Human Flower Project
Nightshade Compensation
If you can’t join ‘em, sniff ‘em. A modest proposal for the tomato-allergic.
Annick Goutal’s Folavril, containing tomato leaf
The day came, and a sorry day it was, when we could no longer comport with ripe tomotoes. Grave interior distress three summers in a row had us searching the annals of ayurvedic medicine for some remedy.
“Avoid nightshades” – is one recommendation for the Vata type. (Both tomatoes and tobacco, another plant that’s brought us agony, are in this family, Solanaceae).
We wish we had picked up on that; instead it was the trauma caused by one early summer’s first stupendous tomato that proved informative— and complete recovery once we abstained.
Before this degenerates further, let’s move up several chakra – to scent. If we can’t eat tomatoes anymore, we need not be deprived of the spicy and delicious fragrance of tomato plants, a sensation that takes us way back, behind the old garage, into early childhood.
Flowers and hairy leaves of Golden Tomato plants
Photo: Ann’s Air Gardens
We could grow our own, but the fruit, should we beat the foxes and birds to it, might prove too tempting. So what about a perfume? We’ve discovered that there actually are some perfumes that contain tomato leaf.
This website offers “A Tomato Fragrance Guide” with a whopping 15 recommendations. (Too bad none have names like “Better Boy.”) Several are soliflore colognes, like Demeter Tomato: straight up. Others that sound, to us, more intriguing include Sisley’s Eau de Campagne, Heeley Verveine and Annick Goutal Folavril. Yet others we’ve come upon that reportedly include tomato leaf are Givenchy’s Summer Sorbet, Claiborne Sport (for men), and Hermes’ Un Jardin sur Nil.
Has anyone tried these or any other fragrances with the green prickle of tomato plants? And how’s your stomach?