You Will Never Smell My World the Way I Do

My spouse and child are anosmic (no sense of smell). They are particularly unable to smell ammonia, which means that cat litter boxes and puppy housebreaking are challenges. If only they would believe me when I tell them that they stink.

Very strong sense of taste, smell, hearing and seeing. Beer seems quite sour as does Wine. Alcohol tastes quite bitter. Cigarettes are smoky poison. Seafood - smells spoiled. Most foreign cheeses way, way too strong and musky.

I am convinced that as this millennial generation increasingly relies exclusively on senses conveyed online (ie sight and sound), they are losing out on another world of sensory inputs from smell, taste, and feel. When will they wake up and realize not everything is what it looks like online?

Well, of course! I have the nose of a dog, sort of. I smell and taste things differently than ...some. GET ON with us all being different and embracing it!

The last anecdote about flipping someone's sense of smell cracked me up. I have smelled food that, while I know it was freshly made with high quality ingredients and ultimately tastes great, based on the initial smell I could imagine it as vomit.

I'm delighted to have scientific justification for hating beets, which (to me) taste precisely like dirt. Once at a party I was edging toward the hostess to warn her that some sort of contaminant must have gotten into her brownies... then I heard her brag to a friend that she'd used beets "to sweeten them." She put beets in FOOD??!! I nearly fainted.

I have detested beets all my life--so much so that I vividly remember the first time I ever tasted them, at age 4. I find them almost indescribably disgusting, one of the few things that I can barely bring myself to eat. If I'm served them at a dinner party and it would be rude not to eat them, I choke them down, but it's difficult. Friends have served me roasted beets from the local farmers' market and everyone else raves about how delicious they are--while I'm trying not to gag. I have long suspected that this is a hard-wired difference in how beets smell and taste to different people; my husband says they have a very mild taste, which to me is just not the case. I can smell the asparagus effect in urine; he can't. But we both love good smoky peaty Laphroaig and Lagavullan single malts!

That last paragraph really describes tasting durian fruit which has kind of an oniony smell (to some!). If you tell people to expect a cheese-like flavor and texture, then more people would probably try durian and like it. Aficionados say there are many varieties each with different subtle fragrances. But many articles say durian smells like rotting athletic socks, and so of course most people expect to hate it and do!

I’m a super smeller, and taster. It helps with my hobby of Cooking, for large Family gatherings and Work Functions. Also, the Husband and I are both “ Foodies “ often choosing Trips to try the local cuisine and Restaurants. The downside, of course, is weight control. And like others in the comments, I have an extensive Perfume collection, some bottles are over 30 years old, purchased new. I keep the bottles in a special cabinet, in my dressing closet. Away from light and heat sources. Every dab or spray is a Journey, to the place and time when purchased and worn. My very favorite Vice. Other than wine.

I’ve always been sensitive to the way things smell but three years ago I fell, banged my head, and broke my nose and sustained lots of facial lacerations. After I started to heal I realized my sense of smell had increased—a lot. It’s mostly fantastic but I can barely wear perfume anymore.

This article reminds me of another sense that I have sometimes wondered about: how we experience color. For example, I and another person may see a leaf of Boston lettuce, and both agree that it is the color green...because we were taught that the color we are seeing is "green". But for all we know the color that is registering in our brains might be very different!

We made wine from grapes that were smoke tainted in 2014 from an intense forest fire. Some folks really love it, most do not. Smoke taint smells terrible to me, but there is a group of people who get very excited and love the complexity of the strong pine scent and fire aromas. We warn wine tasters to take a little smell, and if it is not too overpowering, then take a taste. My non scientific sample shows ten percent are very sensitive and will not even taste it after they smell it. Of those brave enough to taste only twenty percent buy a bottle. But those scotch drinkers in the crowd seem to love it. We call it Wildfire. The local volunteer firemen like to buy it to remind them of the Big Fire.

The article mentions taste briefly, but it is intriguing, because I have rarely liked the taste of most alcohol, which tastes bitter and acidic to me. In fact most wines taste increasingly worse with each sip I take (and forget beer), and consequently have left me without an interest in alcohol my whole life, to interesting results. I remember one Italian couple, friends of my sister, extremely offended because I casually declined to share their bottle of wine at the table. In high school I was considered extremely moral or a "good girl" when most of my friends were getting drunk, which actually cost me some friends who decided they'd rather not hang out with someone who didn't party like them (although ultimately a good outcome for me, anyway). Some people have thought I avoid alcohol for religious reasons or because I'm cheap. And then there are the friends who constantly pour me a glass even though I protest, because I don't want to see good wine get wasted. It was nice to get married to a man who doesn't care whether I drink or not. And pregnancy always gave me a convenient "acceptable" social excuse. !

I can walk into a room and smell the awful scent of dill. It is the worst. Unfortunately my family is Swedish so I have to deal with this whenever I go back to visit. I’d rather go to Mexico. Love cilantro.

I despise the smell of celery (which, if I eat it, makes me feel quite ill for the rest of the day). Most people, when they hear that, say "what smell?"

This makes complete sense, as the senses of smell and taste are so closely related for most of us, and we all have our own preferences, some of them very strong. My daughter is anosmic (can't smell) so I belong to an online group for such individuals. I became even more interested when my sense of smell was befouled by radiation for head and neck cancer, and afterward when smell was fine but I lost my sense of taste, which took several years to recover almost fully. It's much harder for those who lose their sense of smell than those born without one. They are most frustrated by their loss of taste as a result of their anosmia. My daughter and her ilk, though, who are congenital anosmics, are perfectly happy with the way foods taste to them. The folks in the group categorize themselves as "congentials," "virals," and "headbangers." Virals lost theirs due to some kind of infection (or sometimes after taking meds for an infection) and headbangers due to head trauma. It seems that virals have a better chance of getting it back; smell training with essential oils sometimes works for them. Steroids work sometimes, but are not a good longterm solution. A recent report has also found that there are smell receptors on the tongue along with the taste ones. I am guessing that they help congenitals develop more refined taste than those in the other group who learned to rely on smell alone. https://www.newsweek.com/humans-smell-tongues-scientists-discover-1404396

A little while ago, I was talking to someone, when somehow the subject of allergies and steroid sprays came up. We discovered that we both had been puzzled as to why one particular spray smells faintly of lilacs. And of course wondered that no one else had ever mentioned this. Maybe they don't smell it?

Several posters below seem to think that this research proves that they really do have the perfect sense of taste or smell that they have always told people they have because the other people couldn't or wouldn't smell or taste things the way they could. Try to realize that no, yours isn't perfect and the "others" aren't defective. Chances are the "others" can smell and taste nuances in things you can't. In fact, it's very possible that all of our senses-- even that of touch-- while, being largely similar to all other humans as compared to say wolves, roaches, or penguins, are nevertheless also slightly or more less different from other individuals to the degree that our inherited or subsequently mutated genetic code creates those differences. It's sad that we don't learn nursery rhymes anymore. Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean, and so betwixt the two of them, they licked the platter clean. Evolution makes all kinds because evolving takes all kinds.

When I was pregnant my sense of smell - already acute - was heightened to the point that the smell of garlic made me ill. I would comment on the intense smell of something and others, including my husband, would say they couldn't smell it at all. Is there a hormonal component to one's sense of smell? I find this subject fascinating and hope there will be a study that includes the effect of hormones on smell.

My husband and I experience the world of taste and smell so differently that this is no surprise to me. He likes a salad that’s half parsley and half lettuce: I have to force myself to eat any raw greens because they all taste like poison. On the other hand, he can’t stand the smell of an unwashed human body and delights in the fragrances that mask that odor; I’d prefer it clean, sure, but the smell of “deodorant” is far more offensive. These negotiations were far more difficult for us before we accepted them as fundamental incompatibilities in how we experience the world.

Years ago, I had a terrible upper respiratory infection and totally lost my sense of smell. I was very disoriented. Losing one of my senses so affected my overall perceptions. I would cuddle up to my husband and I couldn’t smell his familiar smell. Food was tasteless. I felt lost. It got to where I desperately missed the smell of exhaust from a NYC bus! This went on for many months. I took steroids and other drugs. Nothing helped and the doctors said this might be permanent. One day, at a Vietnamese restaurant, I tasted lemongrass in a soup. I started crying. Over time it all came back but it was a terrible time in my life. I really feel for people who have, for whatever reason, lost their sense of smell. I am so grateful that mine came back.

This is not unlike Saffron. For some it is a very stron taste and smell. For others is is just a yellow coloring.

Finally. Evidence. I feel so vindicated on the beets. I tried to hard to like them. I tried all the tricks. It's like a mouth ful of dirt. They are now dead to me. I can stop trying.

This may explain why I can't stand some of the scotch hubby loves. Might as well be drinking a glass of liquid smoke for what I think of it. One thing wasn't clear to me - is the the same mutation or different mutations? I love beats, he thinks they taste like dirt. Age and sex also have a huge impact your ability to smell. If a young woman smells gas, you should probably get it leak checked. If a 60 year old smells it, your house is about to blow up. People can die because grandpa dismisses granddaughter's concerns over the smell.

I think skunk smells OK.

I have heard that many Asians do not like the smell of perfume or at least find it very strong and not pleasant. Me included. Has that ever been studied?

Fascinating piece.Our sense of smell seems as information-rich and nuanced as our vision. Humans may not have the most sensitive or specific sense of smell among other species but we are surely the most sophisticated in interpreting and acting on the things we can smell.

This might explain why many great perfumes contain a "stinky" component. The interplay of all the components pleases our receptors.

One of the smells I enjoy is wafting skunk in the air. How common is that?

That last paragraph re: Parmesan cheese and vomit - I’ve always thought it smelled like vomit; it nauseates me. And now I know someone who refers to it as throw-up-cheese (an adult). Delicious? Not so much.

Mutations aka differences are the essential raw material for evolution by natural selection. One definition of evolution is changing gene frequencies in isolated populations over ecological time and space.

I wonder about the sociopolitical implications of this kind of study. For a political example, can it be explained why some people recognize that the Trump administration stinks to high heaven, while others are oblivious to that fact? From a socio perspective, does this kind of research explain sexual preference, in relation to pheromone perception? If our political and sexual preferences are hard wired, what hope is there for reasoning with the GOP? Maybe about as much hope as there is that the GOP can make gay conversion therapy work.

Yes, for me, beets taste like dirt, and asparagus leaves my urine smelling bad. Here's the odd thing: I used to taste soapiness in cilantro, but now I don't, which suggests sensory adaptability beyond simple genetic traits.

My sense of smell has always been acute, as has my hearing. Most others are either amused or doubting when I complain of sounds or odors they do not notice. I am often aware of odors not noticed by others. Certain sounds, such as that of violins, or the intensity, pitch or volume of music, are actually painful for me. I have attributed this to a hypersensitive nervous system. I could never understand why so many people love Scotch whiskey. It was my first taste of hard liquor and I absolutely hated its taste of something burnt. No other form of alcohol have l avoided consistently.

A big fan of Islay scotch, I remember many times my daughters would ask "what's that awful medicine Dad??" As a wine aficionado, I sometimes delight and am amused by reviews in wine magazines, but understand that due to our 'wiring' we do smell different things in the same wine (or liquid).

Now I get why some people have no clue about what I describe when we're smelling the same things. i thought they just were't paying attention...but now I know it's a genetic physical difference. I think I'm very fortunate that i can smell (and therefore taste?) the complexities of the world around me. It gives me great pleasure.