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Home / SmellyBlog / Tagged: Sense of Smell

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Nonscents

Septimus Piesse

I've been dragged without prior consent into one of those stilly twitter wars. With a non-scentie, of all folks. I realize this is part of the aftermath of being on national radio, and if you are doing something unusual, there has to be someone out there that is out to get you and direct all sorts of life frustrations towards you without you even triggering anything intentionally.

Consequentially, this turned into an opportunity to educate people about the sense of smell, and break some ridiculous myths that so many uneducated people who either look down at this sense, or erase an entire realm of experiences from their life simply by ignoring this sense. My frustration with this attitude is not new to the perfumer. Here is a quote from Piesse's book, originally published in 1857:

"Of the five sense, that of SMELLING has been treated with comparative indifference. However, as knowledge progresses, the various faculties with which the Creator has thought proper in his wisdom to endow man will become developed, and the faculty of Smelling will meet with its share of tuition as well as Sight, Hearing, Touch and Taste" (G. W. Septimus Piesse, "“The Art of Perfumery”).

Some of the statements and assumptions that came up in that weird twitter dialog:
1) That all perfumes cause "allergic reaction" - which is not actually true. Just because you have a reaction, does not mean it's an "allergy". Sneezing does indicate allergy. Headaches, however, do not. Even respiratory symptoms that sometimes people experience are often emotionally induced. I  truly only wish there was more research done on that. But because perfumes are made from such a vast array of substances, it has become a common practice to just give those reactions an umbrella name such as "allergies" because no one can argue with you when you return something to the store (or the kitchen) claiming it gave you an allergic reaction. Saying that you "didn't like it", however, may not reap the desired results (full refund, or a new dish made for you). The most commonly reported reaction is headaches - which is not an allergic reaction at all, but technically a stress response of the body. If you're overwhelmed by a scent (either because of overdose in your environment, or because you have a negative association with smells in general or a particular scent in particular) -  your scalp muscles may tense up, which in turn creates a headache. That's how most headaches occur - sometimes because of direct life tensions (work deadline, fighting at home, or subconscious tensions that we're not aware of their origin - which is most likely what scent triggers in some people). Migraines are a different thing, but still have more to do with the nervous system rather than anything to do with autoimmune (which is essentially what allergic reactions are). And a lot of people call a very strong headache "migraine" even when it is not.

2) Speaking of negative reaction to scents, tension and psychology: I long argued that the "allergic" claims of antiscenties has more to do with a Pavlovian reaction to smell, rather than the smell itself. If someone is programmed to feel that perfume is dangerous (either by coincidence, i.e.: if they had a negative experience associated with perfume overload; or a stimuli-and-reaction-association with a particular scent tied to a negative emotion) - they will understandably react negatively to perfume - either to particular ones, or in general.  I've mentioned this here in the past, if you want to read more about it. There is even scientific work finally published about the topic (and I hope more will come). I will be also particularly curious to see some somatic healing work done using scents as a tool to overcome trauma. Not just as traditional aromatherapy, using the healing properties and pleasant smells of essential oils, but also going deeper into why someone reacts so negatively to a certain perfumes (or essential oils). Uncoupling those stimuli from the negative outcome (headache, anxiety, etc.) would be a particularly freeing experience for people whose origin for smell-suffering is emotional, and just like in healing traumas in other modalities - can have an incredibly positive effect on many other areas of their life.

3) That perfumes were developed to mask body odour. Now, the concept of body odour as a negative thing is actually a rather new and culturally dependent - mostly Western in nature. Perfume began with burning incense, used in both healing and spiritual practices (the shamans knew all along that the body, mind, spirit and soul are one and operate together), and were utilized in many ways to create a bridge between the physical world and the spiritual world. And even the first alcohol-based perfumes in Europe (which the complaining twitterer was maybe referring to, although I doubt they are educated enough on the subject to really know) - although functioned as an ancillary product (instead of bathing) were the cure-all Aqua Mirabillis. They were not only designed for disinfectant/hygienic purposes, but also for healing and tonic taken internally.

4) Questioning my personality and/or morality, because I dared asking that person what smells in real life they like (still waiting for an answer). I think that shows more about the lack of listening/reading skills of that commenter, and also their extreme, automatic bias to the topic. The pattern of thinking here is an illogical series of assumptions: "perfume is bad" and "perfume has a smell", therefore "smell equal perfume", and the conclusion is "anything that has a smell is bad". By "bad" they mean unhealthy, toxic, allergy inducing, unsafe, etc. All of which is putting a very big generic conclusion on a vast number of substances that have different origins, behave differently and have different effect on people, both emotionally, mentally and physically.

Smelling Through Your Fingertips

A Captured Moment with my Grandson

A fascinating BBC article (with a photo of what first looks like very hungry pairs of multi-fingered hands) about scientific findings about the sense of smell left me quite philosophical. Researchers discovered that scent receptors that are supposedly responsible for our sense of smell are not unique to the olfactory bulbs. The same type of receptors were found in the kidneys, heart, lung, gut and even in the tiny blood vessels in our skin!

The scientific implications of that are a better understanding of the interactions of various environments in our body, and how these work together to reject and eliminate toxins (as is done in our blood-filtering organs, the kidneys), pushing away foreign objects from our airway systems, and work in harmony with the the colonies of bacteria in our digestive system, are just among the discoveries described in this article.

These are fascinating discoveries, and I'm certain that down the road (and perhaps not that far from now), there will be some applicable medical and technological uses for this fascinating discovery. At the same time, to me personally this is yet another layer of knowledge that only confirms what I've been learning throughout my perfumery work and my personal experience with the sense of smell and how it relates to emotions.

The part that truly hit home for me is that these "smell receptors" are really chemical-sampling cells (which is how we've evolved from single-cell organisms like amebas to the complex creatures we are now), and their job is not limited to the brain (which the olfactory bulbs are part of). It makes sense to me just in the same way that we experience emotional pain in our brain like physical pain; and in  extreme emotional pain, it will be felt in the body as well, as if every fibre of one's being, to the last skin cell, is achingly tortured. How we interact with our environment has everything to do with how we evolved to be an interactive part of our environment. Emotions, smell and the tactile world are connected because this is how we "feel" life. Unlike the "higher" senses of sight and sound, these are very "hands-on" senses, that require a direct contact with a surface or a substance to be experienced, and that's what the cells or receptors need to be activated.

Our environment is not only external but also internal. So it only makes sense that we sense inside our bodies, and not just form the outside. Taking into account the internal milieu of emotions, it only makes sense that when we feel sad, angry or scared, there will be a change of chemicals in other organs besides our brain - the taste in our mouth becomes bitter when we are terrified, so why won't it became sour (perhaps) in our bellies when we are angry? And how much of our interpersonal interactions are actually through sounds (words and tone) or visual (facial expression) and how much of it really is all about the chemicals we transmit through a handshake?
It seems to me that even with not very intimate relationships, the experience of smell and touch that accompanies them communicates a lot more through this ability to "sample chemicals" from the environment. We can communicate a lot more through a handshake and the subconciously-perceptible scent we are emitting when we are feeling sad, happy, angry, disgusted or scared.

I'd be curious to hear what aromatherapy practitioners think about this. We already know that essential oils absorb readily through the skin into the blood stream and find their way with ease to the organ that needs healing. Do you reckon that the smell receptors in our skin and other organs have anything to do with aiding this process? And what about anosmiac people? Do they have less smell receptors in other areas of their bodies, or smell receptors that are less effective? My mother has a rare syndrome whose one of its symptoms is susceptibility to lung infections, and one of the unfortunate side effects is anosmia. Reading in this article the role this smell receptors have in assisting the cilia in the lungs to identify foreign bodies in the lungs and rid the lungs of them makes me wonder what happened first - the cilia's dysfunction, or does it have anything to do with smell receptors?

Monkey Monday: Living Through The Nose

My vanilla bean jar broke, and so I had to find another jar... While transferring the bundle of moist beans, their robust aroma clung to my fingers. For hours, I could smell a rich, balsamic, slightly woodsy scent emanating from my fingers. Vanilla is a unique aroma in that it purely positive, always recalling grandma's baking and similar homely comforts and overall goodness. It's hard to think of a way to kill vanilla for me, definitely not the pure extract or whole vanilla beans. But as I was living with vanilla on my palms for nearly a day - I could also smell a hint of what I found disturbingly reminiscent of indole: That substance which is more commonly associated with ripe bodies, human feces and (more positively) jasmine and other heady white flowers.

Idole naturally occurs in a number of things, ranging from bonito flakes, butter, fish, egg, malt, tobacco and rum to white flowers such as jasmine, narcissus and ylang ylang. I'm still not finding much literature suggesting it occurs in vanilla (save for one place that suggests using it in vanilla flavouring) but that's what my nose tells me. 

The disturbing discovery that the eternally comforting scent of vanilla, that single scent with no negative association, might actually contain the controversially-scented molecule of indole made me realize how much I have grown to literally live through my nose. I assess - and immediately cast judgement - on anything I encounter in my life based on scent alone. And this is not restricted to food and beverages alone: I sniff out anything and anywhere, as long as I can breathe in it: dwellings and living spaces, banks, clinics, street corners, corner stores, pharmacies - you name it. I've always been that way, tending to visit friends more often if I like the scent of their home... And I could literally smell danger in my house - i.e. the mood change of my family members - just by smell alone.

After making perfumery my profession - this has become even "worse" of course. I notice every detail when it comes to scents and smells around me, which I personally enjoy most of the time. But sometimes I wonder if it might come across as obsessive or irrational to the "normal" people around me...

The other side effect of being very scent-concious is that a lot of "nice" commercial scents that I used to like or at least enjoy getting a whiff of are losing their mystique once I become acquainted with some of the modern day molecules that dominant them. Scents can seem a lot more alluring when you don't actually know what's in them... On the other hand, my appreciation of more subtle (and more often than never - the purely natural) goodies from tea and wine to fine fragrances has increased ten fold since I began strolling this path. I can now enjoy the muskiness of ambretolide that's whispering through scents containing ambrette seed essences - including some of the more subtle of my own creations (i.e.: Kinmokusei), which now I can enjoy their complexities much more than before. The ionones, which before were only a guess of what they were and how they behaved are revealing more of their beauty to me, including in some of my favourite oolong teas. I can sense the bracing spiciness of clove's eugenol peaking through the innocent looking ylang ylang. And, apparently, I can discover indole in my kitchen.

Have you experienced a heightened awareness related to the sense of smell in daily life that was surprising, disturbing, mind-opening or just plain delightful? How does the sense of smell change your daily life?

Post a comment and enter to win a decant of the ambrette-seed laden No. 18 by Chanel (part of their Les Exclusifs collection).
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