Sweet Jesus, That Smells Great!

Every single thing about this is bizarre. Every little part of it. Or, perhaps you could say, every detail, since God is in the details, especially the super-unique detail of choosing the "Papyrus" font for your marketing collateral.

A few delightful incongruities:

"The natural oils of Virtue(R) blend with the wearer's own body chemistry to form your own signature fragrance. Uniquely beautiful and definitely unforgettable, it places the wearer in an ancient world of senses, enduring and timeless for over 3,000 years," says Vicki Pratt, IBI's president.

So, technically speaking, Earth is 6000 years old, right? Apparently, IBI's crack in-house team of forensic anthropologists determined that human body odor took semi-divine form about halfway in.

No one has ever done this before in a perfume - developing a fragrance that reminds us of our, sometimes frail, conscious link to God.

Um: I beg to differ.

Now it's time to get Biblical on our virtuous, sweet-smelling behinds:

"Biblically, fragrance was associated with Christ and many of the saints; including last century's Padre Pio, who gave off a fragrance that was associated with virtue," explains Larimore.

You know, biblically speaking, Padre Pio (1887-1968) must have had one timeless personal scent, if he managed to slip into the pages of a 2000-year-old document. I need to read Revelations again, I guess.

While researching ingredients, Pratt and Larimore turned to the Scriptures to investigate a substantial list of Biblical items. Modern scholarship revealed the true nature of those items, not originally translated correctly.

In research, the IBI team discovered that the "apple" of the Bible was not likely the "forbidden fruit." Native apples did not exist in the Holy Land in ancient times. Scholarship has long since revealed the likely candidates were pomegranate or apricot. The references in the Bible to the apple tree say it offered shade and its fruits were sweet tasting, fragrant, gold in color, resting amongst silvery leaves - indicating apricot, one of the most plentiful fruits of the Holy Land. The apricot essence - the last ingredient of Virtue(R) to have its technical difficulties resolved - brought a unique twist to the perfume's purpose.

"Because Virtue(R) was created to remind the wearer to feel God's spiritual presence throughout the day, it's especially fitting that the 'forbidden fruit' is now the prime top note for reconnecting to His spirit," says Larimore. "In a subtle turning of the tables, apricot now assists as a simple reminder of our Divine associations and spiritual intent."

a) I'm no Bible scholar, and I have no problem believing that "apple" isn't the best translation, but I'm not certain that we all agree that "Garden of Eden" and Israel are the same place, and I'm pretty sure the forbidden fruit business went down in the Garden of Eden.
b) So, to "reconnect" to God's spirit, we should rub our human failings in his unconditionally-loving face by spraying the one thing he really didn't want us touching all over ourselves.
c) I'd say the "unique twist" to the perfume's purpose was established when they decided to make a perfume that smelled like God. Apricot essence is just along for the ride.
d) Finally, I like that they just decided to roll with apricot over pomegranate on a hunch. Or because apricot essence was easier to come by than pomegranate. (Have you seen the cost of pomegranate juice at the grocery store? Great for your prostrate, through. Antioxidants. God would never forbid us from keeping the oxidants down.)

Initial product testing in 2005 at Barney's New York in Beverly Hills showed that 95% of those tested - male and female - loved the fragrance. Typically, 30% or better "likeability" is considered a success. Initial users of Virtue(R) report that the fragrance is not only a great reminder of God, but layers beautifully with other fragrances.

95% seems like a lot, for anything. You couldn't get 95% of people in a random poll to say they "love" cookies. People love cookies. 95% also sounds a hell of a lot like 19 out of 20 people, most likely hand-selected. Perhaps the only options on the questionnaire under "How do you feel about Virtue?" were "I love it" and "It smells like dead raccoons."

Orange County, CA-based IBI was formed in 2005 as a niche fragrance company. It will introduce a Biblically based moisturizing lotion soon.

I can't wait. If only IBI had been around when they were writing Leviticus.