I have oftentimes wondered why I can’t smell the aroma from a blend while smoking. It only time my senses can pick up on it is when I return to the room and return. Some reviews do make mention smell that lingers in the air. Can anyone explain this phenomenon ?
The Odor Of Pipe Tobacco
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If I were to guess it is because you are getting the same profile multiplied when actually smoking it. So you dont smell the room so to speak. Also the room note isnt necessarly the smell. Its the smell after it has interacted with the air and smells of the space....there is some time differential.
If you are talking about the actual tobacco smell like in the tin its being burnt. Any unburnt is under the tobacco layer and its also far more subtle than tobacco smoke. You cant hear a pin drop when the music is loud...sort of like that.
If you are talking about the actual tobacco smell like in the tin its being burnt. Any unburnt is under the tobacco layer and its also far more subtle than tobacco smoke. You cant hear a pin drop when the music is loud...sort of like that.
I was curious myself about this phenomenon and looked it up.
When you first light up your tobacco you can smell it. That glorious scent of fresh tobacco being loaded into the pipe - the sulphur of the stricken match head burning off when you bring it on top of your tobacco. Then, you start to draw in on the pipe and the scent and flavour starts to become heavenly.
Your nose becomes accustomed to the smoke and scent. This is called Olfactory Adaptation – or ‘nose fatigue’ – and is all to do with how our body senses danger.
Once we become used to the smell of the tobacco, our body decides it isn’t something threatening, and it blocks the smell; making our nose available to new scents and anything potentially harmful. This is why we can oftentimes smell someone else’s cigar or pipe smoke side-stream and it’s awesome. We feel that ‘our’ experience (our own pipe and tobacco) are lame-ish by comparison.
But on a good note, our sense of smell is the biggest pull for nostalgia. It can bring us back to different times in our lives and conjure up strong memories. Who doesn’t remember a fond friend or beloved relative who smoked a pipe or cigar?
When you first light up your tobacco you can smell it. That glorious scent of fresh tobacco being loaded into the pipe - the sulphur of the stricken match head burning off when you bring it on top of your tobacco. Then, you start to draw in on the pipe and the scent and flavour starts to become heavenly.
Your nose becomes accustomed to the smoke and scent. This is called Olfactory Adaptation – or ‘nose fatigue’ – and is all to do with how our body senses danger.
Once we become used to the smell of the tobacco, our body decides it isn’t something threatening, and it blocks the smell; making our nose available to new scents and anything potentially harmful. This is why we can oftentimes smell someone else’s cigar or pipe smoke side-stream and it’s awesome. We feel that ‘our’ experience (our own pipe and tobacco) are lame-ish by comparison.
But on a good note, our sense of smell is the biggest pull for nostalgia. It can bring us back to different times in our lives and conjure up strong memories. Who doesn’t remember a fond friend or beloved relative who smoked a pipe or cigar?
Just how your senses work. If you're in the middle of smoking a pipe and tasting it. The smell aids and abets the flavor. It mingles and is utilized more through the sense of taste.
When you eat something do you really smell it as you're eating it? Oh before you put it in your mouth you smell it and really notice the great aromas. But while you are actually chewing and savoring the food?
Senses are weird and do all kinds of little tricks for efficacy and efficiency (a lot of our energy goes into our senses and thoughts).
When you eat something do you really smell it as you're eating it? Oh before you put it in your mouth you smell it and really notice the great aromas. But while you are actually chewing and savoring the food?
Senses are weird and do all kinds of little tricks for efficacy and efficiency (a lot of our energy goes into our senses and thoughts).
Ok, so if I keep staring at the health warnings on the package while I smoke, will my brain let me keep smelling it?
I worked with fragrances at research company. There were fragrances so powerful that you could not smell it from the bottle because of anosmia and the molecule overloading the senses. But a single molecule diluted can smell up an entire room. Each molecule that makes a fragrance is different. Anosmia also occurs when you smell something for extended periods your brain ignores the smell. Similar to things your eyes see repeatedly. They ignore it. The brain does this to remove noise from the environment.
This is the lesser known corollary to the Heisenberg principle where the taste or the smell of a tobacco particle can be discerned at any given moment but not both at the same time? 
If you eat enough beans to pass gas continuously, at some point, you won't be able to smell your own farts. It's how the nose works.
This is the lesser known corollary to the Heisenberg principle where the taste or the smell of a tobacco particle can be discerned at any given moment but not both at the same time?
You said “Heisenberg”, I couldn’t resist putting a known photo of him here…..
This must be why it is called pipe smoking not pipe smelling.
I betcha Jim Inks can smell HIS pipe! 
Same holds true for Devils Lettuce. The user might think nothing of the scent, but he can walk through a door and to all passersby, the whole place now smells like the sixties.
I think I can confirm this as my wife constantly complains about my farts. I always assumed she was just blaming her own farts on me.
Question for you: if there is a lingering smell of smoke in the room or on your clothes does that mean there are still smoke particles being released into the air and can be inhaled by others?
Same question, but with restaurant workers. Especially fast food.
Yeh, I always wonder if the workers at Arbys smells that rancid meat smell that everyone who walks in smells.
Yes. It has to do with VOC. Volatile organic compounds. They diffuse and disperse at different rates depending on temp and humidity. The particles become trapped in clothing like a filter media would trap them. Then they gradually become released as your clothing moves with you like shaking out a cars air filter dust. Some fragrance molecules are large and heavy and take more time to diffuse and disperse than others do.
Anything that you can smell will behave similarly so the greasy spoon restaurant and the smoking pipe is the same effect. I do not personally believe the particles that caused the aroma of stale smoke or even nice smoke cause any health issues.
Incidentally the same molecule that makes coffee smell like coffee, and rose smell like rose and dung smell like dung are the same molecule. It's called indole. Jasmine and rose have it. It's also why a truly fragrant coffee tobacco is hard to pull off without it smelling like dung. Chocolate also has a base with indole. A little indole adds lift to a fragrance and too much makes it foul. Remember too that combinations of fragrance will create entire new scents from the same ingredients.
Anything that you can smell will behave similarly so the greasy spoon restaurant and the smoking pipe is the same effect. I do not personally believe the particles that caused the aroma of stale smoke or even nice smoke cause any health issues.
Incidentally the same molecule that makes coffee smell like coffee, and rose smell like rose and dung smell like dung are the same molecule. It's called indole. Jasmine and rose have it. It's also why a truly fragrant coffee tobacco is hard to pull off without it smelling like dung. Chocolate also has a base with indole. A little indole adds lift to a fragrance and too much makes it foul. Remember too that combinations of fragrance will create entire new scents from the same ingredients.