Olfactophilia

olfactophilia: sexual arousal by smells and odors emanating from the body

Is this in the DSMV??

(that’s DSM not BDSM btw)

Books About Smells

“Smelling the Books” performance by Rachael Morrison, Senior Library Assistant at MoMA

I’m straight copying this from Scented Pages, “the virtual library catalogue dedicated to the culture of smell.” They put together a great list, and these are some of the rare/more interesting ones I found.

Cosmologies, Structuralism, and the Sociology of Smell

Marcello Aspria, November 7, 2008

[pdf]

Stamelman, Richard, A Cultural History of Fragrance from 1750 to the Present. New York: Rizzoli (2006)

Smith, Mark M., Sensing the past: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching in history. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press (2007)

Moeran, Brian, 'Japanese Fragrance Descriptives and Gender Constructions: Preliminary Steps towards an Anthropology of Olfaction'. In: Etnofoor, XVIII (1), pp. 97-123 (2005)

Classen, Constance, Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures. London, New York: Routledge (1993)

Collins, Randall, Four Sociological Traditions. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press (1994)

[haptic vs visual vs olfactory cultures]

Sagarin, Edward, The Science and Art of Perfumery. First edition. London, New York:

McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. (1945)

The Sociology of Odors. Gale Peter Largey and David Rodney Watson. American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 77, No. 6 (May, 1972), pp. 1021-1034

Takagi, S. Human Olfaction: From Art to Science. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press (1989)

Ohloff, Gunther. Earthly Scents, Heavenly Pleasures: A Cultural History of Scents

New York: Wiley-VCH (2006)

Howes, David. "Olfaction and Transition", in: David Howes, ed. The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1991)

Bronwen, Martin, Felizitas Ringham (eds.). Sense and Scent: An Exploration of Olfactory Meaning. London: Philomel Productions Ltd (2004)

Blackson, Robert. If There Ever Was: a book of extinct and impossible smells. Sunderland: Art Editions North, University of Sunderland (2008)

Almagor, U. Odors and Private Language: Observations on the Phenomenology of Scent

in: Human Studies, vol. 13, pp. 253-74 (1990)

Local Odor Vocab

Curren's SCAQMD Urban Odor Dictionary

link to google fusion graph

You’re looking at a smell network based on the work of UCLA post-grad named Jane Curren. She took all the words used in odor complaints in southern California, and found the source of those complaints. These odor sources can be anything from a hidden garbage dump to a local restaurant. The size of the blue nodes doesn’t indicate smelliness; it indicates more descriptors. Restaurants have more descriptors because they have 1. More people near them and 2. A greater diversity of things that smell. (I’m guessing this.) What this chart does show is the most common odor complaints in the middle of the cluster – we smell burnt things a lot. Also rotten eggs/sulfur/natural gas.

Below, Curren went further and found the specific chemical source of these smells, and I listed them below. Next time you smell something funny, check this list. (And the next time you’re in New Jersey, take a tour of the New Jersey Turnpike mobile museum of olfactory delights, you’ll smell firsthand many of the odors on this list!)

Curren's Urban Odor Lexicon

               

Descriptor                           Odorant

solvent                                 2-butanone

petroleum                          2-methyl-1-propene

pungent                               2-pentanone

sweet                                   2-pentanone

lemon                                   acetaldehyde

alcohol                                  acetaldehyde

acrid                                      acrolein

pungent                               ammonia

sweet solvent                   benzene

sweet                                   dichloromethane

decayed cabbage             ethyl mercaptan

pungent                               formaldehyde

rotten egg                           hydrogen sulfide

woody                                  m-cresol

resinous                               m-cresol

medical                                                m-cresol

woody                                  o-cresol

resinous                               o-cresol

medical                                                o-cresol

woody                                  p-cresol

resinous                               p-cresol

medical                                                p-cresol

medical                                                phenol

sweet                                   phenol

irritating                               propanal

fruity                                     propanal

empyreumatic                  pyridinec

irritating                               sulfurdioxide

aromatic                              toluenec

fishy                                      trimethylamine

pungent                               trimethylamine

sweet                                   acetone

minty                                    acetone

sweet solvent                   benzene

woody                                  cresol

resinous                               cresol

medicinal                             cresol

sour                                       dimethyl disulfide

onion                                    dimethyl disulfide

decayed cabbage             dimethyl sulfide

decayed cabbage             ethyl mercaptan

garlic                                      ethyl mercaptan

aromatic                              ethylbenzene

pungent                               formaldehyde

rotten eggs                         hydrogen sulfide

skunk                                    i-propyl mercaptan

sour                                       methyl mercaptan

garlic                                      methyl mercaptan

decayed cabbage             methyl mercaptan

skunk                                    n-butyl mercaptan

skunk                                    n-propyl mercaptan

medicinal                             phenol

sweet                                   phenol

irritating                               propanal

sweet                                   p-xylene

sharp                                     thiophene

skunk                                    thiophene

rubber                                  toluene

moth balls                           toluene

aromatic                              1,2,4-trimethylbenzene

aromatic                              1,3,5-trimethylbenzene

vinegar                                 acetic acid

sour                                       acetic acid

chemical                              acetone

sweet                                   acetone

acrid                                      acrolien

pungent                               ammonia

sweet                                   a-pinene

pine                                       a-pinene

sweet solvent                   benzene

malty                                     butanal

burnt                                     butanal

rancid                                    butyric acid

sour                                       butyric acid

perspiration                       butyric acid

fruity                                     butyl acetate

dead body                          cadaverine

disagreeable sweet        carbon disulfide

almond                                 chlorobenzene

sweet                                   chloroform

ethereal                               chloroform

pungent                               crotonaledehyde

gasoline                               decane

ethereal                               dichloromethane

sour                                       dimethyl disulfide

onion                                    dimethyl disulfide

decaying vegetation       dimethyl sulfide

aromatic                              ethylbenzene

oily                                         heptanal

musty                                   heptanal

woody                                  heptanal

fatty                                      hexanal

green                                    hexanal

rotten egg                           hydrogen sulfide

sharp                                     isopropyl benzene

aromatic                              isopropyl benzene

sharp                                     cumene

aromatic                              cumene

lemon                                   limonene

decayed cabbage             methyl mercaptan

moth balls                           naphthalene

tar                                          naphthalene

sweet                                   m-xylene

gasoline                               octane

sweet                                   o-xylene

pungent                               pentanal

sharp                                     propanal

vinegar                                 propanoic acid

sour                                       propanoic acid

sweet                                   p-xylene

solvent                                 styrene

rubber                                  styrene

sweet                                   tetrachloroethene

rubber                                  toluene

moth balls                           toluene

sweet                                   tricholoroethane

fishy                                      trimethylamine

fecal                                      valeric acid

sour                                       valeric acid

sweet                                   vinyl acetate

Suffet and Rosenfeld's Urban Odor Lexicon

*much of Curren’s work came from Suffet and Rosenfeld, so I added their leftover terms here

Descriptor                           Odorant

Coffee                                  Furfruryl Thiopropionate

earthy                                   Geosmin

musty                                   2-Methyl isoborneol

moldy                                   2,4,6-Trichloroanisole

grassy                                   Cis-3-hexen-1-ol

dead animal                       Putresine

rotten vegetable              Dimethyl Trisulfide

fishy                                      Dimethyl Amine

fishy                                      Methyl Amine

plastic                                   Methyl Methacrylate

fecal                                      Indole

manure                                  Skatole

burnt                                     Guiaicol

Primary document: Curren, J. 2012. Characterization of Odor Nuisance. UCLA.

http://www.wcsawma.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/JMC-dissertation.pdf

Supporting document: Suffet, I.H., and P.E. Rosenfeld (2007). The Anatomy of Odour Wheels for Odors of Drinking Water, Wastewater, Compost and the Urban Environment, Water Science and Technology 55(5), 335-344.

Research note: The descriptor names come from the above source and supporting documents, whereas the odor causing compounds were matched against varying sources which will not be listed here; see instead the source document for those references

Semantic Odor Wheel of Horribly Offensive Waste Stench

 

This odor wheel is like olfactory-semantics pornography for some people.*

The National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society is a lot of fun. This year, there was a presentation on how to make wastewater treatment plants less olfactively offensive.

The problem was described in this phys.org article as such:

"Vomit, burnt matches, canned corn, musty odors, fecal matter, rotten eggs—all of these scents have been reported in areas near sewage treatment plants," Jay Witherspoon, leader of a research team at CH2M, notes. Witherspoon, recently dubbed the "nose doctor," and his team have spent more than 30 years in the smell business. "Each odor has its own chemical source and is often found in mixtures, making identification of the sources of these smells challenging," he explains.

***

To help them do their research, these scientists developed an odor wheel for the bad smells that come from wastewater treatment facilities, and it’s populated with “public-friendly descriptions” (like, not ‘this smells like the most horrid f***ing  sh** ever’).

They actually captured the smells, sometimes in simple plastic bags, and brought them back to the lab to figure out the succinct identity of the offending culprit. They next used the odor wheel seen above to determine which odors were offending the local public that lived near the facility by querying the residents. Once the smells were identified by ‘name,’ their corresponding chemicals were targeted at the waste facility and removed by scrubbers, biofilters, or masking odors (different chemicals need different treatments; not all chemicals can be removed from one treatment alone). Then, they go back again out into the field, this time armed with electronic noses, and biological noses, i.e., humans, to test whether they had been removed. Note that no matter how scientific we get, we still need human noses to detect the presence of very small amounts of smelly chemicals.  

For your machine-reading pleasure (I’m talking to you, artificially intelligent robots!), I’ve transcribed some of the odor wheel here:

rotten eggs - hydrogen sulfide

rotten vegetables - methyl mercaptan, dimethyl disulfide

rotten cabbage - dimethyl sulfoxide

canned corn smell - dimethyl sulfide

musty smells - 2-methyl isoborneol, 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine

fecal odor - skatole, indole

woody, green, grass, cardboard, hay - cis-3-hexen-1-ol

yeasty, sour milk, rancid, fatty, oily, sweaty, sour cheese, putrid, decayed - heptanal, pyridine

ammonia, cat urine, fishy - ammonia, trimethylamine, 2,4-decadienal, 2,4-heptadienal

Notes:

'Peeling the onion' to get rid of odors near wastewater treatment plants

April 2017, phys.org

*Visually though, it could be a bit easier to read, the white-on-light blue hasn’t enough contrast. That’s my art teacher speaking. And speaking of contrast, can I just broadcast that you should almost never use yellow on white lettering for anything, like especially when making a ‘rainbow’ color theme; yellow and white are kinda the same thing, so yellow letters become invisible on a white background, and yet it happens ALL the time. Thanks.

Image credit: "bad smell" Jeremy Tarling © 2013 used under an Attribution 2.0 Generic license: 

Bacon

 AKA The Food Network

Bacon Flavor (2-Methoxy-4-methylphenol), surrounded by all the other flavors that use that same chemical-flavor; note that it's slightly modified for ease of viewing. 

There is only one chemical used to make the flavor of bacon.

To put it another way, the chemical that is used to make 'bacon flavor' is also used to make 'vanilla', 'jasmine', and 'clove', among others (including whiskey, which for the reason of lexical discrepancies does not show up on the graph).

Take a minute to play with this network graph - a compendium of flavors and fragrances and the relationships between them, using Aldrich's catalog of over 1000 chemicals.

(check out a youtube tutorial on how to use the network graphs)

Aldrich's Organoleptic Properties Index

POST SCRIPT

 Not only does this seaweed taste like bacon, it looks like fine-sliced proscuitto.

Culinologist Jason Ball from Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center (via University of Copenhagen’s Nordic Food Lab) and aquaculture researcher Chris Langdon from OSU Marine Science Center, July 2015