The Significance of Smell

I’m fastidious about all things olfactory. Coffee shops make me happy with strong smells of my favourite brew, Christmas brings with it spicy scents of baking and plum pudding, and winter in general, my favourite season by far, smells more divine than the first rain. Call it what you will, there’s just no getting around it. I may be afflicted with a year long cold, to the extent that I feel almost incomplete if I can breathe freely and don’t need a tissue, but for all those who get my drift – there’s nothing like smell to make your head turn. Nothing at all.

Of all the senses that I have, and use, in many ways, I think I treasure most, my sense of smell. Oh, I know, if push comes to shove, and I were given an option, I may not always have the luxury of giving up sight, or sound, but in the absence of such a choice, I have to say, that few senses bring me as much pleasure as does my sense of smell. Take for instance the coming of winter – something that I’m convinced, those with a keen nose can sense - there’s a scent in the air, unlike any other – it’s spicy and cold, and unmistakable. It whispers with promise, and tempers the surroundings with wonder and awe – winter brings with it a year’s end, and a year’s beginning, and how much more promise can you ask for?

But let’s put aside the musings about weather. Let’s talk instead about the uniqueness of personal smells. Of my three relationships, I’ve been fortunate enough to date two guys, who smelled divine – always. This post isn’t about anything as unsavoury as odour, really – it’s about how much more attractive someone can seem if they smell good – how much I, in particular, would be willing to overlook if the guy took the trouble to make an effort.

I always find it intriguing, how people’s faces change, over time. How someone who you might find incredibly good looking, becomes less breathtaking over time, if they don’t match their looks in terms of intelligence or personality. In a fitting corollary, those who may not strike you in particular, take on shades of attractiveness as you see them everyday - they become better looking, their features more remarkable, their faces somehow more attractive. In a convoluted way, I’d overlook a lot, if I were to be given the option – smell great and look okay, wins hands down over looks great and smells – well okay.

So, it brings me back to this. When my sense of smell is intrigued, when my nose is happy, I’m far more impressed than my eyes are. Guys, who smell good, in all ways that are important, hit my list way up there. And boy do the manufacturers of men’s aftershave and perfume know what they’re doing – have you smelled some of their creations? No doubt you have. But everyone is unique, in the smells they conjure up, and smell, has one of the longest memories.


There are smells that can transport you back in time, to another place, another era, another time, a past love, faster than a dream or a bout of yearning, closer than a song, or a catch phrase. 


Try as you may to forget, your nose remembers what, or who,  your eyes no longer see. How's that for irony?