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Imagine extracting the smell of vanilla from manure. A bit skeptical? You shouldn’t be. Japanese researchers have managed to do just that – extract the sweet aromatic smell of vanilla from cow manure [via].

Japanese researchers have succeeded in making the sweet smell of vanilla come out of the last thing people could imagine — cow dung. In a world-first recycling project, a one-hour heating and pressuring process allows cow feces to produce vanillin, the main component of the vanilla-bean extract, according to researcher Mayu Yamamoto.

The vanillin extracted from the feces could be used in products such as shampoo and aromatic candles but not in food, said Yamamoto, who works for the Research Institute of the state-run International Medical Center of Japan.

Could you imagine the ingredients list on shampoo bottles? Would you feel as clean knowing that that vanilla smell was refined from a pile of crap?