Ask Someone Who Knows (AM)

I don't understand why bad smells seem to be alive and get in to things, whereas the really lovely smells just disappear. I once knew someone who's breath smelled like dead things. Week old dead things. Somehow that odour would infect everything around it. After spending time with this person, my hair also used to smell like dead things. If I walked in to a room after this person had been there for a while, my first thought was death has touched this place. The smell lived outside his body, and seemed to live quite well.

Alternatively, when I spend some time next to a bunch of garden roses, my hair takes on nothing of the sweet, sweet smell of roses. I walk away and my hair just smells like hair.
Why is it so?
I decided I would ask Miguel, because he and Legsley know everything about science, and I thought it would be more fun than googling it.

I told him my situation and here's what he said:

I don't actually know the answer to it, but I won't let that stop me from having a good Aussie dip.

As I understand it, bad smells are mainly caused by bacteria (like BO, bad breath etc smells, I mean - not like sulphur or chlorine, because they are caused by the presence of sulphur or chlorine). So like if you don't brush your teeth for awhile, there will be all sorts of food and crud in your mouth and bacteria will start eating it and producing bad smells. I have a suspicion that we may have actually evolved to think that bacteria emissions smell bad because they are usually an indication that something is rotting and so we shouldn't eat it. Anyway, maybe the actual smellecules (those are smell molecules btw) contain bacteria that set up camp in your hair. I sure hope that isn't the case. So the moral of the story is that bad smells produce more bad smells in much the same way that sourdough starter makes more sourdough starter if you feed it.

Good smells, on the other hand, are not self-replicating. Sadly rose petals do not make more rose petals if you leave them alone. So you need be a bit more proactive to make something smell like a rose.

I have no idea whether this is true, but I think it might be. I hope that helps.


Thanks Miguel, it certainly has helped.
And as for you, bacteria, thanks for nothing motherfukers! Not only are you responsible for disease, but you are also responsible for bad odours. Forget you guys.