Christian Poincheval is a charmingly eccentric Frenchman with an innovative new product that I cannot believe has not already been mass produced. Poincheval claims he has invented a pill that actually perfumes your flatulence to smell of roses, violets, chocolate, or ginger—there’s even a version for farty cats and dogs!
We were at table with friends after a copious meal when we nearly asphyxiated ourselves with our smelly farts. The gas wasn’t that great for our table neighbours. So something had to be done about this. You can disguise the sound of a fart but not the stench.
I can’t find a lot of credible reviews of Poincheval’s Pilule Pet (one reviewer claimed they reduced her gassyness so much that it was impossible to truly test for smell), and to be honest, his whole vibe doesn’t exactly scream “scientific innovator,” but for about $35 you can get some weird old French guy’s novelty fart pills—a value at twice the price—and that should frankly be seen as a bargain. (I just feel like he’s living the sort of life that deserves patronage.)
A recent profile of Poincheval confirmed his bohemian credentials; he moved to Paris as a teen, where he met his wife Évelyne, with whom he formed a fairly successful nine-piece “gypsy jazz” band that played all over France. Évelyne and Christian still play music sometimes, but the couple has mostly retired to a small town in rural France, where Christian creates whimsical sculptures and invents from his modest cottage. Poincheval is a bit of a French celebrity, first gaining attention for inventing a toilet paper with news articles printed on it. His projects are all sort of thematically irreverent and charmingly childish, and I think the fart pills (whether they work or not), fall into a sort of Duchampian absurdist tradition.
Below you can hear Poincheval sing the song he wrote for his fart pills!