In various perfume boutiques and department stores, you might have encountered small bowls and containers of coffee beans and thought about what they are for. Perhaps you’ve even heard from a well-meaning employee (or scent-loving acquaintances) that they are there to help refresh your nose after having a splurge of fragrances. The question is:
Can coffee beans aid in resetting our sense of smell?
Coffee bean conundrum The solution is straightforward: smelling coffee beans does nothing to cleanse or reset the senses, as confirmed through the work of Dr. Alexis Grosofsky from Beloit College in a scientific study. Smelling coffee beans merely gives your nose another strong scent to deal with!
The sense of smell continually resets itself naturally, but if you’ve overstimulated your nose by spraying it with all the scents or giving your nose relaxation between sprays, the most effective way to achieve this is by taking a sniff of your wool sweater or an unscented part of your skin. This is how perfumers “reset’ (if they need to) when they’re smelling hundreds of different ingredients or making a fresh fragrance mod (modification) or modification scent’s formula.
This website air-aroma.com puts this entire coffee bean theory to be firm:
Stop at any perfume shop, and you can spot small cups of coffee beans arranged between different scents. The salesperson might suggest you go through the beans, sniffing different scents. It is believed that the scent of coffee beans acts as a kind of palate cleanser to your nose, allowing you to smell scent after scent.
What is the reason someone would require this?
Olfactory fatigue, or habituation, is a real issue that deserves consideration. The olfactory receptors within your nose start to detect the smells after a short and long duration (like the fragrance you’ve worn for the entire day); however, they stop detecting them, leading you to believe that there’s nothing there. It’s a case of sensory adaptation; the body can become less sensitive to stimuli to limit the overstressing of our nervous system, permitting it to react to stimuli that are ‘out of the norm’. Does coffee beans contain a mysterious molecular ingredient that resets our taste buds and allows us to keep smelling things? It turns out that the answer is not! ‘
If you’ve snorted several scents simultaneously (we understand!) and smelling your clothes, scarf, or even your skin doesn’t suffice to “reset” your nose, go outside to breathe in fresh air and take a few minutes.
Tips to smell lots of fragrances at once
Instead, if you’re looking for the best ways to smell lots of fragrances at once, here are some top tips to avoid getting in an over-olfactory-stimulated scent muddle…
Give fragrances time. Many of us spray, then sniff it immediately (that’s just the alcohol that you’re experiencing, perhaps just a tiny small whiff of the top notes) and then either buy it in a flash or go away. The notes that start to appear can vanish in a matter of minutes. You must allow it to sit for 20 minutes or more to get the heart or middle notes. The notes called ‘base’ are composed of substances that contain the most dense molecules, which means they can take a long time to get warm before vaporizing onto the skin.
Test the scent on a blotter first
Test the scent on a blotter first (also called an ‘episode’s-pill’) if possible. Make sure you write all the names of your perfumes on blotters! If not, you’ll end up with an entire stack in your pockets or on the bottoms of bags without knowing which scent is what…
Give a couple of minutes for the alcohol
Give a couple of minutes for the alcohol and top notes to subdue, after which you will take a sniff of the Blotters. In this phase, you might be able to remove some or all of them if they don’t suit your needs; however, the heart notes and persistent base notes that you can live with are essential. Blotters are an effective method of removing the no-hopers and lining up possible options, but more is needed to purchase. It would help if you smelled the scent on your skin to ensure it suits your needs.
Do not smell more than five or four at one time
It’s not your nose that’s the issue. The issue is how we perceive smells, which require time to be assessed (and permitting the scent to develop on the blotter and later on our skin when it gets warm).
Note down a couple of words to describe your feelings about each scent
They should be emotions or things it recalls (a musical instrument, fabric color, location, or the time of the day). These may sound abstract, but they represent how a scent connects to your personal style (or in other ways). Return to the blotters after a couple of hours and re-smell them — check whether the words have changed.
Discover the perfect fragrance for gifting or special occasions at unbeatable prices — explore best collection at Perfumora.com and make every moment unforgettable.