What drives the felines wild? The intoxicating aroma of Calvin Klein’s Obsession, according to zookeepers in the UK.
A recent shortage of perfumes, which help to soothe the sometimes aggressive animals, has lead the Banham Zoo in Norfolk, England, to make a public plea for donations of scented sprays. Zoo managers say their lions, tigers and leopards “respond very positively to unique scents when sprayed in their enclosures.”
And while just about any fragrance will tickle their whiskers, the big cats of Banham have a particular preference for Obsession: “For some reason Calvin Klein perfume is a huge hit with all the big cats,” animal manager Mike Woolham told the BBC.
Banham’s cats aren’t the only fierce felines with refined olfactory palettes. Back in 2010, the Bronx Zoo tested hundreds of fragrances and found that Obsession was the favorite among their cheetahs. Last year, hunters used the same cologne to capture a human-hungry tigress in India. And, at the nonprofit Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro, North Carolina, their tigers also tend to prefer the signature “CK” smell, whereas leopards love lemon scent, and the ocelots go for Axe body spray, according to a 2018 AP report.
The musky Obsession, which debuted in 1985, contains notes of citrus, bergamot, vanilla and sandalwood, among others fragrances, and has been referred to as “sex in a bottle.”
According to experts, Obsession-obsessed cats are attracted to a commonly used pheromone called civetone. Derived from the anal glands of the civet, a vaguely cat-like mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa, Iberia and South Asia, the olfactory chemical has been a crucial ingredient throughout the history of perfumery — though now a synthetic analog is used in the interest of animal welfare.