I'm in my late 60s and just started DE shaving about 4 months ago. I've been afflicted with SSAD & SCAD, buying lots of samples and tubs from BST. Unfortunately, I've begun to realize that my sense of smell has declined over the years. This affects not only my enjoyment of same (from what I read) wonderful shaving product scents, but also affects my wine tasting enjoyment. I'm in a wine group where we do blind tastings, and I rarely rank wines on smell anymore. I go to a winery tasting room, swirl a sample, take a big sniff, and .... not much there.
I do appreciate the scents of some of my soaps and creams. I really liked MW Cedar & Sage and SV Felce when I first got them, and after a while they seemed maybe too much of a good thing. But those are exceptions. Some days the differences between soap scents seem very small to me, and I would have a hard time not only describing them in words, but sometimes even noticing that they are very different (e.g. CRSW American Barbershop & a sample of BM Seville). This problem hit me when I had the pleasure of going to Jermyn St. in London recently. I walked into TOBS and sniffed their tester soaps and creams... boy, I was having trouble deciding which ones I really liked, as they all seemed very subdued. I walked into Loris and a delightful young woman offered me to sniff some soap samples in their wooden jars. I tried to seemed impressed by each of the three scents, but it was like she wave three samples of kitchen granite in front of my nose to smell. I stopped showing any interest in soaps in the shops after this because it was hard to fake a reaction intelligently.
Olfaction is a sense that declines with aging, and other conditions, including environmental ones. Unfortunately, having gotten into DE shaving recently, I'll never know the pleasure that some of the subtle but complex scents that I read about provide. The positive side is that I probably won't find a scent I detest (although I haven't tried Tabac yet). I don't have to be particular about the scents I trade for on the BST. My trade of a Simpsons cream for any CRSW soap yeilded American Barbershop. I absolutely love the top note of citrus in it (at least I think it's there).
I do appreciate the scents of some of my soaps and creams. I really liked MW Cedar & Sage and SV Felce when I first got them, and after a while they seemed maybe too much of a good thing. But those are exceptions. Some days the differences between soap scents seem very small to me, and I would have a hard time not only describing them in words, but sometimes even noticing that they are very different (e.g. CRSW American Barbershop & a sample of BM Seville). This problem hit me when I had the pleasure of going to Jermyn St. in London recently. I walked into TOBS and sniffed their tester soaps and creams... boy, I was having trouble deciding which ones I really liked, as they all seemed very subdued. I walked into Loris and a delightful young woman offered me to sniff some soap samples in their wooden jars. I tried to seemed impressed by each of the three scents, but it was like she wave three samples of kitchen granite in front of my nose to smell. I stopped showing any interest in soaps in the shops after this because it was hard to fake a reaction intelligently.
Olfaction is a sense that declines with aging, and other conditions, including environmental ones. Unfortunately, having gotten into DE shaving recently, I'll never know the pleasure that some of the subtle but complex scents that I read about provide. The positive side is that I probably won't find a scent I detest (although I haven't tried Tabac yet). I don't have to be particular about the scents I trade for on the BST. My trade of a Simpsons cream for any CRSW soap yeilded American Barbershop. I absolutely love the top note of citrus in it (at least I think it's there).
