Smells of the City

Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash

I accept this is going to be an exceptionally niche post and it’s also a bit ‘soap box’. You’ve been warned.

I was born and bought up in London, though apart from a brief spell back home in my early 20’s, I have lived in the country from the time I went to college.  I’ve always had sensitivity to odours. Apparently, as a toddler I would go around sniffing stuff. I’m fairly sure it embarrassed my parents.

For much of my childhood, we used to have an annual trip to Oxford Street, in London, to see the lights and do Christmas shopping. I would always complain that the fragrances in the department stores we visited gave me a headache and was always told not to be stupid.  I also commented on the smells of the train, the cars and the people, but the department stores were always the worst; the heady mix of scents being sprayed onto wrists and the clashing perfumes on the girls selling their wares and their customers.

It wasn’t until I was at college that I was diagnosed with migraine, the cause narrowed down to a combination stress, tiredness and irregular eating patterns.  There were other triggers, such a flashing lights - even the sunlight filtering through trees as you drive - and scents: anything from perfume to loo cleaner, fabric conditioner to air fresheners and of course, perfume itself.  The list is not exclusive. It’s mostly artificial fragrances that create the problem, although natural scents are not without issue. Strong essential oils in products, lillies and hyacinths all cause me problems.  Depending on the strength of the fragrance and molecule parts per million in the air, I can get anything from a mild headache through full blown migraine and even breathing difficulties. Those pump air sprays in public loos are one of the worst offenders.

I was used to city smells and used to people smells. When I moved to the country, there was a whole other panoply of aromas to digest and catalogue: farm smells, sea smells, forests and animals, to mention but a few.  I enjoyed the new discoveries and the general lack of artificial scents I was subjected to. For a while it was heavenly. Things change of course and over the years people have become smellier! Pretty much everything is scented: hand soap, deodorant, aftershave, shampoo, washing up liquid, washing liquid, conditioner, room sprays, cleaning products and of course, perfumes.

Did you know that our noses become overwhelmed within 10 minutes of detecting a smell? We also build up a tolerance to smells we encounter routinely, so much so that perfume wearers rarely notice that they already have yesterday’s spray or dab of scent on their hair, clothes and body. Combine this with all the other scented products and you have complete overload. Most people regard this as ‘normal’ but for me it is anything but.  As someone with a sensitivity to scent molecules, I can taste as well as smell them, so it often affects my enjoyment of food too, if I’m in a restaurant and the staff and patrons are perfumed. If the chef wears scent it transfers to the food.  I’ve tasted many items over the years tainted by artificial fragrances: bread wrapped in an fabric-conditioned tea towel, chocolates made by people with scented hands, dishes and pans washed in scented washing liquid, not properly rinsed, are some examples. At catering college we were discouraged from wearing fragrances, but this no longer seems to be the case.

A number of studies have shown that fragrance compounds can cross the blood-brain barrier - a protective layer of blood vessels and tissues surrounding the brain - and interact directly with receptors in the central nervous system. In sensitive people, like myself, this can cause a variety of reactions ranging from migraine to joint paint. The concern is that it might also cause changes and problems in other less sensitive people, people who may not be aware of what is causing their symptoms. The issues could be more widespread than currently understood.

Hyperosmia  (a heightened sense of smell) is both a blessing and a curse, but in this world where the ‘Lynx’ effect is king and companies spend billions in persuading us we need to smell of anything other than our natural selves, it is more often a negative.  Even away from the city, restaurants, cinemas, shops and offices are all highly scented with competing aromas which impact a small percentage of the population adversely (estimates are 1 - 4%). I know someone who is so badly affected that they can end up in hospital as a result of artificial fragrance inhalation.

I’m not going to get the world to give up its fragrances or stop the personal care product manufacturers from using fragrance to cover the bland or unpleasant smells of their products, but maybe you could think for a few seconds before spraying that air freshener or scent bottle.  If you went for a few days, a week, without fragrances you would notice how much of it is about in the world.  And eventually your olfactory senses would become more sensitive, so that you notice the other smells in the world too. Fragrance does not eradicate bad odour, it simply masks it, whatever the commercials would have you believe. And not all natural smells are bad smells that need to be covered up. Personally I would much rather smell your dog or your cooking than an artificial air ‘freshener’.  If you open your window sometimes, your home will be so much fresher.

If anyone else is fellow-sufferer, do feel free to comment. I would also be interested to know if anyone who doesn’t suffer from sensitivity to fragrances has come across this.