Latest news with #smell
France 24
19 hours ago
- Business
- France 24
Who makes laundry smell nice? Meet the professional 'noses'
These busy heroes of the world of smells and aromas shape the connection millions of consumers have with everyday items. While at high-end perfume labels, olfactory artists create scents for luxury body sprays, Symrise's experts work on everyday products that might range from mint-flavoured toothpaste to barbeque chips. Smell, a powerful sense that can trigger emotions and memories, and aroma often decide which food or beverage, cleaning or personal hygiene product ends up in the shopping cart. At Symrise's headquarters in Holzminden, a quiet town south of Hanover, each day at the company's in-house perfumery school begins the same way: sniffing out scents from dozens of tiny bottles while blindfolded. "It's just like tuning a musical instrument before you play," said Alicia De Benito Cassado, a 32-year-old former professional pianist from Spain. Her career switch into scent development was a natural step: she made her own perfumes as a teenager to match the poetry and music that she wrote. "For me, not everything has to smell good," she said. "The horror of smell also helps us discover ourselves." But commercial clients demand something different, De Benito Cassado added. "In the end, we need to create scents that are strong, beautiful, powerful -- and affordable." Professional sniffers Being a "nose" is a full-time job and comes with a three-year training programme. The smell of a fabric softener can be composed of 80 compounds, far more than in a premium body perfume, and the best noses can make out over 1,000 different odours while blindfolded. Being able to break down odours into their chemical components is key. "As a kid, I just smelled jasmine or gardenia as flowers," he said. "Now, I recognise the chemicals: it's a blend of many elements." Students weigh ingredients down to the milligramme, mix, smell, and start over, often by replicating existing smells to understand their structure and then innovate from there. "When developing perfume, it is very important that several people smell it," said 56-year-old master perfumer Marc vom Ende, head of the school. "We all perceive smell differently." 'Nose has the final say' Pleasant smells cannot come at any cost, and the rules of the game change over time. Lilial, a chemical once prized for its floral and sweet Lily-of-the-Valley notes, has been banned in the European Union since 2022 over fears it can cause skin irritation and damage the reproductive system. Fragrances applied directly to the body have stricter regulations than detergents, said 27-year-old South African trainee Attiya Setai. "We're more restricted in raw materials and must replace banned ingredients with new compliant ones," she said. Tastes also vary across global markets, with Shangyun pointing to the example of Chinese shampoos that sell well with a young clientele there but would struggle in Europe. "Something old-fashioned in one country can be new elsewhere," he said. Cost also enters the equation. Symrise extracts aromatic compounds from wood resin, a by-product of the paper industry, in a move "that makes both economic and environmental sense", said vom Ende. It is hard to be a nose. About 500 perfumers work in the industry and 80 of them at Symrise, which has a workforce of 13,000. The company markets about 30,000 products to clients ranging from confectioners to pet food manufacturers and suncream makers. Symrise's competitors include DSM-Firmenich, headquartered in both Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as Givaudan, another Swiss firm. Artificial intelligence increasingly plays a role, with computer programmes predicting which fragrances will hit the mark. Still, the machines cannot -- yet -- smell, even if they can understand speech and read text.
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Rev up the luxury: These pro tips will make your car smell like a 5-star hotel
Our sense of smell has an outsized power to shape our memories. Just ask Marcel Proust, legions of neurologists ... or me. I'll never forget my first experience sitting inside a Mercedes S-Class. I found myself enveloped in an aroma that I can only describe as "luxurious." It wasn't "new car smell" but an elegant, discrete perfume that seriously enhanced the time spent in that car. It reminded me of staying in a nice hotel or getting dressed up and going to dinner at a fancy restaurant. I've long forgotten the name of that scent, but I'll never forget the class it exuded the moment I plunked myself down. While I won't be driving a Mercedes S-Class again anytime soon, in my decade as a car expert, I've learned a few tricks — namely that you can make any car feel a little bit more luxurious and a whole lot more spa-fresh. With a little bit of upkeep and a few tried and true tools, your car may not be a Mercedes on the outside, but it'll come a whole lot closer to feeling like one on the inside. I know, I know, what fun is that? Actually, cleaning? I hate to say it, but no amount of scent is going to mask the rotting French fries you have under the seat. Luckily, it doesn't take much to clean out a vehicle. A regular once-over with a car vacuum will keep the buildup of pet hair and stale Cheerios to a minimum. And an over-the-seat garbage can like this one will keep wrappers (and stinky scents) from accumulating. Unless you never plan to eat at a drive-thru or jump in the car after a day at the beach, you're going to need something to combat odors. You don't just want to mask nasty scents, you want to eliminate and neutralize them. That means updating your filters and keeping some odor absorbers on hand. Forget those little fragrance trees hanging from your rearview mirror. They emit a chemical smell and, honestly, their scents are way too strong. There are many better options out there that smell better, last longer and won't hinder your view of the road. Looking for a scent solution that is long-lasting, customizable, and will make your car feel a bit more like a spa? A diffuser is what you want. These devices release a scented essential oil into the air, much like a perfume. Available in both a powered version that releases aromas into the air in predetermined intervals or a passive vent clip that utilizes your vehicle's HVAC to fragrance the air. Just like you use fragrance sprays for your home, you can use them in the car. It is important to note that, no matter how big of a ride you pilot, your vehicle is much more compact than your home, so a little fragrance goes a long way.
CTV News
08-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Unknown odor at DeWolf Park in Bedford, N.S. deters visitors
People flock to the paths lining the Bedford Basin. A walk around the water is good for the soul but there's something in the air that is ruining the experience. 'It's absolutely putrid,' says Donald Kerr. 'As soon as we start to smell it, we want to leave,' Pat Steele adds. Many are pointing a finger at the nearby Mill Cove Wastewater Treatment Plant. 'The wind is the indicator depending on which way it's blowing. Some days you won't notice it at all other days. It's fairly strong,' resident Ken Strang says. Calls are coming into Halifax Water to complain. Officials with the utility say they are looking into the cause. 'We can't pinpoint an exact reason. There's several reasons it could be, a timing in the treatment process as well as external factors such as the weather, wind, humidity,' says Senior Communications Advisor for Halifax Water, Brittany Smith. The plant services over 105,000 people in Sackville, Beaver Bank and Bedford. When the facility was built there wasn't much in the area but today there are apartments on either side and it's adjacent to Admiral Harry DeWolf Park where people picnic, walk or sit and relax. Residents say the smell is driving them away. 'I have certainly seen the impact of it. It's very popular park and it's become even more popular in recent years. Our population is increasing in Bedford, so it has become a prime gathering place,' says Bedford-Wentworth Coun. Jean St-Amand. On certain days, the stench forces Kerr to change the route for his walk. 'We who walk here enjoy walking here and when we get something like that, it puts you off walking or you cut your walk down to make sure you're out of the range of the smell,' he said. Halifax Water is asking anyone to call when they notice a smell and staff will see if that coincides with operations at the plant - an attempt to find out why the air is so foul. The Mill Cove plant is approaching 60 years of age. There was some work done on it in the 1990's. Another round of upgrades to increase capacity are planned for 2031. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Children's questions inspire exhibition about poo
Questions from primary school children, such as "Why is poo so smelly?", have formed the basis of a medical exhibition. Among the artefacts in POO! at the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds are faeces encased in resin on loan from the National Poo Museum. Curator Jack Gann said the children asked some surprising questions, such as "Why is it called poo?" and "Does poo go mouldy?" He said: "These are all things that I don't know. So we had to go to scientists and historians." Mr Gann added: "The children were much more curious than we thought. "People might feel uncomfortable asking some of these questions, but they're not silly questions. "I was really pleased the children felt increasingly free to throw out big questions and that curiosity is what we're looking to in our audience and what we hope that exhibitions like this reward. "It's not just us telling them what to think. It's them asking questions and searching for answers." The exhibition also features a 12th Century Medieval poo, a proctogram chair -designed for inspecting the rectum - and Victorian constipation cures. It was curated with children from Harehills Primary School, one of nine local schools the Thackray works in partnership with. Other questions the children posed included: 'Why is a fart colourless?', "How do you get constipated?" and "why is poo brown?" Mr Gann said the "why is poo so smelly?" question inspired his favourite item in the exhibition. He said: "Skatole, which is the chemical component that makes poo smell, is obviously a nasty smell when you get it in poo, but in a different amount it's actually very pleasant. "It's in a lot of flowers and perfumes. So because we have collections that touch on that we can display some things that smell of poo but smell good. "One of the objects on display is the anointing oil that's used at the Royal Coronation, which is full of those floral ingredients, which all have skatole as a chemical compound in them. "So we get to ask: does this smell of poo, does it make the King smell of poo?" He added another recurring theme among the children was "Why is poo disgusting?", something the team had to ask historians to look into. "We talked to a couple of different historians about this, about how it's not necessarily disgusting in every culture, how you're not born naturally finding it disgusting. "That's kind of a learned thing that we do socially, because obviously it carries a lot of disease. So you learn that that's probably not a thing you want to put in your mouth." 'POO!' runs at the Thackray Museum of Medicine from 26 July to 4 January 2026. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North. Museum launches 'choose your own price' admission 'Plague dress' on show at city medical museum
Independent Singapore
29-06-2025
- Independent Singapore
Persistent stench of urine plagues Woodlands residents despite complaints and CCTV surveillance
YT screencapture/8World SINGAPORE: For nearly a year, residents of a block of flats in Woodlands have been battling an overpowering smell of urine that refuses to go away, despite repeated complaints to the town council, appeals to their Member of Parliament, and even police reports. The stench, which many say is at its worst near the second-floor elevator lobby, has left residents feeling sick, frustrated, and helpless. When an 8World reporter visited the block recently, she observed that the odour hit as soon as he climbed the stairs to the second floor. The pungent smell seemed to emanate from the garbage chute area, though a closer inspection did not reveal any obvious urine stains on the floor. For residents who live on this level or need to wait daily for the elevator, enduring the stench has become part of their routine. One resident, who has lived there for over a decade, said the problem started about a year ago. 'The smell is very, very strong, so it's hard to breathe while we're waiting for the elevator to go up,' she told 8World, 'I don't really understand why there are two cameras but they still can't catch it.' According to her, complaints were filed with the Sembawang Town Council and the MP several times. In response, the council put up a notice at the elevator area warning against urinating in public spaces. However, the situation has not improved. Another resident living directly opposite the garbage chute said the problem had become almost a daily ordeal. 'I am closest to it and I can smell it almost every day,' she said, 'They install this and that and ask the cleaners to come and clean it up, but there is no improvement. It has always been this smelly and no one can catch them.' Some residents speculated that discarded diapers from a nearby kindergarten could be the source of the odour. However, when asked, the kindergarten firmly denied any wrongdoing and explained that all used diapers are securely packed into bags, placed in covered bins within the premises, and later sent to the HDB's garbage collection point. Sembawang Town Council confirmed that it had installed CCTV surveillance in the area but said that the cameras had so far failed to detect any suspicious activity. The council told 8World that it would be taking further steps to tackle the issue, such as adjusting the positioning of cameras and fencing off some areas.
