When we love a perfume we want to be able to smell it on ourselves all day, but sometimes this just isn’t possible.
The brain associates common scents, like a perfume we wear on a regular basis as our own body odour. This is called Olfactory Adaptation. With our own scent, the stimulation of our olfactory sensors is permanent. This is also the case with the smell of our home and even our favourite perfumes as we expose ourselves to them more often.
Have you asked others around you to see if they can still smell your fragrance? Chances are they can!
The time it takes for our brain to go through this process is not the same for everyone so it is difficult to give an exact time frame. This can depend on the intensity and power of the composition but also our own emotional relationship to the scent. Sounds strange, but you’re more likely to pick up a scent for a fragrance you have had an emotional reaction to, like your partner’s scent or even what your ex-partner used to wear.
A cognitive psychologist at Monell Chemical Senses Center, who has spent 20 years researching scent memory found that the receptors in the nose essentially turn off after around two breaths, and the scent, no matter how strong initially starts to fade.
This is why perfume shops offer coffee beans to smell in between fragrances which breaks the smell so your nose can smell other odours.