The next time you stop to smell the roses, take a moment to consider how you are able to enjoy their perfume. Sniff the velvet petals, and a cocktail of aromatic molecules wafts across odor receptors within your nasal cavity. Each is located on an olfactory neuron that extends into the brain. Chemical compounds that tumble past will bind to and activate a variety of receptors and their neurons. Your brain decodes this pattern as the unmistakable fragrance of a rose.
— From On the Scent of Smell, which discusses recent work by John Ngai, Coates Family Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Functional Genomics Laboratory at UC Berkeley. Many thanks to Mary for the link!
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It is amazing how many different types of smells a rose can have. I am lucky to have a very heady, romantic “damask” smelling rose in my garden right now, and I always lament a beautiful apricot-honey smelling rose I had to leave behind one time when I moved…..There is a stunning, massive wild rose bramble that bloomed a few weeks ago up here in a ditch – the dark pink roses opened and died in one day, but the smell was heavenly and fresh.
All I’m smelling these days is roses as finally my nose is able to find “less” in fragrances rather than more….Now all I can do is marvel at the gorgeous dewy rose fragrance in Joy, the wonderful soft sweet rose that pokes out at the dry down of Flower by Kenzo, the sweet and heady rose of Annick Goutal Heure Exquise and Amouage Lyric…it goes on and on. I’ve always been a rose lover and I’m happy that it is everywhere, even when you don’t really notice it!
Oh, I am so sending you some Rose Petals shea butter!
Is this a Daisy product? How about some of that dandelion wine?
Avoid the elderberry wine, though! For “special” acquaintances only, Ann.
yes, innocent looking old ladies seldom are…..
Eeks! Sounds like some fun! What fragrance would you wear for drinking with elderberry wine anyway?
Embalming fluid?
LOL—great movie though! The only time I ever like Cary Grant is when he’s being funny…and I think he had quite a talent for the comical…..as a romantic hero? blechh.
it wasn’t any fun for special acquaintances….
Haahahaha I’m still enjoying “Soft, Sparkly and Drunk” ….I reread that email and was giggling all over again! Sadly, I don’t know how to make dandelion wine….I’d probably end up with some nasty weed stew….
Apparently from old stories from my granny, it is very easy to explode in the basement!
Exploding wine bottles! ack! of course I do have one very annoying neighbor…maybe I could store the wine in THEIR basement?……
Oh – that SS&D is *all* you Daisy! What a PR line that would be! A great t-shirt slogan for gals of ANY age! Move over red hatters, here is the SS&D crowd!
That would be so cool! I love that idea….change the name of the website!!!! and add t-shirts to the mix….soft, sparkly and drunk…but not NAKED! (and on the back: “yet”)
Cool article, Robin! Thanks for the link.
P.S. I was just thinking. If you ever were looking for another writer to add to your stable, I would be honoured if you would consider me. I would even use American spelling.
Angela might vouch for my reliability and enthusiasm. As far as my knowledge of fragrance goes, I’m definitely learning as fast as I can.
P.S. I’m at rrazzell@telus.net. I’ve written professionally for an embarrassingly long time (I’m no spring chicken) so you wouldn’t have to red-pen me much.
R, we’re not looking for anyone at the moment, but if you want to be kept in mind for the future as it were, the best thing to do is to email me a short review of something.
Thanks, Robin, for being willing to keep me in mind. If and when you’re needing another writer, PLMK and I’ll give you something fresh to read.
R, I am not joking when I say I have the memory of a head of cabbage. You’d really be wiser to send me something now…I keep all submissions in one email folder.
It’s like a car. I don’t really need to know how a combustion engine works to appreciate the fact that the car gets me where I’m going. I really love the smell of roses and I don’t care how they get it into the bottle, but I’m damn glad that they do. Denise
Ditto.
Ah, the human body, it is a wonder. I liked the article, thanks, and didn’t know this bit:
“While most neurons grow only during development, the olfactory system keeps producing replacement neurons throughout life.”
I’m reminded of the factoid that a dog’s sense of smell is estimated to be over one thousand times more sensitive than humans. Hard to imagine!
I’m pretty sure I’ve read that that particular factoid is not true though. Have to think of where…
LOL. I looked at a few sources to make sure it wasn’t totally an old wives’ tale — but it’s published as somewhere between hundreds and a million times more sensitive, so in any case, that’s a lot of dog-nose-power!
Ok, you forced me to Google: look at the caption under the picture in this article:
http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2009/UR_CONTENT_106552.html
Mind you, I have no idea if it’s true.
I was in the Rose Garden in Golden Gate Park one summer and leaned over to smell a beautiful pale yellow rose. It smelled very buttery somehow, still like a rose, but… buttery. I looked to see what kind of rose it was and i was a “Julia Child”! I about died – too perfect.
How nice!