Smell Sensitivity

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I want to know how other people experience this side of sensory processing disorder.

For me, I can notice a much more subtle smell then most people.
I find when I am around a scent I cannot stand, like perfume or smoke from a cigarette, It feels so overwhelming that I feel much like I am drowning, or being water boarded. It is the quickest way for me to get to meltdown, and is a very intense and terrifying experience.

i wouldn't say smell is my dominant sense (I'm more hearing/visual) but here's my list:

smells I like:

- burnt wood
- my hair when i'm out walking for a while
- also the smell of my skin after exercise
- the smell of fresh snow
- new books
- the smell of baked bread/goods when walking around
- freshly cleaned clothes
- some people's scent
- petrol
- the smell of plants/the ground after it rains in spring
- spring/ flowers in general
- arabic tea
- the smell of arabic shisha in the street mixed with kebab and other street foods

smells i dislike:

- freshly cut grass
- people's breaths
- cigarettes/vaping
- closed spaces with too many people
- pollution
- deodorant
- some perfumes (i dont wear any but there are good ones like apple)
- sweat
- damp clothes (ugh i hate it)
- old dusty rooms
- old books
- public toilets (...)


you get the idea...

My smell sensitivity is very complex. In terms of:

a) am I able to smell things more easily than others? I'm average.
When people say "do you smell that?", I notice smell as easily as other people.

b) am I easily bothered by smell? Off the charts, yes.
Exposure to artificial or chemical smell (perfumes, air fresheners, etc) makes me extremely sick with migraines and visual aura, or nausea and shakes, even if it's a nice fragrance or an artificial scent that I really like (pot-pourri). I can't tolerate artificial smells even for short periods of time.

In addition, I get ill if I'm exposed to natural (organic) scents for too long. My body just can't tolerate prolonged smell input even if I like the smell and it isn't chemical-based. For example, I can't have flowers in my house or in any enclosed space such as a solarium or greenhouse. Even being outdoors in a garden with the beautiful fragrance of roses or lilacs would make me sick after a few minutes, if there wasn't enough wind to disperse the smell.

The smell of "oven-cooked" food makes me extremely ill if I'm in the house while it cooks. I get so ill I can't eat the meal. Oven-cooking aroma saturates the air too much and nauseates me even if I love the aroma or the type of food. Turkey, chicken, roast beef, gravy, casseroles and lasagna are all impossible for me to eat unless I walk into the house right when it's served. I always got sick when my mother cooked Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner because the aroma seemed to permeate me too much. Crock-pots and slow cookers are even worse. It will take me 24-48 hours of fresh air to recover from a crock pot. Restaurants are awful because I can smell too many foods oven-cooking at once.

Please note this isn't a case of "not liking" the smell of certain foods. I get nauseated and unable to eat, no matter how delicious and appetizing something may smell. I can tolerate stove top, frying pans and to a lesser extent outdoor barbeques but ovens or slow cookers.. No way.

c) do I have good olfactory memory? Yes, it's incredible.
I have an exceptional smell-based memory for every experience I've ever had in my life. I categorize and understand everything by scent in collaboration with colour - sound / colour - grapheme and colour - smell synesthesia.

Isabella

Best smells: Boat exhaust, oceans, rain, thunderstorms, vanilla, Noxzema, playdoh, libraries and books
The worst: Chemical smells, anything flowery especially lilies, oven food (nauseating), chocolate

I agree with everything Isabella said except different best and worst. I get completely blank in my mind when I walk into a room with air fresheners, and it lasts for a while after I leave. Chemical smells are much more overwhelming than natural ones.

Favorites: horses, coffee, the beach, pine needles
Least favorites: air freshener, natural gas, cigarettes

My sense of touch and sense of smell are the strongest senses I struggle with. I can't tolerate the smell of smoke, the laundry detergent isle, household cleaners, coffee etc. Gives me headaches and really irrirates me.

Cigarette smoke makes me choke, and it stinks!

I also hate the smell of marker pens, old drywall, perfume/cologne, body odor, skunk, poop and garbage. Cooked cabbage smells like cat poop.

Lilies smell absolutely rotten! I'm with you on that, Isabella!

I can't stand those dryer pads, like Bounce pads. Some people's clothes reek of them!

I can't stand stinking exhaust fumes. I hate driving behind some people's stinking "Chernobyl mobiles."

Old body odor that smells as though people never bathed in their lives.

The poop of big dogs. I can handle cat poop because I have had cats nearly all my life.

Aggghhhh -- lilies They stink. The only way to tolerate them at all is to remove the fuzzy stamen bits and wash my hands, but even then the scent isn't pretty at all. I also associate lilies with funerals because they're overused in the industry. I was at someone's house when a bouquet with lilies was delivered and it was like staying in a funeral home while having a migraine. I even got depressed by the scent, as if someone had died. UGGGG.

I do like the smell of pine needles but I get easily over-saturated by it. I'm allergic to the mold spores that grow on coniferous trees (penicillium), so I get headaches from Christmas trees --- even though they smell wonderful.

Another thing I can't tolerate is wool. Touching it is impossible, but I can't even smell it. The fibres seem to get into my respiratory system and I end up with chest colds or bronchitis / pneumonia. I just read that my ancestors were sheep farmers who did wool combing and many of them died from breathing the wool particles. I got so itchy just thinking about it that I couldn't even touch my laptop without closing the page.

I live in an area with a lot of pollution and a lot of trash, so I encounter offensive smells every day and it's awful.

Hi. Thanks for the topic. I didn't realize I am more sensitive to smells than others until recently. Noise is my most sensitive sense.

I can detect a whiff of mildew, neighbor's cigarette smoke, or unpleasant outdoor smell in my hair if I've been outside on a crisp day. I have to wash my hair or pull it back so I don't smell it and change my shirt (same thing if it's been around cigarettes even for a few minutes - and I hate washing my hair).

Partly, I tell myself it's so rude and unhealthful that others are inflicting these smells (often toxins) on me and others. But, I'm thinking some of my irritation is from increased sensitivity. I smell my partner's breathing too - sometimes air breathed through his nose smells good and other times - there seems to be nothing he can do to make it smell "clean" and I can't stand it. It's unpredictable. Other times, I don't notice it.

Like some of you, I hate the smell of lilies. Stargazers are beautiful but I have to remind my spouse not to buy them for me cause it's like a punishment. I don't like carnations either - partly due to linking them to funerals. I find most multi-vitamins challenging because of the strong after taste even hours after swallowing. I think others would say that too though.

Around the house I use a pine scent that smells natural and the Volcano scented candles. They smell clean and upbeat. I like smelling my cat's fur, leather, horses, grape flavor. I found a linen scented "commercial" air freshener I actually like and put it in closets to fight the stagnant smell. Other nostalgic scents are great too and very memorable, as some have mentioned. I try not to mix smells I like with unpleasant situations to keep the scents positive. So I wouldn't wear white tea lotion (positive) to go to my annual performance review (negative) - for example - because that scent was used at a resort on a vacation I liked. I have a rabbit air purifier I run all the time to help with pet debris and will add in a more powerful one if I notice too much smell - like an unclean kitchen or stuffy air.

One last thing I wanted to share on scent: two years ago, I was starting a new job and nearly turned around and left on the first day partly due to sensory issues. The building carpet and walls smelled like the 70's - stale cigarette smoke. And, there was white noise near my desk from the water cooler, fridge, printer, and a hidden fan in the ceiling that was super distracting and irritating. I got HVAC to turn off the ceiling fan and the building replaced the carpet and repainted soon after - that helped me stay. Visually, the location of that desk was awful and secluded without a window. I hate ugly spaces/disorganized spaces. I guess I felt irritated, distracted, and angry - that job environment was a real test because it assaulted several senses simultaneously. Now, at least I understand why it drives me up a wall!

When I attended a business college in my city, there was always this horrible smell of mixed garbage and poop. It made me want to barf, it was so gross.

I can't say that I am very good at smelling, though it's been rumoured that my supervisor has a GC-MS in his nose, and can distinguish thousands of chemicals just by smell.

My sense of smell is embarrassingly poor. One day in the undergraduate labs, I was given an unknown compound. While working with it, I caught a whiff of it. It smelled like something that I'd smelled before, but I couldn't identify it. Then I tried waving some air over the open test tube (that's how you're supposed to identify chemicals by smell, if that's your style), but couldn't smell anything. Holding my nose over the tube I still couldn't smell anything. As a last resort, I went and shook up the the tube several times, and held my nose over it immediately after. That worked... a little too well (if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing, right??) Immediately, I was hit by a massively powerful smell of almonds, and nearly fell over. By shaking it I had aerosolised the benzaldehyde (the unknown chemical) and when I smelled it, many tiny droplets must've ended up my nose. For the next several hours I couldn't smell anything but almonds.

I am very sensitive to smell. I sniff the air like a dog any time there is a new smell. I enjoy when I pick up a scent in the air because its new information to "see" and identify. I often smell something near me and will identify it without seeing it first.