Imagine Life Without Smell

Anosmia Awareness Day is celebrated each year on the 27th of February. So, what is Anosmia? It's the clinical term for the loss of smell.

As sensory adventurers, we can't imagine life without smell. One of the things that really bring people together next to food and music is scent. We see it here at Perfumarie every day. We see tourists come and interact with locals just by the connection they make through the experiences and knowledge they share about scent. Whether it's perfume, food, nature or anything else we know, smell is surprisingly prevalent wherever we look. In a world where AI is taking over, our sense of smell truly enables us to sustain the human quality of life.

As shocking as it sounds, many of us may have Anosmia and not know it mainly because it's considered an invisible disability and it is only partial. There are people with acute Anosmia, which means they can't smell at all. But, there's a handful of people who have benign Anosmia as well. In fact, it's been reported that 12.4% of Americans over the age of 40 have complete or partial smell loss. There is no cure for Anosmia at this time, but many like the scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center are working hard to search for a cure.

"There are three receptors that deliver the color spectrum. There are 400 receptors that deliver odors. In the Monell Center's 50-year quest to advance the scientific understanding of taste, smell, and related senses, we have yet to unlock the fundamental understanding of these olfactory receptors. But we are on the cusp of machine learning informed ways to predict odor quality and odor mixtures. This will eventually lead to our ability to digitize and deliver odors instantaneously – a discovery that will change our world in radical and yet still unknown ways," shared Jenifer Trachtman, Monell Chemical Senses Director of Development.

Let's share this knowledge with those who don't know about Anosmia and support the people who have been born with or acquired smell loss. Our support will let those people with Anosmia know that they're not alone and that we're all contributing in our own way to help find a cure.

With this, let's also appreciate the small things in life like the limitless perception we can have on anything in this world and that we can share this perception with others.

Happy Anosmia Awareness Day!