sense of smell

Perfume Chat Room, September 10
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Perfume Chat Room, September 10

Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Friday, September 10, and we are seeing many programs about 9/11, with its 20th anniversary tomorrow. A somber date, to be sure. However, I am choosing to dwell on this week’s scientific revelation that hummingbirds do, indeed, have a sense of smell: Hummingbirds Use Sense of Smell to Avoid Danger. We had many visits from hummingbirds this summer, more than we’ve ever had before. I credit my new, cheap feeder that I put on a short stake in the rail planter of herbs on our deck, right outside the kitchen door. My husband claims that he has a magic touch when it comes to making sugar water. Whatever the reason, we’ve enjoyed their visits very much! Those have tapered off recently, I think due to migration patterns.

Who knew that they have a sense of smell? Nature is miraculous.

As previously reported, I have been drawn into a zoning battle with our city on behalf of our neighborhood, so I’m wearing a lot more Chanel No. 19 than usual. I feel it stiffens my backbone. Do you have a scent that makes you feel brave?

COVID-19 and Smells
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COVID-19 and Smells

The New York Times has published an essay by a writer who lost her sense of smell after having COVID-19 last spring; she hasn’t yet recovered it, although many people do (including my daughter, who lost her senses of smell and taste for a few weeks after having the virus this fall but has luckily recovered). The essay is a powerful reminder of how much smells and fragrance affect us: Covid Stole My Sense of Smell. For most of us perfumistas, we take for granted our sense of smell, so that fragrance has become our hobby, but it’s actually a very important part of human perception. I hope the writer is able to regain her sense of smell via the “scent training” recommended by her doctor.

Update: I also just found this article on WebMD about retraining one’s sense of smell: Smell Training Might Speed the Sense’s Return After COVID.

Stay safe, everyone! We have vaccines, but we still need to take all precautions like wearing masks and washing hands, until they are fully distributed and administered.

May Muguet Marathon: Sense of Smell
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May Muguet Marathon: Sense of Smell

This week, the New York Times printed an article called: “You Will Never Smell My World the Way I Do”.  It opens with this statement:

The scent of lily of the valley cannot be easily bottled. For decades companies that make soap, lotions and perfumes have relied on a chemical called bourgeonal to imbue their products with the sweet smell of the little white flowers. A tiny drop can be extraordinarily intense.

If you can smell it at all, that is. For a small percentage of people, it fails to register as anything.

The article is about a newly published research study that confirms what many of us know, i.e. that different people perceive different scents in different ways, and also identifies one reason why that is: our genetic make-up, specifically a single genetic mutation, in many instances. This is a scientific breakthrough, one that the researchers themselves did not expect, according to the New York Times:

The work provides new evidence of how extraordinarily different one person’s “smellscape” may be from another’s. It’s not that some people are generally better smellers, like someone else may have better eyesight, it’s that any one person might experience certain scents more intensely than their peers

“We’re all smelling things a little bit differently,” said Steven Munger, director of The Center for Smell and Taste at the University of Florida, who was not involved in the study.

The scientists who conducted the study looked for patterns in subjects’ genetic code that could explain these olfactory differences. They were surprised to find that a single genetic mutation was linked to differences in perception of the lily of the valley scent, beet’s earthiness, the intensity of whiskey’s smokiness along with dozens of other scents.

Fascinating! And now we know why one person’s Diorissimo is another person’s cat pee. This is also why there is no point in arguing with another perfumista about what they smell in your favorite fragrances; it may very well be entirely, and legitimately, different from what you smell.

Bourgeonal is not the only option available to perfumers and noses, however. It is only one of many “muguet” fragrance molecules, which have to be created synthetically because it isn’t possible to extract fragrant essences from lilies of the valley the way one can with flowers like roses and lavender. Other synthetic molecules used to create a “muguet” scent include: hydroxyc­itronellal, Lilial, Lyral, Cyclosal, Heliopro­panal, and a relatively new introduction from Symrise, Lilybelle. For an in-depth professional article by a Firmenich chemist on the evolution of muguet fragrances, go here: Beyond Muguet. Chemist Mat Yudov also wrote a terrific article about the chemistry of muguet fragrances two years ago on Fragrantica: May Greetings: New Lily of the Valley Aromachemicals.

I’m glad to know that there is a new generation of aromachemicals available to support one of my favorite notes in fragrance, regardless of IFRA restrictions. Bravo, chemists! Do you have any fragrance notes that you know you simply don’t smell? Has your perception of any perfume been affected by that?

Featured image from Fragrantica.