When the aroma of a freshly baked cake reminds you of your childhood birthday parties, the smell of homemade soup reminds you of your grandmother, or a certain fragrance transports you to a specific moment, it is not by chance! It is because of your olfactory memory.
The olfactory memory is completely personal, unique, and non-transferable and makes you relive moments in just a few seconds.
How olfactory memory works
Although in our daily lives we don't pay much attention to it and prioritize other senses like sight or hearing, our life would not be the same without the powerful sense of smell. And it is directly linked to memory, so it has a great connection with emotions and with our mood.
In the nasal cavities are found the smell receptors, known as olfactory epithelia, which are responsible for detecting olfactory stimuli and sending a signal to the olfactory bulb; responsible in turn for processing these stimuli and connecting them with different parts of the brain, especially with the limbic system.
The limbic system
The limbic system is a part of the brain that processes emotional information and helps to consolidate memories since it has structures specifically dedicated to this. Among them we highlight:
- The amygdala, since it is the organ responsible for associating the aroma with emotions.
- And the hippocampus, which relates aromas with memories.
This magnificent combo creates the relevant connections so that olfactory memory works, and thus, when we perceive a certain scent, we are transported to the place or moment when we smelled it for the first time.
The sense of smell and memory
Olfactory memory determines the perception we have of people and places, since the emotional effects that scents transmit to us are what determine our reaction.
People begin to incorporate memories into olfactory memory very early, so much so that we begin to do it when we are in our mother's womb! This makes babies recognize their mother's scent from the very first moment.
Over the years, we perfect our olfactory memory, and it ends up acquiring so much power that it can be responsible for completely changing our mood.
But olfactory memory is not only useful for evoking pleasant memories, it is also tremendously useful for alerting us to a smell that reveals a dangerous situation, such as the smell of burning or decay.
Fragrances and olfactory memory
Fragrances have a great power of evocation, since they are extremely striking smells for our sense of smell and end up being those we most identify with. For this reason, when a person regularly applies a certain fragrance, they are identified by those around them by that scent.
Thanks to olfactory memory, fragrances become our identity mark, in what characterizes us, so we shouldn't choose one lightly.
How? You still don't have a fragrance that identifies you? Then don't wait any longer and take a look at the more than 550 fragrances that make up our catalogue!
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