Q.
To what degree are the smells we like – and deeply dislike! – culturally unique?

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It’s a question that interested a 2022 research team from Oxford University and Karolinska Institute. Their approach? Ask 235 people from a global sample – one that included ‘four hunter-gatherer groups and five groups with different forms of farming and fishing’ – to smell, then rank, a sample of scents.

Overall, these researchers found strong similarities in scent preference across cultures. Personal preference, they find, has a stronger influence on the smells we like and don’t like than does community affiliation. Scent preference can best be explained, they say, by personal preference (54%) and molecular structure (41%).

And what were the most loved scents across their global group?

Most Universally Loved Scents
i. Vanilla
ii. Peaches (ethyl butyrate)
iii. Lavender

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As for the least loved scents? No need to trigger all sorts of nose memory horror. Let’s just say: keep your feet out of the aisle and put your socks on, Mr. Size 4,000 mangle toes.

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Pleasant thoughts. Pleasant thoughts. 🌞🌈🌹 The heady power of vanilla has long been appreciated across cultures and assigned all sorts of magical powers. Here’s an excerpt from Robert Eglesfeld Griffith + John Michael Maisch’s 1874 ‘A Universal Formulary’:

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www.justcurious.ca

Header Photo: Magda Fou