Can a Fragrance Smell Good Yet Leave You Wanting No More?

You think a fragrance smells good, yet you have had enough of smelling it repeatedly. A small experiment in 2014 reported that these two feelings changed differently with repetition. In women, ratings of wanting to smell the fragrance again fell even though there was no clear decline in its pleasantness. In men, the desire to smell it again declined first, followed by a decline in pleasantness.

The study asked whether liking a fragrance and wanting to experience more of it could be considered separately, and whether these changes differed between men and women.

Asking separately about liking and wanting another sniff

The researchers called the pleasantness of a fragrance “liking” and the desire to smell the same fragrance again “wanting.” For example, you might still find a floral fragrance pleasant, but after repeated exposure feel no need for another sniff. Asking two separate questions allowed the researchers to examine that distinction.

The participants were 18 people aged 20–36: nine men and nine women. An odor identification test confirmed that they met the inclusion criterion. Following a preliminary test with a separate group of 18 people, three perfume mixtures reminiscent of flowers, aloe, and coconut were selected for the main experiment. In the preliminary test, these were pleasant on average, at concentrations that showed no clear differences in perceived intensity.

Participants smelled a bottle held beneath their nose for three seconds, waited briefly, and then rated pleasantness on a screen, followed by how much they wanted to smell it again. The order was randomized within each round of the three fragrances. Each fragrance was presented 40 times, for 120 presentations over approximately 36 minutes. The average interval between presentations was about 18 seconds.

Here, wanting was a self-rating of the desire to smell the fragrance again, not a decision to buy a perfume or an actual choice to take another sniff. Pleasantness was rated first and wanting second on every trial.

In women, wanting another sniff declined even when pleasantness was maintained

The analysis pooled the three fragrances and examined the relationship between repetition and ratings. In women, ratings of wanting to smell the fragrance again decreased as repetitions increased. Pleasantness ratings, however, showed no statistically clear decline.

This combination captures the study’s central finding. A single change, no longer wanting more because the fragrance had become unpleasant, could not fully explain it. Even for the same pleasant fragrance, there was value in asking separately about pleasantness and the desire to experience more.

In men, the pattern changed after the initial exposures

Men’s ratings of wanting another sniff dropped sharply over the first one to four presentations of each fragrance, with no clear further decline over presentations 5–40. Pleasantness showed the opposite pattern: no clear decline over the first one to four presentations, followed by a decrease over presentations 5–40.

Direct comparisons of the slopes of change between men and women showed a larger later decline in pleasantness in men, and a steeper initial decline in wanting another sniff. However, the decision to divide the men’s data into presentations 1–4 and 5–40 was made after inspecting the pattern of results. This was not an experiment designed in advance to test a boundary at which people invariably become bored after four exposures.

When the second ratings were compared to examine initial levels, pleasantness tended to be higher than wanting another sniff, but the difference did not reach statistical significance. The main evidence for a distinction between the two lay in how they changed with repetition, rather than which was higher at the outset.

Reward responsiveness and everyday enjoyment were also examined

After the experiment, questionnaires measured responsiveness to reward, tendencies to avoid undesirable events, and tendencies to anticipate and experience pleasure. In this sample, women scored higher than men on scales related to reward responsiveness and avoidance.

Among women, higher scores on scales concerning anticipated and experienced pleasure were associated with higher initial pleasantness and wanting ratings. In men, associations were also reported between the slopes of rating changes and some questionnaire scales. These were exploratory findings from many comparisons in groups of just nine people each. For men’s reward-related scales, some negative correlation coefficients also did not clearly align with the direction described in the text, so these results cannot establish which personalities become bored sooner.

The authors discussed the possibility that the value and interest people attach to odors might contribute to sustained pleasantness. The study did not measure the brain’s reward system or hormones, and the mechanisms that might explain sex differences remain a question for future research.

A small clue for evaluating repeatedly experienced fragrances

Besides having only nine men and nine women, the experiment was limited by not measuring fragrance intensity in the main study. It cannot adequately separate changes in perceived strength during repetition from their contribution to the ratings. The fixed order of asking about pleasantness first might also have influenced the subsequent response.

Furthermore, the main analysis used regression on individual trial ratings; no mixed model accounting for the grouping of repeated observations within the same person was described. These findings warrant confirmation in a larger sample and with a different analysis before being generalized as characteristics of men and women.

The authors also discussed applications to scented shops and perfume selection. The direct implication of this experiment is that, when studying repeatedly experienced fragrances, asking whether people still want to smell them, as well as whether they are pleasant, can reveal different patterns of change.

Summary

In an experiment presenting three pleasant perfume mixtures 40 times each, women’s ratings of wanting another sniff fell even though pleasantness showed no clear decline. In men, wanting declined initially, while pleasantness decreased later.

Liking a fragrance and wanting to smell more of it right now do not necessarily change in the same way. Although this was a small, exploratory study, it offers a concrete reason not to reduce responses to fragrance to a single like-or-dislike score.

The study was supported by a Swedish Research Council grant and a German Research Foundation fellowship, and Firmenich provided the fragrances. The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Reference

Triscoli C, Croy I, Olausson H, Sailer U. Liking and wanting pleasant odors: different effects of repetitive exposure in men and women. Frontiers in Psychology. 2014;5:526. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00526