News — Brain and scent

Can language ever capture the mysterious world of smells? My obsession with perfume began when I was around ten years old, spritzing on layer after layer of my mother’s Anaïs Anaïs and Poison, until I reeked of a duty-free store. It continued through my mall-rat teen-age years, when I blew through my babysitting tips at Bath & Body Works, convinced that I could amplify my personality with a generous dose of Sun-Ripened Raspberry. Throughout my twenties, I collected hundreds of fragrance samples, bought for less than five dollars apiece from Web sites with names like the Perfumed Court and Surrender...

  Our editors independently research, test, and recommend the best products out of hundreds of Niche perfumes on the market. Frags are a funny thing. Years ago, I developed a habit of changing perfumes after the end of a relationship. Now, I have a habit of changing perfumes every month in an effort to stay present, and to constantly create new memories. In 2016, Dr. Rachel S. Herz published this medical journal on odor-evoked memory and how it affects psychological health. Scent is a central feature of olfactory cognition. That means your brain is able to recall whether it has...