Who is an expert in fragrance?

September 24, 2012 8:02 PM

Many fragrances either smell wrong to me (the "raspberry" shampoo I use that smells sort of like fly spray to me), or worse, "light up" different parts of my mouth and tongue, and I can almost always taste them (from only smelling). Who can I talk to about this? I asked a hobby perfumist about the effect one of her fragrances had, but she had nothing to offer. Where do I find a scent scientist?
posted by thylacinthine to science & nature (25 answers total)

You might want to look into synesthesia, which your experience sounds a lot like, at least for the smell/taste connection.
posted by NoraReed at 8:15 PM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Are you talking about chemical fragrances and artificial flavorings? Because they often smell off to me, too. I think this is not that unusual.
posted by Sara C. at 8:16 PM on September 24, 2012

Could you clarify what you mean? As NoraReed says, it almost sounds like synesthesia (a blurring of two senses). I have color/grapheme synesthesia, and I'd be happy to describe the sensory experience in more detail if it would be helpful. But as Sara C. says, it sort of sounds like you're just describing the artificiality/unpalatability/general oddness of chemical fragrance. If you clarified further, we might be able to give more advice.
posted by UniversityNomad at 9:02 PM on September 24, 2012

What do you want to talk about? Given the science of olfaction, your experience is actually fairly normal, as 'flavor' is just an illusion created by what your nose detects as well as what compounds alight on your tongue and press a few clumsy buttons. When you inhale, you are actually bringing particles into your nose, and if you keep the passage to your mouth open, you'll taste them too. If you've ever seen chefs evaluate a sauce or soup by wafting the steam toward their noses while keeping their mouths open, this is what they're doing. It's not necessarily anything unusual.
posted by Miko at 9:05 PM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

You might dig up some stuff on/by Luca Turin. He's a biophysicist specializing in scent and has some potentially interesting things to offer. (TED Talk)
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 9:18 PM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, good suggestion, Turin wrote this book The Secret of Scent which is popular in our perfumaniac household. Chandler Bur's The Emperor of Scent, which is in part about Turin, is pretty interesting too, from a pop-journalism point of view, but covers some of the science really well.
posted by Miko at 9:22 PM on September 24, 2012

I don't totally understand what information you're seeking but you might be interested in Jay Gottfried's lab that studies the neuroscience of olfaction: http://www.neurology.northwestern.edu/faculty/gottfried/about_lab.html
posted by feets at 9:32 PM on September 24, 2012

Many fragrances smell wrong to me. Cheap synthetic fragrances are often horrid, and they're everywhere. For me the answer is to use unscented products as much as possible, and use only high-quality fragrances that I truly love. Not one perfume in a hundred is worth wearing. The best household fragrance is home-cooked delicious food.
posted by artistic verisimilitude at 9:39 PM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I apologise for being unclear.

I am talking about (many) synthetic fragrances. I don't like synthetic flavours, either, but they taste unpleasant, as in "that strawberry flavour is very fake", which is not exactly what I mean with the artificial fragrances. They don't smell "unpleasant" or "fake" they actively don't smell like what they are supposed to smell like, and I don't taste the flavour that corresponds with the scent: I smell the synthetic fragrance, and I can vaguely smell what it is supposed to smell like ("strawberry" or "berry tangerine") but the taste in my mouth, which lasts for days is pure chemical burn, in different parts of my mouth, including the palate, and different areas of the palate, as well as different parts of my tongue. I get headaches from them too.

I don't think this is synathaesia, I think this is more to do with the chemical compounds the fragrances are made of, and I was hoping to find a way to narrow down which of those compounds are the ones that make me feel weird (so I can avoid them!) Annoyingly, some artificial fragrances are fine, and don't bother me at all.

I have this problem with high end (perfume house) fragrances as much as cheapie "fruit bubble gum" type fragrances (in fact, many of the expensive ones are much, much worse), so I don't think it's a matter of quality or expense, it's just the compounds.

I'll read and watch the suggestions, and thank you very much for them.
posted by thylacinthine at 10:12 PM on September 24, 2012

it sounds like you might have some sort of allergy
posted by saraindc at 12:52 AM on September 25, 2012

I have addressed this with my ENT, who is also an allergist. She says there is a rising prevalence of people who have physical reactions to the synthesized fragrances used in household cleaning products, grooming products and, sadistically, tissues and toilet paper. Reactions range from "tasting like petroleum," to the feeling that you actually have a chemical burn.

So yeah, this is a thing.

FWIW, most "high-end" fragrance houses are synthesizing parts of their fragrances now, because scarcity and demand have pushed many natural fragrance products out of the price range of the mass market. Price is no guarantee there at all.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 3:41 AM on September 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

To everyone else - I don't think this is synesthesia; I think you all may be responding to how thylacinthine said that things "light up" different parts of her mouth. I believe that was metaphorical; taste and smell are already very closely connected, and I don't believe she was saying she actually sees things light up.

Thy - I would talk to an ear/nose/throat specialist or an allergist, especially if this is something that is only starting for you now as opposed to something that's always been there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:17 AM on September 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Taste and smell are very closely linked. Tasting smells is totally normal and synthetic fragrances not smelling like what they're supposed to smell like is also very common. (ditto synthetic flavours not tasting right - bacon flavour crisps taste nothing like bacon and strawberry ribena doesn't taste like a strawberry has been anywhere near it)

The chemical burns/headaches sounds like allergies
posted by missmagenta at 4:26 AM on September 25, 2012

Yes, halfbuckaroo has it right.

Chanel No. 5 is famous for being fancy and posh now, but when it first came out in the 20's it was famous for being the first synthetized high-end fragrance.

Quality and expense, for perfumes, don't correlate with naturalness. I can actually deal with crunchy granola scented cleaning products (Mrs. Meyer's, Seventh Generation) better than I can deal with almost any perfume.

Nthing that this is an allergy, and that it's not terribly rare.

You should do what I have done and just stop trying to wear/enjoy/test out perfumes. If it's beyond "ewwww nasty" and into giving you headaches and a burning sensation that lasts beyond a few moments, see an allergist for sure.
posted by Sara C. at 4:58 AM on September 25, 2012

they actively don't smell like what they are supposed to smell like

Often, synthetic scents DON'T smell much like what they're marketed as. You're normal, just sensitive, I imagine.
posted by windykites at 5:24 AM on September 25, 2012

It might be less of an allergy and more of a chemical sensitivity. Do you have any reactions to paint or gasoline fumes, like VOCs? Headaches, dizziness?
posted by Specklet at 5:33 AM on September 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

the taste in my mouth, which lasts for days is pure chemical burn, in different parts of my mouth, including the palate, and different areas of the palate, as well as different parts of my tongue. I get headaches from them too.

Sounds like a matter for a doctor, not a research scientist.
posted by Miko at 5:57 AM on September 25, 2012

Re: Mrs. Meyer's, it does contain synthetics.
posted by Miko at 5:59 AM on September 25, 2012

(citing)
posted by Miko at 5:59 AM on September 25, 2012

Anecdata: I used to work near a small laboratory where they synthesized artificial scents (for larger industrial uses, not perfume). I'd know what they were working on because they'd work on the same type of scent for a couple weeks, so it'd smell like buttered popcorn for a month at a time ... but some days it smelled like chemicals vaguely reminiscent of buttered popcorn, and other days it smelled deeeeeelicious but with an undertone of chemicals, and other days it made me gag and gave me headaches and I couldn't eat buttered popcorn for several days after. I know exactly what you mean about being able to "taste" it. Which I didn't get the chemical burn sensation from the factory (though I do from some scented cleaning products), the chemical scents would sometimes interfere with my sense of taste for several hours after exposures and my tongue would taste sort of numb.

The other folks in the office and I would disagree about which ones smelled the most real and which were overwhelmingly chemical-y; different chemicals in the scents just hit us differently and were perceived differently by us.

I don't have a solution for you other than "avoid artificial scents." You could probably collect which scents bother you and don't, and start narrowing down by ingredient list, and then see what they had in common. But if you avoid buying scented products, you'll avoid 80% of the problem (especially since more workplaces have "scent" policies these days).
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:43 AM on September 25, 2012

Several papers here by Dr. Anne Steinemann.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:51 AM on September 25, 2012

I think artificial scents and flavorings often don't smell/taste like what they're supposed to. As a kid I hated the taste of real cherries but I loved artificial cherry flavoring, like in a slushie.

I think that smell and taste are so closely related - you need to smell to be able to taste, to some degree - that smell-taste synesthesia probably doesn't exist. I think it's common to kind of taste something you can smell. Synesthesia related to those senses would probably be more like smelling and tasting a word, or if you smell (say) roses you see the color blue.
posted by IndigoRain at 8:04 AM on September 25, 2012

Regarding the advice to avoid specific fragrance ingredients: this will be much harder than you think. Fragrances are made of varying combinations of ingredients from a list of thousands of different chemicals, and the makers of body care products are not required to list these specific chemicals on their labels, at least in the US (instead they may use the generic term "fragrance"). The Environmental Working Group has more info here, and they also maintain database of skin care products with safety ratings (including information about fragrances) that I have found helpful.
posted by Jemstar at 9:39 AM on September 25, 2012

I work for a nonprofit that specializes in the chemical senses. I'm not a doctor and can't give medical advice, but I do have the somewhat unique perspective of having worked in a clinic for people with smell and taste disorders. Maybe I could help point you in the right direction?

The most common cause of distorted smell/taste (troposmia) is a decrease of functioning olfactory neurons brought on by any kind of upper respiratory infection. Even a simple cold can screw you up. Your olfactory cells usually replace themselves though it could take time (up to a year or so). It's possible that you have some decreased smell sensitivity due to a past URI but are still smelling the more prominent chemical-y elements of a fragrance. The chemical-y elements often have an effect on your trigeminal nerve, the facial nerve responsible for feelings of irritation (for example the burning you feel when you smell bleach or ammonia). it's a different pathway than your sense of "smell" so you might have a loss of sensitivity in your smell but not in your trigeminal perception.

Of course I'm not diagnosing you, that's the most common explanation I can think of. It's something you can discuss with your doctor. It could be other things, here are some questions I would answer and telll the doctor if I were going to get treated.

1. Have you recently (in the past six months to a year) had an upper respiratory infection (cold, sinus infection, etc). Can you correlate your smell weirdness to any kind of URI?
2. Do you have any history of chronic sinus irritation (allergies, sinusitis, stuffed nose, etc).
3. Is your mouth dry/sore, and/or do you have any change in actual taste (perceiving sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami). For example do you have a bitter or metallic taste in your mouth?
4. Do you wear dentures?
5. How would you rate the burning on a scale of 1-10 in terms of painfulness/interference with life?
posted by Katine at 10:06 AM on September 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Heaps of interesting and useful answers, thank you so much. I'm seeing a doctor this week, so I'll bring this up there too, but in the meantime, I think I must just continue to avoid them as much as possible. Thanks!
posted by thylacinthine at 5:56 PM on September 25, 2012