Victorian jewellery made from hair. Cremated remains compressed into diamonds. The elderly lady in Pennsylvania who lived with the embalmed bodies of her husband and twin sister. Our culture is buried in ingenious methods of preserving the essence of our dearly departed. But the latest balm for the bereaved is just that: balm. Or more specifically, perfume derived from a loved one’s body scent, devised by a French insurance saleswoman grief-stricken at her father’s death.

Katia Apalategui, 52, was inspired by her mother, who treasured her late husband’s pillowcase with its traces of his precious smell. “This gave me the idea of bottling a dead person’s unique scent,” says Apalategui. “So that grieving relatives can keep their loved one’s memory alive.”