“We have so reduced the level of background odor pollution, we are becoming more sensitive to anything we smell,” said Pamela Dalton, an olfactory researcher at Monell Chemical Senses Center, a nonprofit group in Philadelphia that studies smell and taste.
Just 20 years ago, you might not have noticed someone smoking in the same restaurant where you were dining, whereas today you’d likely detect the residual odor of cigarette smoke on the clothes of someone simply walking past your table.
— From Would You Want to Smell BBQ All the Time? at The New York Times. The article discusses local government efforts to regulate public odors.
Fascinating! The background smells in our environment are weaker, so it makes sense that we are more sensitive to intrusive smells.
When I spoke recently with a friend who gets headaches from strong perfume, she said it is distressing to know that she was breathing someone else’s “exhaust fumes.”
I have to agree with the researchers that for me “for the most part, it’s the stress of smelling something you don’t want to that makes people feel sick.” But on the other hand, there are perfumes I truly enjoy that can give me a headache.
Olfactory workings are such a mystery.
I don’t think I buy the idea that ‘it’s the stress of smelling something you don’t want to that makes people feel sick’ — it could be, but there are so many illnesses that weren’t understood until years after they appeared and that were initially dismissed as psychological in origin. So, maybe, but maybe not.