Wilderness perfume, a fragrance that makes one feels well

The scents of nature always smell good, right? Well, that's a truth with exaggeration. There are such amounts of different smells, and they are experienced in different ways due to experiences, memories and circumstances that you do not always know. The sense of smell is more or less developed and this makes it difficult to know what others feel about scents. How much the sensory cells are exposed to a certain smell also determines how you feel about it. The olfactory cells can be tired by an intense scent and if another comes close, it feels much stronger. Now there is research that shows that you can feel well about different smells and researchers have managed to find out how some everyday scents develop.

Researchers have recently been able to tell more about the smell of laundry that has hung out in the sun and dried.[1] It is a fragrance that many people think is wonderful. It is reminiscent of summer, often of childhood and makes one happy. By hanging cotton towels that have been washed in only water in different places, it has been possible to find which scents come out and how it works. Part of the laundry was hung in the sun, part of it under plastic and part of it in the shade. When the laundry was dry, they put it in plastic bags and left it for 24 hours. Then they sucked the air out of the bags. In the air that came from washing dried in the sun, one could find special compositions of molecules that give a good scent, such as people associate with fond memories. There is a chemical reaction between molecules in the fabric and the air when the sunlight warms them. The researchers are wondering if it is the same thing that happens when nature dries in the sun after a rain. When it feels like nature is freshly washed and both smells and gives off more colour than before the rain fell.

Scents and smells associated with memories can be frightening or healing depending on what they are reminiscent of. In a healing process, scents can help calm stress and form new memories. [2] It has been used in herbal medicine for many years. Maybe today we need to take back some knowledge about natural remedies human forgot. In any case, everyone can find the scents that soothe and provide well-being. They are often found in nature - flowers that smell good, a pile of wood that smells like grandfather, a log stack that smells of sun, wood and freedom or the smell of a horse, grilled sausage, the smell of a fire and freshly baked bread. Fragrances produced in an artificial way mimic natural scents as best they can.

Feel well. Go out into the woods and soak up the smells of soil, conifers, forest and wilderness. Just breathing deeply to get as many fragrances as possible into the nose makes the body relax. There is a lot to enjoy in nature both with the nose and in other ways. Sniff out the smells that make you feel well and breathe deeply with pleasure.

Resources

[1] https://www.publish.csiro.au/en/EN19206

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/science/laundry-smell-line.html

[2] 

https://www.ameritasinsight.com/wellness/4-ways-smells-affect-your-health-and-well-being

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5198031/