Disoriented you enter in, unleashing scent of wild jasmine
July 27, 2012 12:42 PM Subscribe
Honeysuckle and jasmine smell identical to me. Is there a good reason for this? Like...science?
So it's well-documented that things smell different to different people - there's no real way for me to explain to you what bread, Chanel No.5 or roses smell like to me, because I don't know what might be different. (If there's research done on this point please do point me to it.) By well-documented, I specifically mean perfume. Some people love it, some people hate it. Miss Dior Cherie smells like sweaty popcorn to me, but I smell it everywhere so obviously it doesn't to others. Reviews of perfume indicate that everyone who is used to scent enough to recognise notes will often reference different ones. (Example - and although there's no violet at all in Mitsouko, it smells of parma violets to me.)
So is there a reason why these two plants smell the same to me? Either:
a) my nose isn't developed enough to really distinguish the two, leading to me asking 'is that honeysuckle?' when it's really jasmine. However, I can distinguish, say, rose and tuberose or carnation or gardenia very easily. I might well get ten answers of 'smell the same? Are you nuts?'
b) biological - are they from the same family, and so would have similar properties much in the same way a King Edward and a Maris Piper both taste like potato?
c) molecular. In Luca Turin's book The Science Of Scent, he went through the molecular structures of scent molecules explaining how they differed structurally and what that means when it hits the nose. There was no information on jasmine and honeysuckle, but it made me wonder if they have similar molecular properties?
So it's well-documented that things smell different to different people - there's no real way for me to explain to you what bread, Chanel No.5 or roses smell like to me, because I don't know what might be different. (If there's research done on this point please do point me to it.) By well-documented, I specifically mean perfume. Some people love it, some people hate it. Miss Dior Cherie smells like sweaty popcorn to me, but I smell it everywhere so obviously it doesn't to others. Reviews of perfume indicate that everyone who is used to scent enough to recognise notes will often reference different ones. (Example - and although there's no violet at all in Mitsouko, it smells of parma violets to me.)
So is there a reason why these two plants smell the same to me? Either:
a) my nose isn't developed enough to really distinguish the two, leading to me asking 'is that honeysuckle?' when it's really jasmine. However, I can distinguish, say, rose and tuberose or carnation or gardenia very easily. I might well get ten answers of 'smell the same? Are you nuts?'
b) biological - are they from the same family, and so would have similar properties much in the same way a King Edward and a Maris Piper both taste like potato?
c) molecular. In Luca Turin's book The Science Of Scent, he went through the molecular structures of scent molecules explaining how they differed structurally and what that means when it hits the nose. There was no information on jasmine and honeysuckle, but it made me wonder if they have similar molecular properties?
An answer is c, molecular.
Jasmine:
"The fragrance of jasmine is characterized by 'jasmonoid' compounds... They are also found in other flowers, e.g. gardenia."
Honeysuckle
"Moreover, a number of jasmonoid compounds are important for the honeysuckle fragrance, e.g. methyl jasmonate, epi-methyl jasmonate, jasmone and jasmin lactone"
That is to say some of the important organic compounds that make up the smell of jasmine (though not all) are some of the components (but not all) that make up the smell of honeysuckle.
posted by mountmccabe at 1:12 PM on July 27, 2012 [2 favorites]
Jasmine:
"The fragrance of jasmine is characterized by 'jasmonoid' compounds... They are also found in other flowers, e.g. gardenia."
Honeysuckle
"Moreover, a number of jasmonoid compounds are important for the honeysuckle fragrance, e.g. methyl jasmonate, epi-methyl jasmonate, jasmone and jasmin lactone"
That is to say some of the important organic compounds that make up the smell of jasmine (though not all) are some of the components (but not all) that make up the smell of honeysuckle.
posted by mountmccabe at 1:12 PM on July 27, 2012 [2 favorites]
It is irrelevant if they are related or not. You would have to compare the major molecular compounds in the headspace and make some calculations to predict similar or nor similar scent.
posted by yoyo_nyc at 1:17 PM on July 27, 2012
posted by yoyo_nyc at 1:17 PM on July 27, 2012
Response by poster: I'm not a scientist, as you may have guessed. I just wondered if there was an explanation.
posted by mippy at 4:09 PM on July 27, 2012
posted by mippy at 4:09 PM on July 27, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jquinby at 12:50 PM on July 27, 2012