Bid to market Titanic scent

A company is hoping to market a copy of a long-forgotten perfume found in the wreckage of the Titanic, it was reported today.

RMS Titanic Inc, which owns the rights to the wreckage of the doomed liner, is hoping to make a modern scent from rare perfume oils found at the bottom of the ocean, according to the New York Post.

The oils were lost by Adolphe Saalfeld, a German who was hoping to market the scents to well-heeled American women when he crossed the Atlantic.

He lost the leather pouch containing dozens of vials as the boat sank and he jumped into a lifeboat containing women and children after the so-called unsinkable ship was struck by an iceberg.

"At first we didn’t know what we had," said Dik Barton, a salvage expert with RMS Titanic who made the discovery.

"But when we got to the surface, we could tell it was something unusual.

"There was this strong flowery odour filling the ship. It was an amazing moment."

RMS Titanic is allegedly in talks with a series of big names in the perfume industry, including the maker of Calvin Klein’s CK One scent, to market the product for Christmas.

It is considering calling it Heart of the Ocean after the huge sapphire which Kate Winslet wore when she appeared in the film Titanic.

"The essence oils smell flowery, some like lavender and some like roses," Mr Barton said.

"We are having a chemist analyse them. The next step will be to blend them and make them into a perfume."

The leather pouch was found by a dive team working around the stern of the doomed ship last summer and was marked with Adolphe Saalfeld’s name.

He had been travelling in the first-class section of the ship, hoping to make his fortune on arriving in New York.

But he destroyed his career by saving himself, as the public took a dim view of men who had not gone down with the ship but had survived on lifeboats designated for women and children.

The perfume would be the first copy of anything found on the sea floor off Newfoundland to be marketed to the public.

But anything associated with the luxury Cunard liner is hugely valued by collectors.

Last weekend, a breakfast menu from the ship was sold for £16,750 at auction.

The menu, taken from the liner by passenger Stanley May before he left the vessel at what was then Queenstown, now Cobh, was bought by a US collector.

Also on sale were a postcard Mr May sent his daughter which fetched £5,500, a hymn sheet which sold for £7,000 and a pin cushion bought on board in the barber’s shop which made £36,000.