Open Letter To All Who Can Smell

Dear Person Who Can Smell,

Happy Anosmia Awareness Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness for those living with the inability to smell. As a person who can smell, I’d like to share my thoughts on how we ‘smellers’ can become greater allies for the anosmia community, in particular through the professional work we do. Let’s begin...?

In 2021, Drs. Rachel Herz and Martha Bajec conducted a survey among college students to get a current pulse on society’s perceived value of our sense of smell, after COVID-19 brought smell loss into the public conversation and became a sudden lived experience for many. The results, while revealing, weren't shocking: the sense of smell continues to be perceived as vastly less important than vision and hearing, and much less valuable than our phone, $10,000, or our pet.?

If you’re reading this and you can’t smell, or have ever lost your sense of smell for a period of time, I’m sure you’re thinking that last sentence is absurd, and incredibly naive. The impact of smell loss is enormous, and completely changes your daily lived experience. It’s true.

It’s no surprise that as a society we value the visual and aural senses the most. It’s obvious in the products we create and the services we offer. We are fixated on what things look like, how they sound, and sometimes how they feel.?

The truth is that most of us don’t think about our sense of smell much. We breathe, therefore we smell. What’s the big deal??

I admit, I too never thought much about my sense of smell over the 20+ years I spent in and around the fragrance industry. We could smell, so we created products for those who could smell. I mean, we all smell, right? What’s to think about?

Well, in fact, it’s estimated that more than 22% of the general population may have some kind of smell disorder and lack the ability to smell normally. That’s almost 1.8 billion people who don’t experience the world in rich and multifaceted ways!?

It means they can’t experience flavor fully when they eat. Food and drink taste bland, mushy, and boring because all they taste is sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. And they worry about their safety, stressing about whether they can smell a gas leak or a fire in their home. Not to mention worrying about gone-off foods like milk and meat.?

And they worry about us, too. They’re concerned that they might offend someone because of bad body odor, foul-smelling breath, or having a malodorous home.?

My smelling friends, we have an opportunity to help. In fact, I believe we have an obligation, a duty, to acknowledge and support those who aren’t able to smell.?

You see, my smelling friends, we have something I like to term smell privilege. We’re privileged to smell the world around us in rich, multi-dimensional ways, and to not be fearful, anxious, and constantly on alert throughout the day. We’re ignorant to not recognize how lucky we are to have access to this beautiful and helpful sense.?

It’s not your fault. I’m not trying to instill blame or shame.

No, I am writing this open letter to you today in the hope that we, as a collective smelling community, can begin to broaden our understanding of how some people perceive the world. That we acknowledge that some people face challenges that we cannot know ourselves.?

I’m here to tell you that we have an amazing opportunity to serve. And to be more inclusive. An opportunity to listen and engage with the anosmic community, to begin to understand what it’s like to navigate the world in their shoes, and to hear them - really listen to them - by serving their needs.?

So, as you decide where to put your research dollars, determine what products you’ll develop, choose how you’ll expand your services, and identify what new technologies you want to implement, I invite you to cast a wider net and explore new angles to meaningful, dare I say purposeful, solutions for those not able to smell well.?

We have an opportunity to serve a community that’s been ignored for far too long.

Here are some thought-starters…

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Take a page from famous anosmic Ben Cohen from Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Because Ben couldn’t perceive the difference between ice cream flavors, he added other rich sensory cues like texture (chunks), colors and taste. I mean, who doesn’t love Half Baked and Cherry Garcia, right? Anosmics love it most.?

Consider enhancing design sensory cues related to touch, sight and sound to reinforce smell. If scent is currently an integral part of your product features, how about using some of the other senses to reinforce the benefits that scent provides?

Consider developing packaging with visual or sound indicators that tell you when a product has expired, begins to smell “off”, or starts to show any other health hazard cues where we normally rely on our sense of smell. Or an “odor-ometor” wand-type device that you can wave over shoes, or under armpits, that gives an indication of the strength of malodor.?

Consider creating technology (AI/Apps) that augment, and serve as a fill-in for the missing sense of smell. Maybe something you can scan and up pops an explanation of the scent (of a flower, a food aroma, or any other smelly object), in language that an anosmic can really understand. Or perhaps create an app that reminds you to eat (many forget this), and that helps you eat more healthy foods (many eat too many unhealthy sweet and salty foods).?

MARKETING

Consider adding language to your product label, and overall marketing, that speaks to someone who can’t smell. My fragrance community friends, there are many anosmics who enjoy wearing scented products, including fragrances because they want to smell good to others. How can you speak to them, letting them know what the scent smells like, in terms that make sense to them??

MEDIA/TV/FILM

Consider using more descriptive language, using all the senses, to bring dimension to your stories so those who can’t smell, and especially those who’ve never known smells, can feel fully connected to the story. Consider enhancing scripts to include character dialogue that acknowledges how a place smells when you enter, how the flavor of a meal tastes, or a person’s scent makes them feel. Just simple little tweaks to the script to include scent descriptions can be extremely powerful and bring added dimension to the overall story. The movie “Parasite” did it splendidly, even incorporating it into the plot.?

HUMAN RESOURCES

Consider making accommodations for those who can’t smell, similar to those with impaired hearing or sight. What programs, resources, benefits, and training do you offer the blind and deaf, that would make sense to offer a person living with anosmia?

In the words of the great poet Maya Angelou, “When you know better, you do better.”?

Now that you know, it’s time to get doing.?

There are 1.8 billion+ people ready and eager to be helped.?

Let’s acknowledge them. Let’s serve them.

They deserve our attention. And our inclusion.

Sincerely yours, your fellow smeller,

Frauke Galia

Sense of smell expert, open to consulting on projects that support the anosmia community.

Note: this letter is edited and updated from 9/14/21.

About the author: Frauke Galia is a smell coach, certified aromatherapist, author, and host of the podcast An Aromatic Life. She also has a Substack called An Aromatic Life where she muses about the beautiful sense of smell. Frauke is passionate about increasing the profile of our sense of smell in a culture dominated by sight and sound. She currently serves as an ambassador to the UK charity Fifth Sense for people affected by smell and taste disorders. You can contact Frauke at [email protected] or visit her website www.anaromaticlife.com for more information.