Perfumes

Perfume is used to enhance the physcial attractiveness of its user. Some objects may be perfumed, and the aromatization of foods is closely related to perfuming. Another closely related/practice is the use of incense. Perfume scents, by acting upon the olfactory nerves, stimulate the brain and may induce emotions such as sympathy, love, and physical attraction. Perfumes may be classified as aphrodisiacs. The poetical association of perfume fragrance and love-sickness, in folktale and myth, makes perfume a kind of love magic. Nevertheless, cheap or overpowering perfumes may act as a deterrent. Some kinds of animals have had their populations decimated because they produce substances useful as perfume bases such as the musk-deer, the whale and others. In religious use of incense, whether or not opiates are included, there may tend to be a suggestive, narcotic-like state produced among some of those present.