The Complexity of Our Sense of Smell

I was recently listening to a podcast on "A Way to Garden" with Margaret Roach entitled, The Scentual Garden  by Ken Druse; take note of the spelling of scentual, it is intentional. In this podcast, Ms. Roach speaks with the author who had found a deficit in the descriptive terms used for scents of flowers/plants. He stated that even in flower catalogs you will most likely find the word "fragrant" to describe a flowers scent and sometimes there is no description.(Druse) Mr. Druse states that we have so many words for colors but with fragrances we "often have to use analogies." (Druse) He goes on to talk about primary scents and secondary scents and how he came up with twelve categories of scents for his book. It is a very interesting podcast. I am including links to his book and the podcast. A Way to Garden Podcast and The Scentual Garden by Ken Druse

So why is our sense of smell the overlooked middle child of our senses? In March of 2021, I lost my sense of smell for six months due to Covid. I never realized how important that sense was until I lost it. I had to ask my family members what the new fragrances I had bought for my soaps smelled like. Since everyone's smell is a little different, I got all different answers. Over the months I tried to "reawaken" my olfactory receptors by smelling everything! I realized the many layers of a single smell and realized when one of those layers was missing. It was very strange to smell herbs and spices like oregano and curry, and smell "something" but not the oregano or curry that I had known for my entire life. The experience made me appreciate the wonderful gift of being able to smell all the good (and not so good) scents around us. It also sharpened my ability to pick out different notes in fragrances because I was concentrating on them more.  This helps when choosing a fragrance for my soaps. When choosing a fragrance oil, I try to pick ones that smells very similar to whatever it is trying to recreate and not have any synthetic "after-scent" to it.

So, to get back to the question, why do we often overlook our sense of smell? The answer is, I don't know...? I encourage everyone to pay more attention to all the scents that surround them everyday and all the many layers in that scent. Be it the herbs and spices you use to cook, the flowers in your garden, or your favorite fragrances. Here is a COUPON CODE, Treat Your Senses! so you can give it a try on my soaps! Enjoy!

Gina💗

Fragrance oil recreating the scent of a pear.

Chamomile is the fragrance recreated here.