Article: Preference for Perfume Correlates w/Genotype

Here is a new piece of scientific research about how people recognise their own scent based on their genome (to be precise a particular combination of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins) and choose their artificial scent, i.e., perfume, to amplify it.
How people smell themselves - WIRED - Jan. 2013

I find it fascinating and encouraging that more developments are being made in this arena.
Do you know that to this day, we still do not understand how the human nose works when it comes to recognising smells.

The scope of possibilities for perfume manufacturing will grow exponentially with our understanding of the brain and the olfactory system.

Is this a field that interest you?
What impact can you foresee on the future of fragrances?

It may become a new trend for the perfume industry to imbibe new creations with that ingredient.

And make a whole new advertising campaign out of it. Like, "Go natural, sniff, recognize, choose ... "

One of many things that the perfume industry could capitalize on, like the current oud trend.

Anything new and novel - to sell - to stay ahead of the competition.

Actually, instinctively partners have chosen their partners by nose. It just not has always been analyzed and documented, why.

As far as impact on future fragrances, perhaps there will be perfumers who tailor or market fragrances to evoke certain memories like weddings, parties, etc.

There are 2 perfumes kind of like this already. United Scents of America - New Jersey can evoke memories of being at a carnival or fair.

Also based on some of the reviews I have read, Kerosene - Unknown Pleasures takes the wearer/sniffer back to a time of ice cream cones and eating sweet things as a child.

Yes, I have read about these fragrances also. But, I think it's just another gimmick. I, myself, don't want to smell like a fairground, or cotton candy, or ice cream cones etc....but, maybe certain people do! It is, however, a wonderful thing that we all perceive smells differently. Some love the smell of burnt rubber in perfumes, some love patchouli, others don't etc. It would be sad if we all loved the same things. As far as been able to smell oneself...I don't really know if I could pick out my own smell in a line up! Maybe because I have never thought of it before.

Well, I put weddings,parties, etc. but didn't expand much on those scenarios. Like maybe the smell of flowers mingling with candlewax like in a church or wedding reception.

Usually I choose a fragrance based upon my own smell. It happened that way after many years of testing and playing with possibilities.
Like a well chosen scent should magnify the own pleasant smell. I mean that odor of a healthy person, eating well, not indulging into too many bad eating habits.

Sherapop wrote (somewhere) that people often just add a perfume like an adornment. Then that perfume sits superficially on top of the skin, AND the person.
With Dolby's article, I became aware that there really is something about radiating the own smells, but beautified with a well chosen scent picked from many.

Does not the Guerlinade or other leitmotiv strings amoung Houses agree with some tastes, and not with others ?
Here we are again at the much discussed subject of "skin chemistry".

Did anyone read the booklet by Turin , called "The science of scent". It took me a long time to get through and didn't understand everything, despite a (bio)chemistry background ..
Anyhow Turin has a very interesting hypothesis about how the nose detects scents.. it is worthwhile reading it when you don't mind the science details.

I was interested by the correlation between scent and mate-choosing. You mean people choose people who smell different than themselves? No kidding. And if scent amplifies or suppresses our body-generated MHC molecules, then one depressing conclusion you could draw is that people who have a wide variety of fragrances can't figure out what kind of mate they want or have a huge need to cover up their own very unattractive-to-the-opposite-sex smell. Note: I said could. I don't put much stock in that, but watch for lame fragrance companies (I'd expect French Connection UK to lead the charge) to start mixing in MHC molecules and claiming that they will improve your love life, make you Hercules, or whatever. Law of science #119: there is no discovery that cannot be misued!

Yes.
The Shapists form the traditional (and widely accepted) school of thought.
They work on the basis that each molecule has a different shape that the nose recognises.

Turin put the cat amongst the pigeon with his Vibrational Theory.
He has put forward that the nose is in fact a mini organic Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry machine and calculates / recognises the vibrational values of molecules.

He has actually demonstrated that two molecules with vastly different shapes but similar vibration smell identical.

As a lay-woman, his argument makes much more sense to me.

Dolby, you mentioned the theory of shapes.

An article published in The Perfume Magazine on Nov., 2011 came to my mind. The Author is Francesc Montejo Torrell and the title is "The Holy Grail of the Olfactory Code". Torrell starts with shapes, lock and key theory and goes on to scientific explanations which I was unable to follow.

That "Synaptic Glittering" theory, is that the vibration theory you mentioned?

It is not often that I cannot follow what is written, but here my brain hooked out. Either it is too much chemistry for me, or the author did not put it into well enough understandable layman language.

It's really too bad that bloodhounds cannot speak.

Sorry, didn't see your question until today (should get into the habit of clicking that "notify me" button more often).

Right,

The entire article is about the Shape Theory and doesn't mention anything about Vibration.
It argues that the human nose has approximately 350 olfactory receptors that work on the lock and key principle, ie: a receptor of a certain shape (the lock) will attract a molecule of the same shape (the key), hence recognising and understanding its nature.

However, it also stipulates that a human being can recognise an average of a 1000 different smells, which wouldn't make sense with what is said above and this is why Montejo Torrell suggests that these receptors are flexible and can adapt to a wider range of similar molecules instead of the single one originally thought of.

Synaptic Glittering is stage two of the process, ie, what follows the shapist receptor/molecule model and is the pathway to and in the brain where the information is analyzed.

Edit: Wrote this reply very late last night.
I actually feel that Synaptic Glittering also applies to other olfactory mechanisms such as Turin's Vibrational Theory since the two are perfectly capable of working together.

I agree with Torrell. That makes sense to me. If humans have on average 350 scent receptors, there must be another mechanism to allow for the ability recognize variations in degrees of scent and scent combinations and so forth.

I suppose all mammals possibly have this variable possibility of Synaptic Glittering in their olfactory senses.

This would give a person so much more than the ability to recognize only 350 scents.

What is truly incredible to me is the thought of applying this olfactory variation recognition possibility to the olfactory sensitivity of a Bloodhound, who has on average, 300 million active scent receptors.

I like to fantasize the ridiculous. I imagine synthesizing an average human brain with 300 million scent receptors. Can you imagine a person with this capability?

I wonder how we would perceive and analyze perfumes with this sensitivity.

If all police detectives had this sensitivity?
It's a fascinating thought.

Hail the humble Bloodhound.

IF we were surrounded only by good-smelling-things... and humans - would be great.
In reality, I think it will be a nightmare.

by the way - my dogs very well accepted the scents of my perfumes.
They approve my choice, or just magnanimously forgive me !?

My cats sniff around my perfume bottles and samples drawer at time. Sometimes they like what I wear and lick my arm. Sometimes they will push me away after sniffing my arm. There seems to be no uniform choice about scent types.

I wonder if having the scent acuity of a cat or dog would be torture...or just change all our perceptions of good and bad odors since they would be smelled much more in depth, perhaps even having the ability with a human brain to break down the molecules within them to identify them.

SUPERNOSE!

Precisely my thoughts! I didn't know our perfume preferences are self-selected to enhance one's own distinct body odours and not a deliberate choice. The cited reason for that, the fact that humans prefer to mate with MHC-dissimilar individuals so as to increase the MHC heterozygosity of their progeny, declares fragrance a mere means for sexual communication, aiming at healthy offspring.
It seems music is not the only universal language after all.

_____________
Milinski and Wedekind, Evidence for MHC-correlated perfume preferences in humans. Behavioral Ecology, 2001, 12: 140-149
Hämmerli, Schweisgut and Kaegi, Population genetic segmentation of MHC-correlated perfume preferences, International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 2011, 34: 161-168.