Thread: No sense of smell.

Hello All,

Before finding straight razor shaving I didn't care at all that I have no sense of smell. But now with so many great soaps, creams, balms, and aftershaves I am really bummed out.

Anyway to get my sense of smell back? Right now I am still tying new stuff but I have to get my wife to tell me how good or bad I smell. MWF she says I smell like Buddha... :/

do you physically have no sense of smell? as if you were to hold an orange up to your nose and not smell anything? if that's the case.. then i'm sure you'd need to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist.. if the case is that you simply have not developed a very good nose for different scents.. then i can suggest simply starting out slow and sniffing as many things as possible and taking note..

In 2007 my wife had a brain tumor, and lost her sense of smell. She used to love the smell of my cologne and whatnot-- ever since I started straight shaving, and have been introduced to all of these great products, I still find myself only using those that I think she'd like. I've tried to describe many of these scents to her, to no avail. My suggestion: just ask her if she likes a particular scent or not, and consider that sufficient, this trying to describe a smell business can get pretty frustrating (IME).

Originally Posted by vthomlinson

do you physically have no sense of smell? as if you were to hold an orange up to your nose and not smell anything? if that's the case.. then i'm sure you'd need to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist.. if the case is that you simply have not developed a very good nose for different scents.. then i can suggest simply starting out slow and sniffing as many things as possible and taking note..

Yeah I can taste things but never could smell any discreet or not so discreet smells. The way I describe it is if it will burn your eyes I can "smell" it. So real strong mouthwash, rubbing alcohol, that kind of thing.

BBQ, baking bread, hit skunk, cigar smoke, etc I can not discern.

I can't remember ever being able to smell and my mother claimed to not have a sense of smell either. I guess it's hereditary but man I want to smell all these great products!

then definitely see an ear nose and throat specialist... i'm unsure if there is a definite cure.. but that would be a step in the right direction..

i've had my nose broken several times and it has effected my sense of smell.. i'm told that it is fully fixable with surgery.

It's really an olfactory deficit. The same with those of us who are "color blind" which is also color perception deficit not truly color blind which is extremely rare. To someone with normal color vision you could never describe the condition. It's one of those things you have to experience to understand. The same with the smell.