get sick, etc?
posted by EV on 1-7-2009 at 1:42 pm
When we lived in Delaware we almost bought a house that we did not know was very close to a chicken farm.
We went out to meet the inspector on a damp day with the wind blowing the right way, the smell hit like a ton of bricks.
Today I live in South East Houston, I am so close to a oil refinery I can see it from my front porch, and the smell does not even compare (although, I suppose it is more likely to give me cancer…)
posted by Witty Nickname on 1-7-2009 at 1:45 pm
I live in Nebraska, which is beef country. When we drive outside of Omaha, there are cattle feed lots off of th ehighways. Boy Oh Boy the smell is definitely repugnant…. it is hard to put into words how powerful the smell is, the smell of methane mixed with rotten corn and decaying wet grass… ugh
Little kid farts are worse, they fill a room like ninjas in a kung fu movie and smack your sense of smell around
posted by Sarah C. on 1-7-2009 at 2:00 pm
Rendered chicken fat stewed in the kitchen sink for a week. Found it the hard way and it was the first time in a long while I had to gag while cleaning it up.
posted by heather on 1-7-2009 at 2:06 pm
Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the morning is the worst smell in the world.
posted by greco on 1-7-2009 at 2:17 pm
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that maggot cheese probably ranks right up there with disgusting smells. Ew.
posted by Jenny on 1-7-2009 at 2:20 pm
For me, the worst thing that I’ve ever had the pleasure to smell is the stench of orange juice that exploded from a gallon jug after being forgotten in a car in the heat of summer for a few days. We had to ride around with the windows down for weeks. Also, I’ve learned from experience that cats secrete a vile smelling compound from their anal glands when they are frightened or feel threatened, much like skunks. I assume dogs are similar.
posted by Mortal Light on 1-7-2009 at 2:58 pm
Kennett Square PA – The self proclaimed mushroom capital of the world. I’m not sure what they use to fertilize these mushrooms but apparently the stinkier the better. On a hot day the smell could gag a maggot.
posted by Robbvs on 1-7-2009 at 3:25 pm
I don’t know but wouldn’t retching and projectile vomiting up your half digested nutrients from the horrible smell qualify as “physical harm”???
posted by TamTam on 1-7-2009 at 3:32 pm
It figures it would take a woman to come up with a way to peaceably force people to put down their weapons.
posted by Gretchen on 1-7-2009 at 3:35 pm
From my personal experience the worst smell I have even come in contact with is the smell of burnt human flesh.
posted by Mel on 1-7-2009 at 3:41 pm
I can’t believe durian didn’t make the list!
posted by Meg on 1-7-2009 at 4:22 pm
The anal gland smell is truly horrible, but the worst smell ever for me is 2 week old chicken sauce, left to “mellow” in the bottom of a filthy sink. I actually vomited while cleaning it up.
posted by StenL on 1-7-2009 at 4:47 pm
I read this article with much amusement, in my Google Reader. I scrolled down three short articles to find one from my local press on the economy.
Try as I might, I couldn’t convince my brain that it did NOT actually say
SOCKS STINK!
(STOCKS SINK!)
posted by PisecoMom on 1-7-2009 at 5:05 pm
My dog has some really stinky farts. He also likes to eat his poo and we can’t get him to stop. That makes his breath stink. We think it’s funny how he’ll fart silently, get up, calmly walk to another spot on the other side of the room, and wait for us to react. I swear he does it on purpose!
But to answer the question, I would have to agree that urine with a strong presence of ammonia is pretty bad. Smelling it makes your nostrils burn. Stinky tofu is pretty bad too, can’t believe people put that in their mouth. I hear durian is bad too but I haven’t had the chance to smell it yet.
posted by CK on 1-7-2009 at 5:25 pm
Yeah, I’ve vomited from my dog’s anal gland juice. My groomer (or I) have to ‘release’ them almost monthly. It basically involves fingering my Boston Terrier’s butt.
I worked for a vet growing up, smelling a dead dog that stayed in a garbage pail for 10 days in 90 degree weather was pretty bad.
posted by cb on 1-7-2009 at 6:09 pm
@EV:
Anal glands are pea to grape-sized sacs that sometimes get infected and some animals have to have them expressed on a regular basis. A lot of times, when dogs scoot across the ground, they’re trying to express their irriated glands. I’ve worked at a vet clinic and I can promise you, it’s a horrible smell.
The worst smell to me is death. Dead animals or animals very near death have a distinct smell similar to anal glands, like their insides have rotted out. That was the hardest part about working at a vet clinic, for me.
posted by Rowan on 1-7-2009 at 6:30 pm
I don’t think anything could top the smell of decaying flesh, but I know one that comes close (for me, anyway) I lived for twenty+ years in a town that had potato processing plants, making french fries, etc. The potato waste is routinely spread on farmers’ fields as fertilizer, and left to rot. I’m gagging now just thinking about it.
posted by Pam on 1-7-2009 at 7:36 pm
If you’ve never turned over a large compost pile, you don’t know what stink smells like.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 1-7-2009 at 7:52 pm
As an organic chemist, I’ve had to deal with some pretty horrible smells in the laboratory. Among chemists, rumor has it that worst smell of them all is thioacetone (the sulfur analog of acetone). In 1889, a small amount of this compound was prepared in a laboratory in Freiburg, Germany. Apparently, people two miles away reported its stench, and part of the city had to be evacuated!
posted by Keith on 1-7-2009 at 7:55 pm
I’m going to have to agree along the same lines as Mel, but slightly one up: gangrenous, rotting human flesh. On a LIVE person. I think it was the situation that made it the most nauseating though. Blech.
posted by Cassie on 1-7-2009 at 8:45 pm
My freshman year of college I came back to the dorm after spring break to discover that one of my hall mates had left cooked chicken in her (unplugged) mini fridge the entire week. I can’t imagine what the smell was like in the room itself, but the entire hall reeked for weeks afterward.
posted by Kelsey on 1-7-2009 at 8:46 pm
I thought I was be the only person in the world who loved the smell of diesel exhaust. This is great.
posted by Eileen on 1-7-2009 at 9:03 pm
I moved from the US to Italy a year ago and I can tell you something that just might actually smell WORSE than ‘Stench Soup’. Really. Want to find it yourself? Go to Naples and get in a car with a dirty windshield. Drive near the center of the city. When a Gypsy comes to your window and offers to clean your windshield for 5 Euros or she’ll go get her ‘friends’, ask to smell her breath. All of your hair will fall out and you’ll faint. When you wake up in the Hospital a week later with your ophactory system removed, call the Dalton woman and tell her the truth…
posted by Kate on 1-8-2009 at 3:21 am
How does Gary’s friend know what his underwear smells like?
posted by NYCGirl on 1-8-2009 at 3:41 am
How about the Bush presidency? That’s stunk like hell for EIGHT YEARS.
posted by Matthew on 1-8-2009 at 6:44 am
Ahhh–LOVE diesel exhaust. One of my fondest childhood memories, walking behind the buses revved up to leave school in the afternoon. If I ever commit suicide, that’s the way I’d wanna go. (Don’t call 911–I’m not going to kill myself).
posted by Happy Smelly Death on 1-8-2009 at 8:31 am
Thanks for the info Rowan. Something I hadn’t heard of (though I’m suddenly reconsidering getting a dog now! I’ll have to consider A.G. problems when selecting a breed — if that’s something they track).
But enough about anal glands — time for breakfast.
posted by EV on 1-8-2009 at 9:30 am
Okay Matthew I just have to say get over the President already! If you people hated Bush so much than why the flip did the population vote for a second term? Besides that’s not a freakin’ smell so you’re not accomplishing anyting.
On that point, the worst smell that I’ve ever had the displeasure of smelling was ester. It smells like vomit and it is STRONG. In my high school lab we needed ester, and not only did it fill the room with that nasty stink for a week, but it spread out and stunk up all the hallways in the area.
posted by Bea on 2-21-2009 at 10:32 am
I too love the smell of diesel exhaust. My dad used to be a diesel mechanic and I loved to go up to his work while the trucks would be running. I could smell that exhaust all day.
posted by Ginger on 2-22-2009 at 4:56 pm
Burning cat poop is definately one of the worst smells ever. Our neighbors burn their cat poop, and the stench lasts for days. It’s horrible!
posted by Molly on 5-19-2009 at 7:57 pm