In 1961, Piero Manzoni created created a piece of art called "Merda d'artista" which was composed of 30gr of net freshly preserved poo (his own) in a tin.

Fast forward fifty years later, and we have this: hipster extraordinaire and artist Jammie Nicholas has turned his own poo into perfume ... and selling 'em!

Enough of this shit. So, to your perfume – how’d the idea come about?
I was reading a book by the French writer Dominique Laporte called The History Of Shit, which analyses the theoretical and social implications of faeces, and its role as a building material for cosmetics. It suggested that pleasant smells were used to cover bad smells, so it could be suggested that a bad smell could be used to cover pleasant smells.

Isn’t that an incredibly obvious thing to base an art stunt like this around?
Well I did some research and spoke to perfumers and scientists involved with smell at molecular levels. I learnt that there are molecules that are common to both good and bad smells – for example, the smell of faeces and many white flowers, such as orange blossoms and juniper, are from the molecule Skatol. They’re just there in varying concentrations.

Link - via I Heart Chaos