The tang of cut grass, the aroma of a smoky bonfire, sunscreen on a hot day… According to a 2014 study by The Rockefeller University, the human nose is able to distinguish more than a trillion smells. But certain odours have transportive powers – one need only imagine them to conjure specific memories. It was a smoked salmon blini, of all things, that threw 35-year-old creative director Cossima Smith’s world into turmoil. In early March 2020, at a party, she noticed she couldn’t smell the food she was about to put in her mouth. She couldn’t taste it, either. “It was a strange realisation,” Cossima says. “I recognised the texture, I could see it was salmon. But aside from that, nothing.”
Eight months on, when we talk, Cossima has yet to regain her full sense of smell. At the time, anosmia (the term for losing your sense of smell) wasn’t commonly understood to be a symptom of Covid-19, but Cossima now knows that back in March, she was in the initial stages of the virus. According to a report in The BMJ, half of those infected may become anosmic; an international study by the Mayo Clinic determined the symptom to be a better early indicator of the disease than a fever.
Sensing and identifying smells is a complex yet under-appreciated process. In a 2011 survey of 7,000 young people, more than half of those aged 16 to 22 said they would rather lose their sense of smell than give up their technology. My husband, Lewis, 42, a photojournalist for CNN, would agree. Born anosmic, he has never smelt anything in his life. He has no “smell associations” to conjure: never smelt the head of a milk-drunk baby nor caught the notes of his mother’s perfume; and, incredibly, until we met 10 years ago, had never even told his family. “I used to say ‘mmm’ or ‘eurgh’, like others did,” he says. “I didn’t want to make it into a thing.” He cannot taste garlic, mint or anything aromatic, and says he eats as much for texture (melted chocolate is a favourite) as for flavour – although remarkably he’s not a terrible cook, and has been known to lift the lid off a bubbling pan and exclaim, “This looks like it smells great!” “What you’ve never had, you never miss,” he says.
“We don’t quite yet understand why so many people lose their sense of smell with Covid-19,” says Mr Gavin Morrison, a consultant otolaryngologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and on Harley Street. “One reason is nasal inflammation, which means the air carrying odours simply can’t get to [the brain]. That usually lasts three weeks. But about 10 per cent of Covid patients have longer term problems. This could be to do with damage to the nerves or in the olfactory bulb. Covid, we know, affects the brain.”
Anosmia has profound effects. Research has shown links to depression, anxiety, isolation and relationship difficulties; sense of smell is even linked to our ability to detect illness, and to our sense of direction. “People don’t understand how important sense of smell is until they lose it,” says neuroscientist Dr Rachel Herz, author of The Scent of Desire. “The part of the brain where smell is processed is directly linked to the part where emotions are formed. When people lose their sense of smell, they start losing their sense of self… It gets worse over time – it becomes more of an obvious loss.”
Aromyx is a Palo Alto-based biotech company analysing human perceptions of smells around the world, “providing a platform to clearly communicate impressions of taste and smell for the first time”, says CEO Josh Silverman. “Smell was the first sense we developed, and our nose connects into the oldest areas of the brain because it actually predates the brain. This means we interpret smell more through emotion and gut instinct than our other senses, which also makes it more difficult for us to communicate our impressions of smell to others.”
This idea of communication around scent fascinates Laurent Delafon and Christopher Yu, founders of fragrance house Ostens, and CEO and managing director respectively of United Perfumes. The duo were behind the success of Diptyque UK and have worked in the fragrance industry for more than 20 years. “Laurent and I are passionate about education and the language we use to talk about smell,” says Yu. “Children are taught a plethora of words to talk about texture, taste and colour, but our vocabulary around smell is so tiny.”
Yu had Covid-19 in March and lost his sense of smell (he’s now recovered) but says due to the language of scent he and Delafon have built up, he isn’t fearful of anosmia. “We would always be able to use our language. If Laurent could smell things and describe them to me, I would feel able to experience scent, albeit in an altered way.”
Mr Morrison says a lost or altered sense of smell can improve “over 12 to 18 months, but after that it’s pretty unlikely to recover”, and he stresses anyone noticing changes should see an ENT specialist. Depending on the cause, a variety of things can be done. Pioneering surgeries include re-activating olfactory receptors and nerve fibres inside the nose, and evidence suggests that “smell training” – which Cossima is undertaking (available through charities such as Fifth Sense, and essentially a very basic version of the process perfumers go through) – may help, although not for those born anosmic.
Linda Pilkington began her perfumer scent training two years before founding her fragrance house, Ormonde Jayne. Memorising a variety of scents made her increasingly aware of the world around her. “Suddenly, you can smell everything you pass,” she explains on a misty walk around Hyde Park. “That lady is wearing this kind of perfume, I don’t like the smell coming
out of this house… things that other people are not aware of. It’s constant, but not overwhelming.”
Which is the same reason my husband has chosen not to investigate why he can’t smell and possibly get it fixed – despite my pestering. “I think smells everywhere would all be too much. And besides, if scents are intrinsically linked to attraction,” he smirks, “what if I suddenly don’t like you?” He has a point.
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