This is why you no longer like the smell of your favorite perfume

Sometimes it can happen that your favorite perfume suddenly doesn’t smell good. Your perfume may simply be too old, but it could also have another reason. Sometimes we suddenly don’t like a scent we used to like. But how is this possible?

Scents and emotions

You often associate your favorite scents with beautiful moments. It’s no surprise that certain scents can also relax you. “Our sense of smell is closely linked to the olfactory center of our brain,” says a scientist Amy Gaper about that Good + Good. She explains that this means that your sense of smell is linked to the parts of your brain that control your emotions.

When you smell a certain smell, it has to travel through different areas of the brain before it reaches the part of the brain that processes the smell. This is also the reason why smell and emotions are closely linked. For example, think about the smell of your partner – it makes you very happy. The researchers decided to take a closer look at this link between smells and emotions.

Stress and smell

The researchers showed stressful images – such as wars or car accidents – to a large number of test subjects to test whether the sense of smell would change. “After arousing fear, neutral odors are perceived as negative,” explains one of the researchers. ScienceDaily. During the study, it even turned out that when the amount of stress increases, odors are perceived as increasingly negative.

In a normal situation – without (too) a large amount of stress – only the olfactory system is activated. When you are anxious, the emotional system of the brain is also doing its job. And you guessed it: with a large amount of stress, the smell becomes negative. For example, are you wearing your favorite perfume during a very stressful time? Then you may subconsciously associate that smell with negativity, so you suddenly find it less pleasant.

Source: Good + Good | Image: Adobe Stock