this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Petrichor (mander.xyz)
submitted 22 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 130 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Wording is funky. To clarify:

The rain smell is due to a compound called geosmin. The bacteria that produces it is Streptomyces.

When I taught microbiology lab, I would grow a petri dish of Streptomyces during one particular class and have the students smell it

[–] [email protected] 71 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (5 children)

You mean.... You can ... Bottle up petrichore ??? How come is there no wide range of perfume/candle/lotion and whatnot?

Can I make it at home, if so, how would I go about it with everyday items? Can streptomyces cause health issues?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

There's like an indian family/company that's been making some hiqh quality petrichor perfume for idk at least 100 years, probably several hundreds, if not a thousand or more idk.

I forget what it's called you can probably look it up with perfume pertrichor india

[–] [email protected] 10 points 15 hours ago

They might've been making it for 10,000 years for all I know. I don't know shit.

[–] WolfLink 53 points 20 hours ago

There absolutely are petrichor scented things

[–] [email protected] 12 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I've never smelled the stuff but apparently the smell of rain is something people try to bottle.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/smell-of-rain-kannauj-perfume-mitti-attar-india

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

That's the romanticized, traditional Indian cowshit mix trying to approximate it. (Not doing a disparaging stereotype here, that's just literally how the article says they make it.)

I'd be surprised if it actually contains the compound we're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

i Kind of doubt it. in a video i saw if the process they were using hardfired bricks. i don't believe any organic compounds would survive the heat.

(dung might be a better term for what you were referring to. i seem to remember that because of the way they feed their cattle the dung has a very high fibre content which makes it a good source for building material. it's nowhere as gross as the diarrhea like consistency we get from cows in Europe)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 19 hours ago

I'm nothing close to a chemist but I love watching chemistry videos.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 20 hours ago

Well the smell of rain is actually petrichor, it just has a combination of geosmin and ozone and other chemicals that make that smell.

Geosmin on its own is just a part of it.