Dogpatch Press

We don’t do ads at Dogpatch Press. This site isn’t here to grow an audience or even monetized, besides a Patreon tip jar where lovely patrons cover meager costs. (I call it beer money that keeps me writing.) Today, I’m writing just for fun to share the WTF moment I got from an entrepeneurial vision with a whiff of genius.

Furry is a tactile word. Fursuits have the message, “Hug Me”. It’s in the DNA of a fandom, where visual art manifests our fantasy selves. There’s writing and music, but art that evokes touch is a backbone of it all. It’s a world where one of the senses is rarely up front… until now.

Wet dog smell: Now you can get that in a bottle, adorned with uncensored erotica to enhance the tingle. Furry Musk-style scents are the most unusual olfactory products I’ve ever seen. HUFFaromas creates them to delight you, like Bad Dragon for your nostrils.

HUFFaromas on Etsy followed a wildly successful Kickstarter for scents like Boar Pits, Sloppy Foxy, and Werewolf Balls. They’ve recently branched out with candles.

Why is this news? … Just… Why? 

Sign at an anime con.

“Musky Husky” is a running joke in the fandom. The famed “6-2-1 rule” for conventions means 6 hours sleep, 2 meals, and 1 shower a day. Many mock-shock tales have been told about the offending con-goer who clears the crowd after failing to heed the rule. Stories about nerd con funk have made mainstream news and huge views. Yes, it’s nasty to blast people on purpose; but there’s also good humor about gross-outs that don’t kill you. So, fart jokes are funny and skunks make cute cartoons.

Remember, as weird, gross, and silly as this gets, it’s by no means just a fandom thing. Japan has vending machines for used underwear. Even “normies” include lovers of the fetid, fusty, malodorous, musty, noisome, putrid, and rank. Different strokes for different folks; as a mental quirk it’s like appetites for tastes like gamey meat, funky fungus or stinky cheese. And to stay on point, most of them probably aren’t into hygiene disasters as much as they savor the outcome of a healthy workout.

Furries creating synthesized scents should be no threat to anyone’s normalcy. As long as they aren’t fuming you up in a closed elevator while you wilt, turn green and put clothespins on your nose. Please don’t use these instead of showering.

I reached out to HUFFaromas to ask how they came up with this. Howl, the proprietor, sent 1000 words you really needed to know. (Maybe one sniff is worth that much.)

Q&A with Howl (also known as the founder of Thurston Howl Publications.)

(Patch:) Can you tell me how you came up with this… was there a moment that made you say, this needs to be a thing?

Well, actually it was working on the book Sensory De-Tails for Thurston Howl Bound Tales publishing. That book had an interactive component: there were recipes to go along with the taste stories, faux furs to go along with the touch ones, and even perfumes for the smell stories! So I talked with the creator of those perfumes and decided I would try my own hand at it. I was a big musk enthusiast myself and knew a lot of other musk furs. Thought it would be a good project to play around with!

How easy was it to get going… are there challenges for creating unusual perfumes?

It was actually surprisingly easy to get started. I picked up the craft really fast. I’ve always been a fast learner when it comes to self-teaching. I found an amazing artist to help launch the project’s first Kickstarter with, Yagi, and we had a fanbase before 24 hours were over in the Kickstarter. As for challenges, absolutely!

It’s funny to market things that are musky… it reminds me of Jelly Bellies selling gross jelly beans (with flavors like Booger and Stinky Socks). Can you talk about the art of creating scents?

First, scents of any kind are…a fantasy when it comes to my business. If you go to Wal-mart or Kroger, there are candles that promise you Night Air, Beach Stroll, and Winter Woods. But like…you can’t smell night-time. You can’t identify salt by smell. And snow also doesn’t have a scent! All of these businesses aren’t misleading people though; it’s just that they combine scents they personally associate with those feelings and images and manage to package them together in one unifying experience. That’s a lot of what we do!

So, no, I haven’t bottled an actual person’s sweat and turned that into an essential oil. I have not boiled semen to get the perfect aroma. I’ve just found scents in the essential oil world that I find comparable, and for a lot of people, the fantasy works beautifully! For some, ironically, usually the sharper-scenting people, the perfumes have very distinct ingredients they can identify, and the illusion is broken for them. I’ve had opposite critiques for the same perfume: “This is too subtle; it’s not like real musk at all” and “Wow, this is too strong. I can’t imagine ever using this.” One of those different folx, different strokes things maybe. But at any rate, people in general are loving the scents, and the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. But still those rarer cases are still a tough challenge to navigate.

Another challenge has definitely become materials actually. We get a lot of our basic packing materials and supplies from Amazon and Etsy. And like…spray bottles you can buy in bulk affordably always seem to have negative reviews about leakage. And sure enough, our most negative reviews have been about leakage. But unless we find an industry-grade sealer for bottles or buy some absurdly expensive bottles and jack our prices up like crazy, I’m not sure we will ever fully get rid of the problem; just alleviate it a little bit.

Have you had any weird accidents or things you wouldn’t sell?

It’s been crazy trying to envision how to make some scents a reality. At this point, I’ve fine-tuned the difference between a cum smell and an ass smell, and armpits versus under-balls. It’s been fun and funny! Any weird accidents or things I wouldn’t sell? Not really. I’d say one of our starting models has been one of the toughest, Boar Pits. I’ve modified that damn thing three or four times at this point, and it’s still the most mixed-review of the scents. There are some overall favorites, like Daddy Steel’s Jockstrap, Jino’s Jockstrap, Koopa Fireballs, and the new Dingodelicious Ass.

What’s it like behind the scenes… who are the team, and is it being successful?

Behind the scenes, not too much interesting happening! I’m the marketing person and creator of the scent recipes. I make each individual order. My husband, Weasel, handles all the packaging and shipping. Yagi and Negy are our main artists currently, and they’re doing phenomenally. What’s surprised me most has been the steady fucking sales on this. I never would have expected us to get almost daily sales and have two very successful Kickstarters under our belt. Never would have expected it. You know me, Patch. I was doing publishing for years. Got a book sale every other day or so maybe, and that was with having over fifty books in the catalog. But I launch HUFF with three starting scents, and everyone wants a bottle. It’s night and day in comparison. At first, I actually took is as a bit discouraging: as if I was that much of a failure as a publisher. But the support and praise HUFF has gotten has just been so uplifting and encouraging that I couldn’t imagine not doing it at this point.

Have you had any weird reactions?

Weird reactions? Absolutely! As I said, your mileage may vary. Some people smell the oddest things when they get a HUFF scent. Generally, people say we got it on the nose (pun intended), but we’ve had people say that a scent that smells like someone’s ass smelled too floral, and I used zero floral essential oils for that. It’s not that they’re crazy for that! It’s just that there’s sometimes no predicting what a person will think they smell. The art and branding helps guide what a person thinks they smell, but that can only go so far!

How would you attempt to explain this to a normie if they ask about it?

I have explained this to a few normies actually. The way I start is by explaining that some people really like and are attracted to certain smells. Especially in the furry fandom, where an alternate “fursona” is part of your worldview, engaging an extra sense can help with that too. Get a HUFF your-character-here commission, and you can SMELL like your fursona. Or if you wish your boyfriend’s balls smelled a bit more like wet dog, get our Werewolf Balls scent. Or if you want to be clean but still have a musky deodorant, try our Boar Pits. Or if you just wish you could have the Daddy Steel’s underwear in your face at night, just spritz some of his scent on a clean pair of underwear, and you’re good. These scents do a lot of different things for different people.

Are you aware of any comparable things for sale… does this exist in the non-furry world?

Eh, I’ve seen some….themed perfumes out there yeah, and they’re similar to us in terms of composition: essential oil blends. But I haven’t come across a musk-focused company, no, even outside the fandom.

Should users be worried about getting chased by packs of coyotes if they wear this outside?

I mean….if you’re using our Sloppy Foxy scent in a place where coyotes could smell it, hopefully you’re wanting to be chased by packs of them 😉

Am I missing anything else to ask about?

We have had murrsuiters send in sweaty underwear for R&D on their scents 😛 And we just launched candles!

Thanks to Howl for helping make a spicy story. Smell ya later!

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