For the last five years, conceptual artist Cherry Tree has been experimenting with turning her urine into perfume. Her fragrances aren’t on the market yet, but if someone could sell perfume made from poop, why wouldn’t urine be a success, as well?
Cherry Tree, born Charity Blansit, says she’s very passionate about recycling, and since urine is something that gets eliminated, she thought it should be recycled. The idea for a urine-based perfume came to her the morning after a full moon, when she decided to collect her urine in a perfume bottle. At first, the full extent of her project was to collect urine after each full moon. She was fascinated about how the smell of it changed depending on what she ate. For example, she says urine smells very good when you eat honey, and terrible if you’ve had chicken.
The artist took her project to the next level when she decided to ad a little sugar to her urine and turn it into “a real eau de toilette”. Her brother, Jim Blansit, runs a distillery, so after learning how he made vodka and whiskey, he applied the techniques to her urine concoction. Although it had a nice chocolaty smell, probably because she was drinking a lot of coffee at the time, Cherry Tree had to throw away her first batch because she didn’t add enough sugar for it to ferment.
