I was reading an article on anosmia (the loss of the sense of smell) today and that set me thinking of the innumerable terms with all their fine nuances, that we use to describe smells/the action of smelling. For instance..., how do all of you differentiate between, say, fragrance/ aroma/ perfume?

how do all of you differentiate between, say, fragrance/ aroma/ perfume?

By the size of the figure behind the dollar sign and in front of the decimal point.

fragrance/ aroma/ perfume?

I associate fragrance with flowers, aroma with food, and perfume with civet cats .

how do all of you differentiate between, say, fragrance/ aroma/ perfume?

well fragrance and perfume are sweet, aroma can be savory..
(fruits and flowers are fragrant, coffee, and spices are aromatic)

and all three are pleasent.

unlike odor, smell or rank !

Comming throught the garden, each step stirred up the fragrant air, but eventually, as you neared the kitchen, it yeilded to the aroma of coffee and spice cakes, mingled with savory meats cooking. Beyond the garden and kitchen, was the barn rich with a multitude odors and strange smells. Further still, in the field, the air was rank with work of the butchers and now gutted pig.

I'm with jheem on this one, except for the cat thang... perfumes to me aren't usually pleasantly sweet, to me they're cloying. but I have a sensitive nose, la-de-da...

To agree with and expand slightly on nuncle's observation and to complement ledasdottir's I would say that fragrance is light and delicate, aroma has a body lacking in the others, and perfume has a sharpness that the civet cat remark captures quite nicely. This is not to say that there are not perfumes that lean toward fragrance nor others that lean towards the musky.

Personally...
I use aroma for the odor of food, perfume only for the liquid scents in bottles, fragrance for the smell of "girly" things like foam bath, pot pourri, candles... and scent (one you didn't mention) for any other pleasant smell as in soap, detergents (laundry, dish, household).

For business...
Perfume is the official term we use in the ingredient listings of products.

dollar sign Even before reading your post, I perceived a strong smell of marketing emanating from this triplet..

Thanks, faldage, for putting into words what I couldn't figure out quite how to. Good question, maahey!

Thanks all! As for me...
aroma - a smell that can be tasted. Definite association with food.
As for the other two...this is not spontaneous, I had to think about it and this is what I feel
fragrance - is diffuse, a smell that tends to disperse into the air easily
perfume - is a concentrated, localised smell. Civet is a perfect example, I think (never smelt it myself, but it has always *sounded potent and concentrated).
To elaborate: we'd say the fragrance of a garden full of flowers. We wouldn't say perfume, would we?

What is the etymology? Is there something there? And TEd, I laughed, but am sure all the ladies will agree that all three can be pretty upmarket.

AROMA:
from Latin armata, pl. of arma, from Greek, aromatic herb.

FRAGRANCE:
from Latin fragrantia, from fragrare ‘smell sweet’

PERFUME:
(this *should have been a no-brainer....)
French parfum, from Old Italian parfumo, from parfumare, to fill with smoke (from Latin per-, per-) + fumare, to smoke (from Latin fmre, from fmus, smoke).

Perfume in the sense of 'smoking through' a scent, adds a whole new dimension to, 'perfuming one's hair'.

Alert: ramble on Indian hair perfuming ritual
At my grandmother's home in Southern India, this was a biweekly ritual. Hair would first be oiled intensely with a mixture of hair oils (they would really rub it into the scalp and not be satisfied that it had penetrated, till the oil would come off their hands and not stick anymore on the scalp); then we would be sent off to sit in the sun in the inner open courtyard. After sunning our oiled tresses like this for about twenty minutes, we'd have to wash it all off with a specially formulated herbal powder that did a great job of removing the grease. The next step was drying the hair... and this is where the perfuming bit comes in. A lady would arrive with a two chambered censer ; the bottom one for the hot coals (the perfumed incense is sprinkled on top of the coals) and the perforated top through which the perfumed smoke would exit. This censer was passed repeatedly through the wet hair, drying and perfuming it at the same time!

So far "odor" hasn't been mentioned. No the range of chemical composition that may be involved. "Smell" is not
a pretty word, but there are exciting messages transmitted
by pheromones. How remarkable that moths can detect potential mates by single molecules quite widely separated.

Thank you maahey for that lovely glimpse into your family life. Sounds like a lovely time to be together, exchange thoughts and bind closely to each other. Sure beats the heck out of a quick wash in the shower!
Oh, and bel, I gree with your definitions. Nail on the head.

The hair ritual mentions incense, which is a pleasant odor
created by the incomplete oxidation of some of the original
material. I'm also reminded of organic chemistry, with the
distinction made between aliphatic and aromatic compounds,
the aliphatic having straight chains, and the aromatic complex rings.
Maybe it's as well we have no wine snob to snow us with the
arcane adjectives they so prize.Better a dittany litany of
flower frangrances.

I like using scent, but so many of todays colognes and even perfumes are made from synthetics, so I prefer to use essential oils. I usually apply a few drops of the oil to my hair and brush it through. That way, the warmth from my feverish brain helps disseminate the scent and it seems to last much longer as well.

Safe in my garden,
An ancient flower blooms.
And the scent from its nature
Slowly squares my room;
And its perfume being such
that it's causing me to swoon.

~The Mamas and the Papas

re: fragrances "that lean towards the musky".

I lean away from the musky myself. It reminds me of musks.

Which leads into another question.

To what extent, if at all, does our expectation of an odor color our experience of it?

For instance, in a blind smell test, would we choose a fragrance we knew was worn by J Lo over a no-name fragrance even tho both fragrances were identical?

Can the mind be tricked into perceiving superiority even where none exists?

We can certainly be tricked into buying something which is pitched by a celebrity, but can we be tricked into actually believing, upon using it, that it is superior to the same thing we are already using absent the celebrity cachet?

If so, that "cachet" has legitimate premium value.

The "cachet" itself is illusion, but, in the mind, the illusion is real.

How much do we spend on illusion, I wonder?

If we took all the illusion away, how much wealth would remain?

How much net happiness would be lost ... or gained?

If I introduced a fragrance called "Illusion", would you buy it?

What if I said that "Illusion" is chosen 50% of the time in a blind smell test using a J Lo fragrance, that it sells for as much as a J Lo fragrance, and that the entire 'celebrity cachet' mark-up would be donated to a Third World country? Would you buy "Illusion" then?

If you did buy "Illusion" under these circumstances, would it smell like a 'celebrity cachet' fragrance when you wore it?

Would anyone else know the difference if you never confided you are wearing "Illusion"?

If, before buying "Illusion", you had to promise that you would never reveal the name of your fragrance, would you buy "Illusion" then?

Or would you buy "Illusion" and wear "J Lo"?

As you say, wwh, there is more to this olfactory business than meets the eye.

Extract from "Sex and the Brain, Vive la difference!" report in today's New York Times:

"Several years ago, Swiss scientists discovered that women could sniff out genetic differences in potential mates. When women were asked to smell T-shirts that different men had worn, they often ranked more favorably the shirts that belonged to men with dissimilar genes for major histocompatibility complex, a group of proteins involved in immunity to disease. The odors a woman preferred also tended to remind her of past and current partners.

Seeking out different immune-system genes might be a way to prevent inbreeding or to arm offspring with a more versatile immune system, said Dr. Rachel S. Herz, a psychologist at Brown who in a study in 2002 found that women ranked body odor above almost every other factor in attraction, except "pleasantness."

Full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/health/16SEX.html?pagewanted=2&8hpib

another study done in london hospitals, showed that mother were more sucessful in identifying the small recieving blankets their babies had been wrapped in (sans baby!) then they were identifying photo's of their newborns.

mother's know what their babies smell like, even when they have been taken from them, minutes after birth, and washed!

likewise, its rather common, as kids reach sexual maturity to find that parents think they smell rank. My daughter's father made a comment about body odor that sent her into a shower frenzy (2 or more showers a day!)--only i never noticed it. but i used to think my son as teen age stunk- his room and clothes seem rank and no else in the family noticed! i think this too is part of a natural selection against insest. the same body odor that once was so appealing (in an infant) becomes repellent when kids are teens.

as for whether different brands of perfumes are better (is J-Lo( offical) brand better than the Jay-Lo (copy-cat) brand
--that depends on the perfumes/scents.
the chemical fixatives in more expensive perfumes are often better, and the choices used to create a mix are sometimes better.

all perfumes fade, and many change as they fade during the day. some compound are voilital, some longer lasting. some start out great, and fade to nothing , others fade to something so different, they become un appealing.

i tend to like spicy, woodsy scents. most woman dislike sandlewood, or clove, i rather like them. but once in while i like a single note floral scent like lily of the valley.

in a blind smell test, would we choose a fragrance we knew was worn by J Lo over a no-name fragrance even tho both fragrances were identical?
I'm afraid you lost me, there: either the test is blind, or we know something about one of the two identical samples. Or did I miss something?

either the test is blind, or we know something about one of the two identical samples. Or did I miss something?

Understand your confusion.

I am not a student of such tests, nor have I ever participated in one, so the term "blind smell test" probably means something different to me than to someone who posseses those qualifications.

What I mean by a "blind smell test" is that the test participants have absolutely no fore-knowledge of what they are sampling.

In theory, this should ensure that they will be responding to the smell itself, and not to any suggestion implanted in their mind before they sample the sample.

If one knew in advance that one of the samples was a Jo Lo fragrance, and another a no-name sample, this would not be a "blind smell test" according to my definition, even if both samples were identical.

As an aside, it seems to me that the genius of the so-called "Pepsi Challenge" is that test participants are required to indicate a preference for one sample or another. They are not given the option of indicating that they can't tell the difference.

I have conducted my own small-scale surveys to test my hypothesis and my surveys demonstrate that most people (including myself) do not possess sufficient refinement in their 'taste buds' to distinguish a difference between Pepsi and Coke. This means that most people who 'prefer' Coke will choose Pepsi at least half of the time.

That's the genius of the "Pepsi Challenge".

A small percentage of the population can actually distinguish a difference between Coke and Pepsi in a 'blind taste test', but the percentage is too small to undermine the effectiveness of "the Pepsi Challenge" given that people with a 'true preference' will tend to cancel one another out.

To what extent, if at all, does our expectation of an odor color our experience of it? Mercy; I'm sure it does. As Anne of Green Gables said, a rose just could not smell so pretty if it were called a skunk cabbage. The mind does play an important role: think of sucking on a wedge of lemon. Does your mouth pucker up? Those of you who have had this unfortunate experience: think of rotten potatoes. Are you making a face?

Can the mind be tricked into perceiving superiority even where none exists? Sure. Otherwise the advertising business wouldn't be so big.
can we be tricked into actually believing, upon using it, that it is superior Not everybody all the time, I shouldn't think, but some of the people some of the time, I believe so.

Like eta, I have a very good sense of smell, which also affects how we taste things. *I have always been able to discern Coke from Pepsi. This means that most people who 'prefer' Coke will choose Pepsi at least half of the time.
That's the genius of the "Pepsi Challenge". Interesting--when you think about it, these statements strongly imply that Pepsi is in the inferior position--for whatever reason. (I believe the company was created some time after Coca-Cola had secured its own place in the market. But aside from that, MY opinion is that Pepsi is horrid.)

Helen--when I was a child, the scent of cloves would make me almost think I was levitating, with joy; it was my favorite gum; and I still love the scent, though I don't think I'd wear it as perfume! Speaking of which--I wear lily of the valley! It is also my favorite flower, for its looks as well as its...fragrance.

I have wondered how it is possible for ewes to be able to
distinguish their own lambs by odour. In a pen with dozens
of ewes and lambs, they get sorted out quickly. It seems
that there is something in the lambs stools that the mothers
recognize, as the ewes sniff the lambs' rear ends.
With regard to musk and perfumes, I think the importance
of the musk is that it is able to accumulate and retard the
dissipation of the fragrance molecules. I posted a while
back about the high value of whale ambergris in the perfume
industry.

Dr Bill, I've noticed that ewes and lambs are pretty good at picking up on each others individual bleating as well, which I find much more puzzling. If my observation is correct that is.

>>women could sniff out genetic differences in potential mates<<

The ensconcing, in common language, of a supposed direct reciprocal and 'inter-personal' relationship of gene to bearer and bearer to gene is an interesting phenomenon. At the level of a woman smelling a potential mate, I would say she was able to detect her own feelings of pleasure or displeasure. And I would even take it the next step and say that this functions to detect 'histocompatibility.' But to say 'she can detect the genes..' seems a stretch of the popular imagination, probably arising in a professional term of art or classroom shorthand.

>>i think this too is part of a natural selection against incest<<

Similarly, I would probably tend more towards a more immediate explanation -- that her newly mature offspring represent competition for scarce resources such as food. (There is a theory that human children remain small a long time because it makes them unable to compete with adults in food gathering). This, especially when there are overtones of social taboo.

--as usual, I speak in both cases as a layperson.

Re: when I was a child, the scent of cloves would make me almost think I was levitating, with joy; it was my favorite gum; and I still love the scent, though I don't think I'd wear it as perfume!

do you like carnations? they smell like cloves. (think about it--or get a green one tomorrow and refresh your sence of smell. cloves are lovely in perfume!
ginger too, and other spice smells. (Opium, Red Door, and other perfumes are spicy/(sometimes called oriental) scents/perfumes.) i also love Revlon's Ciara -a light spicey perfume.

As for the 'Illusion' business; this is the 'Emperor's new clothes' thing isn't it? Only the child (or equivalent), ignorant of the adults' hang ups, can give a totally unaffected opinion on the perceived splendour of the expensive versus the clone.

I very rarely wear perfume. My Hubby and I don't like the same fragrances, so I avoid wearing perfume when I am with him (I love him, perfume I only like ).

When I go out of town though, I will often wear a lemon-vanilla eau de toilette.

Only the child (or equivalent), ignorant of the adults' hang ups, can give a totally unaffected opinion on the perceived splendour of the expensive versus the clone.

How true. And a child has always more alluring splendours to explore than those which allure adults.