Season 8, Episode 19: Dr Kate Lister – Favourite Fragrances and Scented Scandals

We couldn’t do better than quote our brilliant guest Dr Kate Lister’s own bulging bio: ‘a history sleuth with a passion for uncovering the wild tales of the past. You might know me from my bestselling books, “A Curious History of Sex” and “Harlots, Whores, and Hackabouts: A History of Sex for Sale,” where I spill 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. You can listen to that episode here: https://shows.acast.com/betwixt-the- sheets/episodes/cleopatra-to-jane-austen-perfumes-of-powerful-women 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, our conversations took an historical turn. Among our 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 we have a deep longing to smell like forest witches, and a disturbing revelation of how and why Lysol was first marketed to women. 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... Dr Kate Lister’s Fragrance List: Body shop Dewberry Calvin Klein CK Be Gap Grass (the original) Gap Heaven (the original) Rook Forest Histoire de parfum Encens Roi Histoire de Parfum 1968 Wales Perfumery Celtic Perfume Discovery Set Le Labo Santal 33 Stora Skuggan Sylphium Suzy suggested: Andrea Maack Coven (and has a whole list of other suggestions to send Kate) Kate’s favourite novel: Perfume: Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind Suzy also suggested Kate read Smells: A Culturial History of Odours in Early Modern Times by Robert Muchembled And Suzy also insisted that Kate (and anyone equally fascinated by the science and history of our sense of smell) attend next year’s IFRA Fragrance Forum, which you can find out more about in a forthcoming blog feature at https://www.onthescentmedia.com/ You can watch videos of previous IFRA lectures on their website: https://www.ifrauk.org/fragrance-forum-2025