dragonlady7

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greenestcoat https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/greenestcoat replied to your post shrikeseams asked https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/677466186027515904/fwiw-if-you-like-smokey-smells-i-have-good :

I’m so curious if the scents changing to your senses mean they also change to other people’s perception to the same degree! i don’t know much about perfume so this has been a really fascinating bunch of posts

Oh! Yes, it’s not a perception thing entirely, it’s genuinely that your body chemistry interacts with the chemicals making up the perfume (and I say “chemicals” in the technically-correct term– natural perfumes are also made up of chemicals, as is basically every substance in reality, I mean that as a neutral descriptor) and changes their odors.

This is all a field I know little about– I could not pass algebra, and my high school chemistry teacher was patient as a saint with me and coaxed me through to a reasonable passing grade with a sort of Basset-hound-like mournfulness, and all I’ve retained is that your equations have to be the same on both sides. My BFF is a chemical engineer by training, though now full-time Momming means she only occasionally gets that gleam in her eyes when she talks about recipe scaling or fluid dynamics or something– but at any rate. Like anything math-adjacent, or even anything that requires reliably observing something the same way twice (not a strong suit of mine), chemistry is An Mystery. So I don’t totally understand it, myself.

But the science of aromatics is a complex one; my general understanding is that the reason you can smell things is generally that they’re somewhat volatile in some way, that their molecules are mobile in the air such that they can be captured by your nose. So perfumes are volatile by their very nature, and simply by being “smellable” they are prone to changing.

When you combine these perfumes with human skin, which produces its own chemicals and odors, it tends to change these volatile aromatics in sometimes-unpredictable ways. Everyone who wants to discuss perfume with you will have their own stories about it, crazy reactions their own bodies precipitated or unpredictable scents they’ve loved, and so on. This is why samples and testers are so important, because you just don’t know beforehand what an aromatic chemical will do when combined with an individual person’s body chemistry.

But it’s a very real effect, fortunately or unfortunately– if musk immediately turns rancid on you, anyone who can smell your perfume will also be able to smell that reaction, so I count myself fortunate that musk instead turns sweet on me.

There are a lot more technical things that go into this, and another concern is that as aromatic chemicals are so volatile, it makes sense that a lot of people are allergic or reactive to them. Some perfumes spread a lot, and anyone who’s been in the room can smell that you had them on. Part of the reason BPAL is so fannishly popular (fandom being a culture that is a haven to many, many allergy-prone people for various reasons) is that it doesn’t spread that much for various reasons, it tends to be the sort of thing that doesn’t linger in a room or spread to a neighboring one, when used in a sensible manner.

So– of course covid has changed that a bit, because i’m not in close quarters breathing the same breath as many coworkers anymore, and if you can smell my perfume through your mask then maybe you should fix your mask– but still. (Your picture was not posted)