I’m sometimes told by customers in the process of selecting a piece of soap or a candle for purchase, that they often lose their ability to detect a particular Fragrance especially after smelling a few different lines. Sometimes, they even suggest I’m not putting enough Fragrance in my products, which is not the case at all!
There are a number of factors that could be at work here. While some of us have a very keen sense of smell, others have a lesser ability to detect Fragrance. Anyone who is ill, has a cold or is suffering with sinus can also have a diminished ability when it comes to detecting Fragrance.
In the past you may have noticed when you first sniff a Fragrance, that’s when you receive the strongest burst from it. When you go back for a second or third sniff, that Fragrance may seem to have diminished somewhat.
When you light a scented candle in a room, have you ever noticed after a while you cant smell it?
This is because the olfactory receptors become saturated by that Fragrance, and then you have trouble detecting it, but if you leave the room for a short while and then return, all of a sudden , you smell it again.
Sometimes the brain can trick you into believing a Fragrance isn’t what it should be i.e. If I gave you a green colored Candle, and didn’t tell you what Scent it was, would you suspect it was a Mint or lime candle? When you smelled the Candle and found it was Vanilla, your brain would probably go into overdrive and tell you, there was something quite wrong about this candle.
There are many reasons for being unable to detect Fragrance, from having a faint sense on smell, to an illness affecting your ability or the intrusion of a conflicting odour, to your brain tricking the senses or just Fragrance overload to name a few.
It’s interesting to learn about the things that can sometimes interfere with our senses. Something to keep in mind next time you feel there is no Fragrance evident, when you believe there should be.
It seem everyone has their own unique level of Fragrance Perception!