Calling all people with a strong sense of smell...

[SomethingLessBoringInstead]

I live in an average sized semi. If I'm in my reasonably sized garden, I can smell my neighbours' shower gel when they showering their bathroom window is open.

I can smell the flavour of crisps being eaten by someone 3 rows in front of me at the cinema/theatre.

I can smell the personal scent of the person behind the bar (don't mean BO).

I can smell when a woman is on her period. Probably not always because I'd have no way of knowing! But sometimes I know.

Anyone else? I know I've got a strong sense of smell because I can often smell things other people around me can't but just wondered how common it is. And whether or not these are examples of it! Or whether they're things everyone can smell...

OP what are you like with man made scents? I cannot abide zoflora or aerosol air freshners, plug ins, fabric softeners etc.

I make my own essential oil air freshners and even then, I am choosy with the blends. I too smell when people ar ill. I'm yet to experience menstruating women but I smell cuts and grazes. We live rurally and the smell of death (small creatures) over powers me on walks.

DH calls me a witch

my son is like this, he is autistic and seems to be over sensitive to smell. When he walks past LUSH he has to hold his nose - it makes him feel sick.
He can smell the indian takeaway from his bedroom even though it is half a mile away.
He hates food that smells like garlic and spices

WelshMoth

The only scent i can really tolerate is incense. I burn it constantly to mask other smells. I tend to get unscented everything. But even that smells.

I dry my clothes outside all year round (when its dry!) even in winter (although it doesnt really dry then) because of the difference in smell.

vickibee

I'm similar with Subways. It's one thing being able to smell a takeaway on the same street but apparently not everyone can detect if a town has one!

@vickibee I have ASD and Lush makes me feel really sick as well!

Yes! And it can be a curse. I also have a huge association to smells and experiences. I had a miscarriage years ago and for the 7 weeks that I was pregnant I had a lot of nausea. A friend of mine wore Cerruti (? spelling) perfume at that time and now the smell of it makes me me gag. If I pass someone in the street who’s wearing it I literally feel so sick.

I’m an ICU nurse and I had a particular (common) brand of shampoo and conditioner during the covid surge, I can’t use it now because it reminds me vividly of the hell we went through. It’s almost like flashbacks.

Yep, my DH thinks I’m a loon!

My 4 year old dd has this. She identifies everything by smell. It amazes me.

I have quite a strong sense of smell but nowhere near the level of you OP.

I do smell different when I’m on my period, like a metallic smell like you describe. I can’t smell other women on their period but I’m very worried now about smelling to other people during my period

My sense of smell is heightened when I’m on my period (not had kids yet so don’t know how that will go). My sense of smell on my period can be so strong that it has triggered migraines. One particularly bad period, the office had a different smell and it just made me feel sick. I couldn’t focus but I was so nauseous that I couldn’t go investigate the smell either. I spent most of the morning outside walking around the car park until the migraine kicked in and I went home.

I live quite rurally and can often smell onions growing in the fields around us. We’ll be driving somewhere and I’ll tell DH they’re harvesting onions a couple of miles before we get to the onion fields. I can also smell Oil seed Rape, which is a pain as it’s grown everywhere where I live. I’ve refused to eat at a cafe because it smelt ‘off’ and I’ve stopped DH buying something from a street food vendor when it smelt ‘off’. I can smell the weather and change in seasons. I’ve also smelt ear infections in the dog. People do smell different to me when ill but it’s not off-putting, just not them. I cannot stand the smell of one of my colleagues though, not BO but his cologne and natural smell, he gives me a headache. Other women in the office notice he wears cologne but don’t get headaches from him and think it’s a bit of weird reaction to him. That colleague went through a bereavement and divorce in a short space of time and wanted to talk to me about it, he was talking to me for about an hour and that afternoon I had to go home with an impending migraine.

DH has very little sense of smell though. So I’ll get a whiff of meat that has gone off and he’ll be sticking his nose right into the packet and will still say it’s fine. I also have a heightened sense of hearing - I can hear a car pull up outside our house or when the neighbours are home even before the dog can (we live on a busy road so car traffic is fairly regular). I can also tell the difference between cars that visit regularly. Next door have two vans and I can tell the difference between which van is going out.

Yes, I can smell everything. I have autism.

My people! I went to an all girls boarding school and could tell if someone was on their period- mainly sanitary towels in those days.
I still have a very acute sense of smell now. My husband thinks I'm odd!

OP you could make good money in the right industry if you can put words on what you're sensing. ;) Wine or other food/drinks that have to be tested, perfumes.

I can't describe smells at all. This wine smells different from that wine, yes, but I can't say how.

Like others, I strongly smell different seasons and weather. Since childhood I've said throughout October I can 'smell Halloween', and an early summer morning smells completely different to a foggy/rainy day in January. I also have strong reactions to people I have unexplainable bad feelings about and do wonder if this is linked to smell. Have had five tradesmen round recently as I'm getting quotes for various jobs. Had an instant bad reaction to one of them the minute I answered the door and I struggled to speak and invite him in, then when he was in my house I smelt an unpleasant boiled egg type of smell. He was rather rude and impatient, I felt very uncomfortable and was relieved when he left. He's never emailed me a quote so obviously didn't take to me either!!

I used to have a phenomenal sense of smell. Mostly a bonus, but not always!

I could sniff a tray of hot drinks when someone had mixed up the ones with sugar in, and tell not only the ones with sugar, but whether it was 1 spoonful or 2.

I was also a pretty dab hand at wine tasting.

Anglian Water got fed up with me continually phoning them because the water absolutely stank of chlorine. One of their scientific bods rang me back once and told me that I was one of the few people who could tell the difference between such tiny amounts of chlorine in the water - when it went up from 2 to 3 parts per million.

I detected a gas leak in our meter cupboard that even the gas company struggle to locate with their equipment when they were called out to it.

Nowadays I've almost completely lost my sense of smell and taste after a long bout of sinusitis about five years ago. They are doubtful it will ever return properly.

Has anyone smelled Autumn yet? I'm in SE England and this evening smells gloriously of impending autumn to me, for the first time this year. My family think I'm bonkers and that seasons don't smell.

Yes, I have an excellent sense of smell. Its troublesome sometimes because it can annoy me. One of my dc is the same.

I have a strong sense of smell not sure if I did before pregnancy but certainly when I was pregnant and since

And at different times of my period cycle it’s stronger especially just before my period and when ovulating

And certain smells trigger off headaches like many artificial candles, gin, incense, certain perfumes and just before a migraine I can’t stand the smell of perfume

I have a strong sense of smell, it's always been sharp but got stronger after my first pregnancy.
It's useful for literally sniffing things out, my family can get annoyed with me though if I don't want to be or go somewhere because of a bad smell, eg damp in families houses or that old cooking oil smell that can waft around for a few days.
It's also yucky sometimes, I sit near a woman who I can smell when she's on her period, she's a bit grubby anyway, a bit of a soap dodger but yuck before she complains of stomach pains I can smell it.
I can also smell sneezes, if my husband or children or anyone really sneezes I can smell it, it's sort of a honeysuckle type smell.

I have a good sense of smell but have had one really woo experience with it. When my beloved grandma died, 30 odd years ago, I drove a couple of hours to get home. I smelled everything in Technicolor on that journey including a strong bloody smell from roadkill. I’ve never experienced anything like it.

Yes, since my first pregnancy.

I am the same OP.
I can smell everything. I can smell when it is going to rain.
Whe the kids were small our house was always full of little visitors from nearby houses to play.
Often items of clothing were left behind. My young DD would bring the item for me to sniff so we knew who had left it. Each of the kids and their clothing had different smells.
I still do that with visitors now, if a cardigan or scarf is left behind after a gathering I can sniff it and identify the owner.
I also have an acute hearing ability.
Both compensate a little for the fact that I am extremely shortsighted, and cant manage without glasses.

I also have an amazing sense of smell, I can tell the temperature of the bath water by it's smell.

@KitchenDancefloor

Has anyone smelled Autumn yet? I'm in SE England and this evening smells gloriously of impending autumn to me, for the first time this year. My family think I'm bonkers and that seasons don't smell.

Yup. It's the browning of leaves where some things are drying up, pine cones that have dropped and, because they're fully ripened, the birds and squirrels have got all the seeds out, together with Runner Bean plants, courgette/pumpkins growing and Buddleia, crops being harvested (I think it's early this year), and a change in how the air feels - I think the wind's changed direction, too, so that's dragging in from the coast, rather than all the way across the country.

I like it. It's usually nearer the last week of August/first of September, but getting it early is nice, too.

DP mutters about me being a witch like his grandmother, because I will ask where the water is (I can sniff out underground rivers and tiny streams easily) or tell him 'there's rain in the air'/predict thunderstorms/snow/high winds or watch for bees swarming/wasps/horseflies being dicks.

I'm also really good with animals and can smell if they're scared, ill or unhappy (or relaxed) even without their body language.

Omg this post is so reassuring to me as I am the same!

My sense of smell has always been really strong and got even stronger during both my pregnancies. I would frequently gag, retch or heave due to nasty smells.

My sense of hearing is also really strong. I'm now thinking maybe these 2 are linked together in some way?

Ironically, both my mum and dh neither smell well nor hear great compared to me. They both get annoyed when I say I can smell something bad and they can't smell anything at all. I don't even like freshly cut grass (which apparently loads of people love) as it irritates my nose so much. It really is more of a curse ime 😔

It’s a bit of a curse

I can smell from across the kitchen if DH skipped breakfast (that acetone smell, I can always smell my colleagues across their desk if they are fasting... hate it)

I can smell when the kids are about to come down with a virus (but I think many people can), I can smell on DH breath what he had for lunch, what kind of beer he drank etc

It’s maddening. I was playing tennis the other day and could smell the smell of weed wafting across the estate. The other players said I must be imagining it

I can always smell “damp” too, but that’s a very strong smell imo. I can often smell what fabric softeners the people around me in the supermarket use. I hate bread from Hovis etc. as it smells so strongly of preservatives I can’t eat it.

I don’t like it.

Maybe everyone is the same though, and I’m just more sensitive and moany about it

I've read previously that women have a stronger sense of smell than men