Fifth Sense at How to Improve Your Sense of Smell with the Perfume Society

Fifth Sense’s Duncan Boak and Chrissi Kelly were invited by the Perfume society to attend one of their regular ‘How to Improve Your Sense of Smell’ workshops in London on 23rd April 2015. The workshops are designed to help Perfume Society Subscribers develop their olfactory ability and are delivered by the organisation’s co-founder Jo Fairley.

Duncan and Chrissi attended to find out what techniques the Perfume Society recommends and whether these can be of benefit to Fifth Sense members who are undertaking their own smell training.

L-R: Chrissi, Jo and Duncan

Many Fifth Sense members will appreciate that the sense of smell is greatly underdevalued in our society and that many people take it for granted. As Jo explained, improving one’s sense of smell starts with awareness; not just paying attention to what you’re smelling, but describing the smell in words, and writing these down.

But how to describe a smell? Well, that doesn’t really matter. The same smell can be perceived very differently by different people, so there’s no right or wrong answer.  Jo and her colleagues encourage workshop guests to smell in silence and write down what the scent makes them think of – colours, textures, places, situations.  For example: ‘The smell of an old leather-bound book, sitting on a oak bookcase in a Victorian library, through which cigar smoke is gently blown’.  Words and associations are as important to our perception of smells as the scents themselves.

So what does this mean for Fifth Sense members?  Well, smell is closely linked to memory, and many people with anosmia will still possess memories of smells. Used alongside smell training, language can help make the connection between any odour detected by the nose and these stored memories.  The human brain has amazing plasticity – that is, it has the power to change, with new connections (or neural pathways) being formed in response to stimuli.  These stimuli include things we practice and learn, such as the piano, dance steps, or training the sense of smell.  For someone with anosmia/hyposmia whose sense of smell is starting to improve, odours are the stimuli that form new pathways to olfactive memories.  It’s a little bit like re-wiring the brain.

This is one of the reasons why Fifth Sense recommends smell training to people affected by anosmia or hyposmia.  Whilst there are, inevitably, circumstances where it isn’t going to help (smell loss that has been caused by removal of the olfactory bulb following brain surgery, for example), if you have lost your sense of smell as the result of a virus, head injury or because of sinus problems it is worth giving it a try.

A really important aspect of the workshop for both Duncan and Chrissi was being in the presence of people who are really engaged with their own sense of smell.  Listening to the descriptions of the different fragrances (such as the book in the library described above) can really help jog memories of smells.  Here are Chrissi’s thoughts on the importance of this:

‘For people who find themselves with inklings of recovery after anosmia, there can be no greater thrill than time spent sampling beautiful smells – however limited that experience feels – in the presence of others. Smell training alongside people who have a good sense of smell assists us. It’s like getting a hand up over an obstacle, or having someone explain the line in a film that you didn’t quite hear. But most importantly, this kind of event reminds us that smelling is social, and it can bridge the feelings of isolation often associated with anosmia’.

We’d like to thank The Perfume Society for inviting Duncan and Chrissi to the workshop.  How to Train Your Sense of Smell is one of a range of events open to Perfume Society Subscribers.  For more information visit http://perfumesociety.org