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Recent studies in material religion have shown that both religion and secularism are far from being immaterial ideas, as they both form embodied material realities (Scheer, Fadil, and Schepelern Johansen Citation2019). This should lead us to consider more comprehensively the sensual underpinnings of everyday (religious) experience, including the olfactorial. If we think of evidence as embodied and “the religious” as the extraordinary, disrupting the usual flow of everyday life, as suggested by Meyer ( Citation2014), we will certainly learn much from a deeper understanding of the moral configuration and the affective power of scents and fragrances. Fleeting and ephemeral in their materiality, invisible, yet perceptible, they draw attention not only to the relationality of the material and spiritual worlds, but also to that of the human body. They are transgressive, “intra-active,” in the way that they intrude on our embodied reality and the boundaries we create for ourselves; they may linger on in the form of sensations and may haunt us as the mediators of memories—both nostalgic ones, of long-gone Muslim holidays, and dreaded ones, in the case of Sakine quoted above, of patriarchal structures one would rather flee or change.
Barad, Karen. 2003. “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28 ( 3): 801–831. doi: 10.1086/345321 [Crossref] [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]
Hürriyet. 2020f. “Bakan Soylu talimat vermişti! 25 ilde ‘corona virüs’ operasyonu [Minister Soylu’s instructions! Operation “Coronavirus” in 25 provinces].” March 26. Accessed 17 December 2020. https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/son-dakika-haberler-bakan-soylu-talimat-vermisti-25-ilde-operasyon-41478691. [Google Scholar] Cologne kills bacteria by dissolving their oily membrane and neutralizing their cell structure. Can cologne be used as a mosquito repellent?
TBB. 2020. “Koronavirüs Enfeksiyonundan Korunmaya İlişkin Bilgi Notu. [Information Sheet Regarding Coronavirus Infection Protection Türk Tabipleri Birliği [Turkish Medical Association].” March 11. Accessed 18 December 2020. https://www.ttb.org.tr/haber_goster.php?Guid=574ba56a-637b-11ea-897f-e0b4e354fcf1. [Google Scholar]
by Leyla Yvonne Ergil
Tariş: One of the most reputable brands for olive oil in Turkey also has a respected personal care line that includes over half a dozen kolonya varieties including the more rare fig, olive blossom and green tea aromas and also offers spray bottle options. Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.
The supplier to our shop is Eyüp Sabri Tuncer, one of the foremost Kolonya producers in Turkey, and they export to more than 70 countries. One of their most recognizable products is the lemon scented Kolonya used across Turkey today.
Eau de Cologne or cologne, in Turkish kolonya, takes its name from the German town of Cologne, where it originated as a branded product in the early eighteenth century. It emerged in Western Europe during the second plague pandemic in the fourteenth century, when European alchemists learned how to produce concentrated ethanol by distillation and subsequently developed a number of ethanol-containing healing waters based on aromatic plant extracts from thyme, lavender, neroli or rosemary, whose healing and antibacterial capacities were well-known in the pharmacies of European monasteries and cloisters, where these waters were first sold (Rosenbohm Citation1951). At the Ottoman court, locally produced rosewater was commonly used alongside such scented waters from Europe, which were widely marketed by French producers from the late seventeenth century (ibid., 136ff.). Thus, in his 1855 publication The Art of Perfumery the London perfumer Septimus Piesse already mentions the “Oriental” gesture of hospitality by offering perfumes and scented waters (quoted from Jung Citation2011, 4). Ahmad (or Ahmet) Faruki, an Istanbul resident of Egyptian origin, produced the first local product ( odikolon, later kolonya) in the late nineteenth century, which he sold alongside other cosmetics and fragrances in his own chic boutique in the modern district of Feriköy (Yentürk Citation2015). Another local producer of kolonya was Eyüp Sabri Tuncer, born in 1898 to a Bosnian family, who in the 1920s began selling his lemon-scented fragrance in the new capital of the republic, Ankara (Süngü Citation2020). In present-day Turkey, most producers are micro- and small-scale enterprises that produce kolonya alongside other products such as soaps, washing powder, and, to a lesser extent, cleaning materials and cosmetics (Özey and Çalışkan Citation2018). My father is a pharmacist, and he only sells Selin in his drugstore. I asked him the reason, and he said loves the scents of Selin Kolonya better. Is Turkish Cologne bad for you? This ethanol-based concoction’s high alcohol content can kill more than 80% of germs and act as an effective hand disinfectant… Ingredient-wise, there’s not much difference between eau de cologne and Turkish kolonya. Both use roughly the same ethanol-to-essential-oil ratio and often incorporate citrus oils like orange and lemon. But what makes Kolonya so unique is how it’s used, both culturally and practically.” – The BBC Kolonya (from Turkish: cologne) is a type of perfume. It is a famous product of Turkey, its country of origin. Kolonya is commonly used as a cologne, perfume, or as hand sanitizer. It is sometimes used as surrogate alcohol by poor alcoholics and teenagers, usually resulting in fatal poisonings or blindness. Since 2018 Kolonya contains a bitterant agent. [1] Cheap Kolonya or off brands contains methyl alcohol which is absorbable by skin causing Methanol toxicity, safe Kolonya is denatured with isopropyl alcohol instead of methanol. Sabah. 2020b. “Pandemi sonrası Türk kolonyasında talep patladı [After the Pandemic, Demand for Turkish Cologne Increased].” September 17. Accessed 17 December 2020. https://www.sabah.com.tr/ekonomi/2020/09/17/pandemi-sonrasi-turk-kolonyasinda-talep-patladi. [Google Scholar]
In present-day Turkey, different kinds of scents and fragrances continue to be used in religious everyday rituals, including as substances that support prayer or as stimuli for the transcendence of everyday life. For example, esanslar, oil-based perfumes that are also sold by street vendors in front of large mosques, may be applied to the skin before prayer or to objects of everyday ritual use, such as prayer mats or beads. Locally produced rose water is used in large quantities on ceremonial occasions in mosques and during public events such as political rallies by the ruling AKP party or the opening of mosques ( Cumhuriyet Citation2021). At the same time, scents are part of everyday grooming practices and of the individual’s quest for a clean, pure, sensitive, and sensually attuned body. These attributes are considered important bodily effects of kolonya. Nevertheless, due to its alcohol content, kolonya is certainly not a religious object, firmly placed within the confines of religion. Thus, while alcohol as a substance itself is not prohibited, its consumption as an intoxicating liquid commonly is (Shahab Citation2016, 57). Footnote 2 Liebelt, Claudia. 2019b. “Secular Self-Fashioning against ‘Islamization’: Aesthetic Body Modification and Female Subjectivities among the Secular Middle Class in Istanbul.” In Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions: European Configurations, edited by M.Scheer, N.Fadil, and B.Schepelern Johansen, 109–122. London: Bloomsbury. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] As has been argued by proponents of an anthropology of senses (see Classen Citation2010; Corbin Citation1986; Howes Citation2003), like material objects, sensorial modalities are produced by and with effects on social relations, practices and meanings, operating in distinct ways across time and space. While the kolonya renaissance in Turkey and its diaspora in the early COVID-19 crisis can be linked to various practical reasons, its earlier disappearance is less easily explained. Like Necile, other interlocutors linked its gradual disappearance from Turkish homes and public spaces to the rise of an Islamic movement, which was critical of its high alcohol content; the individualization of Turkish society; or the growing import of Western perfumes and wet wipes, following Turkey’s economic liberalization and inclusion into an increasingly global market since the 1980s. Perhaps most of all, kolonya had suffered a symbolic decline and was commonly associated with elderly persons and as something used in rural or traditionalist rather than urban or cosmopolitan settings. The devaluation of kolonya became especially clear from research with Turkish immigrants and their children in Germany. Appadurai, Arjun, ed. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]Thus, in Muslim history and within Islamic or Prophetic Medicine, scents are endowed with great significance, with good scents being considered media of protection and of divine presence. During the so-called Golden Age of Islam, scholars and physicians such as Ali Rabban at-Tabarī (fl. ca. 805–870 AD), al-Kindī (801–873 AD), al-Masʿūdī (fl. ca. 895–957 AD) and al-Zahrāwī (936–1013 AD), being expected “to have knowledge on the preparation of perfumes” (King Citation2017, 5), ascribed healing powers to particular scents. In his fourteenth-century treatise of prophetic medicine, the theologian and physician Ibn Quayyim al-Jawziyya (1292–1350 AD) lists several scents—including musk, aloe wood, ambergris, and frankincense—as medical substances, stating that perfume (Arab., t.īb) preserves the health, because “it makes the heart rejoice, pleases the soul and revitalizes the spirit” (Ibn Quayyim al-Jawziyya Citation1998, 199). Scents are more generally regarded highly as among the “beloved things” of the Prophet, also functioning as demonifuge according to Ibn Quayyim due to the fact that “[g]ood spirits love a beautiful scent, while evil spirits like an evil smell” (ibid., 200). Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special. Hürriyet. 2020e. “Almanya’da Türk kolonyasında talep patlaması yaşanıyor [In Germany, growing demand for Turkish cologne].” March 18. Accessed 17 December 2020. https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/avrupa/almanyada-turk-kolonyasinda-talep-patlamasi-yasaniyor-41472019. [Google Scholar] Günal, Zeki. 2020. “Ve dağıtımına başlandı! İçinde Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan’ın mektubu var… [The Distribution has been Started! There’s a letter from President Erdoğan in it…].”Hürriyet DHA, April 7. Accessed 17 December 2020. https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/ve-dagitimina-baslandi-icinde-cumhurbaskani-erdoganin-mektubu-var-41488893. [Google Scholar]
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