Training your nose for scents?

[StratMan]

Hi guys, i would have to say my nose is as basic as it gets. Prior to joining this forum i had never even considered trying to smell out the scents in a soap or fragrance, i just smelled it and if i liked it i bought it.. that is the extent of my though process when it comes to fragrance.

I would now love to learn to refine my nose by training it to pick up scents and how they unfold.

Any of you good folk out there with with experience in this field that can guide me on how to go about this?

cheers

 

[RayClem]

Learning how to distinguish scents in shaving soap is not much different that learning distinguishing flavors in foods or beverages. With food and drink, both our tongues and nose play vital roles in distinguishing the various flavors. With soaps, we do not attempt to taste the product, however, it is recommended that you keep your mouth open when breathing in the aroma of a soap. This is not unlike the wine taster who swirls the wine in a glass to release aromas that are analyzed by the nose and tongue before he ever takes a sip of the liquid.

Being able to detect scents requires practice. I suggest starting with familiar scents such as those in your kitchen.Detect the differences between oranges, lemons, tangerines, limes, and grapefruit, not by taste, but by smell alone. The raid the pantry and learn to detect the aroma of various spices, herbs, and nuts. Finally, you can visit your local store and pick up samples of various essential oils. Place a drop of oil on a tissue and learn how it differs from other scents. Close you eyes and have a helper pass various scents under you nose to test your proficiency.
For a listing of the wide variety of scents included in shaving soaps, see: trythatsoap .com
There are some very strange ones that you might never believe are included in soaps (gasoline, motor oil, Hoppes No. 9, etc.). There is even a soap that smells like hot dogs.

Once you learn to identify pure scents, learn to pick them out from combinations. Although some soaps are a solo scent, most combine several scents and some of the most complex may have a dozen or more. Initially, you will be able to pick out a couple of the more prominent scents, but as you train your nose (and brain), you might be able to pick out a few more.

 

[StratMan]

thanks mate.. i like your analogy of distinguishing flavours from food and beverages, i do like to cook so quite good at analysing taste in foods.

Never occurred to me to leave your mouth open when smelling and i have just done that with the soaps in front of me, and yes it has def made a difference on the smell. I still cant determine the smells any differently but it certainly gives you a stronger sense of the smells.. cheers

 

[dmshaver]

Good advice @RayClem

 

[Macfrommichigan]

Gosh, think of the job of doing this in the perfume industry....

 

[@ngel]

Gosh, think of the job of doing this in the perfume industry....

I think the bigger problem there is not creating something that already exist!
About training your sense of smell is an interesting topic, am in the same boat as to be basic with my nose, maybe that is why I prefer simple notes instead of more complex and mixtures that have many scents and try to achieve certain profile, but certainly there are soaps I would like to try and see how close they get to the real thing, like Tierra mojada (wet ground after the rain) from PAA.

 

[Ad Astra]

Getting essential oils (EOs) worked for me ... I wanted to isolate and recognize the fougere accord (lavender, oakmoss and coumarin).

So now I have pure oakmoss and lavender EOs to add to soaps, witch hazel etc. Actually I have a bunch: cedar, vanilla, lime, etc.

Also, the Guide to Perfumes by Turn and Sanchez is really good ... opinionated, but funny.


AA

 

[Clay S]

Getting essential oils (EOs) worked for me ... I wanted to isolate and recognize the fougere accord (lavender, oakmoss and coumarin).

So now I have pure oakmoss and lavender EOs to add to soaps, witch hazel etc. Actually I have a bunch: cedar, vanilla, lime, etc.

Also, the Guide to Perfumes by Turn and Sanchez is really good ... opinionated, but funny.


AA

AoS's sandalwood pre-shave oil started me on EOs, loved the smell, the effect, hated the price. Binged stuff. Found carrier oils and EOs. Couldn't find sandalwood EO local, so picked up cinnamon. Bought sandalwood online. Binged [Sandalwood Blends well with]. Bought other EOs, want other EOs. EOAD!

My nose is an ex-smoker(30 years about) nose. So it isn't too refined. I don't try to match scents. Just mix what smells good to me.

Learning how to distinguish scents in shaving soap is not much different that learning distinguishing flavors in foods or beverages. With food and drink, both our tongues and nose play vital roles in distinguishing the various flavors. With soaps, we do not attempt to taste the product, however, it is recommended that you keep your mouth open when breathing in the aroma of a soap. This is not unlike the wine taster who swirls the wine in a glass to release aromas that are analyzed by the nose and tongue before he ever takes a sip of the liquid.

Being able to detect scents requires practice. I suggest starting with familiar scents such as those in your kitchen.Detect the differences between oranges, lemons, tangerines, limes, and grapefruit, not by taste, but by smell alone. The raid the pantry and learn to detect the aroma of various spices, herbs, and nuts. Finally, you can visit your local store and pick up samples of various essential oils. Place a drop of oil on a tissue and learn how it differs from other scents. Close you eyes and have a helper pass various scents under you nose to test your proficiency.
For a listing of the wide variety of scents included in shaving soaps, see: Try That Soap - Scents
There are some very strange ones that you might never believe are included in soaps (gasoline, motor oil, Hoppes No. 9, etc.). There is even a soap that smells like hot dogs.

Once you learn to identify pure scents, learn to pick them out from combinations. Although some soaps are a solo scent, most combine several scents and some of the most complex may have a dozen or more. Initially, you will be able to pick out a couple of the more prominent scents, but as you train your nose (and brain), you might be able to pick out a few more.

Sounds like a great way to train your nose.
+1

 

[Clay S]

I’ve been in product devopment in the personal care industry for over 28 yrs so I work with fragrances all the time which includes natural, essential oils, synthetic or synthesized fragrances and all kinds of blends of all of them. Training your nose is I'll say first off is something you have to want to do or need to do if your in the business of working with fragrances.
The average person can only smell 7 scents before what we call loosing you nose. There have been may studies done one this. There are people that are also born with a good nose that can smell more than that before these loose their nose. To put that into perspective a master perfumer can detect around 300 scents before they loose theirs and the grand masters and there are only just a few in the world at any one given time that can smell up to 1000 different notes which I find amazing!
With that said you can train your nose and build up the number of scents you can detect before you loose your nose. I’m at a point where I can detect about 40 to 50 but it’s taken years to get here.

So here are some things you can do. Start with simple single note scents and this includes food like fruits and veggies. Also simple spices you use everyday like parsley, basil and Rosemary for example. Smell them both dry out of a bottle and freshly grown. Flowers are a huge part of many fragrance blends so smell away! Plants and the essential oils of plants like Lavender for example. Take a walk in the woods and smell the trees and bark. Go to a cigar store and smell the different tobaccos. Also go to a high end department store and go to the fragrance counter and open and smell fragrances and try and pick out the notes but make sure to clear your nose after each one. Take an Aromatherapy class if you can also. This all helps to build your nose up so you can detect many different notes within a complex fragranced Aftershave or Cologne for example. Learning out to clear your nose between smelling different fragrances is important to. Many people think you need coffee beans and their ok but the best is just take a really deep breath through your shirt sleeve or any piece of fabric as it works very well and it does not have much of its own scent compared to sniffing coffee beans.
It’s just a start but hopefully I helped a bit.

It will be a good journey if you choose it. I very much recommend it.

I never would have thought about clearing your nose. It makes sense though. You clear your palate when doing food and wine tastings.