Saturated Nose: Is Your Nose Playing Tricks on You?

Why can’t I smell my perfume anymore? We have all felt that impression of no longer smelling anything after testing several perfumes or wearing the same fragrance over and over. 👉 This phenomenon, called olfactory saturation (or a saturated nose), is completely normal: your brain gets used to the smells and stops perceiving them.

We have all experienced, one day, the sensation of “no longer smelling anything” after smelling several perfumes, or when we always wear the same fragrance. Our nose, assailed by many smells, becomes saturated. This phenomenon is common, and we explain why!

What Is Olfactory Saturation?

A little explanation of how our sense of smell works on our brain.

Smells are made up of a set of molecules perceptible only when they reach our nose.

A person can normally distinguish, on average, 3,000 different smells. Some well-trained noses can perceive up to 10,000 distinct nuances! This is the case for most experts in the field of perfume.

How Does the Nose Perceive Smells?

The molecules of volatile substances enter through the nostrils, until they come into contact with the olfactory cilia at the back of the nasal cavity. These capture the smell and transform it into information for the brain, which will recognise (or not) the smell.

If we have smelled it before through our past olfactory associations, then we can identify and analyse this smell. Otherwise, the information will be temporarily stored in our olfactory memory for future use.

There are generally fewer receptors than incoming molecules, so some molecules “escape” us, and consequently we do not smell certain nuances of the smell. This is why, for example, it is inadvisable to test several perfumes in a row, at the risk of seeing our sense of smell become saturated fairly quickly.

I Can No Longer Smell My Own Perfume

We have all had, at least once in our lives, that sensation of no longer smelling our own perfume at all—yet a perfume we particularly love, a perfume we wear regularly.

To make up for it, we overdose, cheerfully spraying all over our body or our clothes, in the hope of smelling it more, and for longer…

The result is often the same: we no longer smell our own perfume!

And the first thing that would come to mind would be that the perfume has oxidised, losing its most characteristic notes, and that it no longer performs as it did at the start…

Well, it is entirely possible that the perfume does not have a big projection and does not last long simply because its olfactory composition corresponds to so-called light perfumes, often green or hesperidic perfumes. Nothing serious in itself, since it has nothing to do with its quality or a potential degradation of the fragrance.

Never mind—we can perfume ourselves again during the day if the desire or need is felt.

In reality, it is not the perfume that has evolved, but rather our sense of smell and the information from our brain and, more precisely, from our olfactory memory. A smell that becomes common, habitual, and which, by extension, is recognised as “natural” by our memory, is therefore inhibited to allow our brain to concentrate better on other, less familiar ones.

This is the phenomenon of olfactory adaptation: naturally, we develop a habituation to our own smell. Our olfactory receptors become saturated, and so as not to exhaust themselves too much, they decide to stop smelling it by inhibiting it, in order to remain attentive to other smells that might warn of a danger. Let us not forget that smell is a primitive sense!

This capacity for adaptation works, moreover, for all the senses: someone who lives next to a train station no longer hears the trains. Someone used to seeing a tic in a person around them no longer sees it; when we put on a piece of jewellery, it can be bothersome when we have just put it on, and then we get used to it…

How to Remedy a Nose That Becomes Saturated

So how can we manage to feel this perfume we love so much that it had become our olfactory signature?

Why not take a break from time to time, change perfume, or not wear perfume for a few days?

Also remember to hydrate your skin well. Hydrated skin is a promise of better diffusion of the perfume.

When you perfume yourself, be careful not to spray on the chest, the famous triangle connecting the nose to the tips of the breasts. This could risk saturating your nose.

Choose instead pulse points (wrist, behind the ear, the knees) that will reveal the perfume when you move. The shoulders too.

Also beware of the conditions in which you apply your perfume: heat, sun exposure or application zones can influence your perception of smells. 👉 Discover our advice for wearing perfume in the sun and avoiding certain common mistakes.

You can perfume your clothes rather than your skin, or your hair (preferably by spraying onto your brush).

But the ideal way to escape habituation remains to be a little unfaithful to your perfume. You will rediscover it with great pleasure.

Myth and Reality: Coffee Beans

During olfactory walks, on a visit to a perfumery to discover new releases or plan a gift, for example, we sometimes have a sensation of loss of smell, headaches, a dry throat. Our body has had enough, and this is an entirely normal process.

Often, too often, we are offered coffee beans to smell to help us better perceive the perfumes that will follow. We are told that thanks to these little beans with their very characteristic and recognisable smell (more or less fresh), our nose will be “cleaned”…

But what is really going on?

This will only serve as a decoy for our brain, creating a “distraction” between the different fragrances smelled and this “new smell”—admittedly without alcohol, but a smell all the same!

In reality, this coffee smell does not desaturate our olfactory receptors at all.

The only power it will have is simply to be added to the list of smells inhaled, combining simply with other perfumes.

Guaranteed result: an exhausted nose, which will in no way have been cleansed!

So What Should We Do?

The best solution obviously remains to breathe fresh air for a few minutes, and as often as you feel the need. This technique allows a real reset of the olfactory receptors.

In the event that the situation does not allow you to go outside, the best thing is to smell your own skin—in the crook of the elbow, for example—free of any perfume.

As we have seen, the smell of one’s own skin is completely neutral to our brain; smelling it will also have a cancelling effect, a “reset” of the olfactory receptors.

PS: don’t block your nose—that won’t help either.