For example, the French gave wintergreen much lower pleasantness ratings than French-Canadians. In France, wintergreen is used more in medicinal products than in Canada, where it is found more in candy. Canadians were more familiar with scents of maple and wintergreen than the French, while in turn people from France were more familiar with the scent of lavender. When asked to describe odours, Canadians were better at describing maple and wintergreen, while people from France were better at describing lavender.
— Read more at Sniffing out cultural differences: Olfactory perception influenced by background and semantic information at Science Daily.
That was fascinating, and hints at the idea that everything about the established culture in which we live, our language and the food we eat and the scents we wear, affects all our other perceptions.
BTW, wintergreen is very often found in cleaning products and the like in Europe: in the UK it’s used to perfume surgical spirit, the British equivalent of rubbing alcohol, and in Germany it’s the smell of toilet cleaner, which means that Germans can’t understand North Americans’ delicious wintergreen candy because it’s like sucking on a urinal puck to them.
thanks for the morning laugh 🙂
I happen to love wintergreen..in food and in scented products ….
I guess I am one of those who sucks on a urinal 🙂
Lemon is another cultural one, and so is pine —
http://www.leffingwell.com/h%26rfragrance/When%20babies%20smell%20like%20household%20cleansers.pdf
Lemon=Dishwashing liquid and Pine=Domestos(thick bleach that basically kills everything lol) to my nose!
Also tells why reading reviews can actually increase ones enjoyment of a scent: the verbal representation changes ones perception!
Yes, good point!
In the south of France they love drinking what seems to be creme de menthe, it’s called Get, diluted with water. I can’t drink it, it is like swallowing mouthwash to me. So the French don’t all dislike mint. 🙂