I HATE the smell of bleach.
I hate it.
It just makes me nauseated.
We've got white noise and white light -- can I get some white smell to cover that crap
up?
White smell is like white light or white noise; it forms a masking effect which prevents other
smells from making an impact on your eardrum or retina.
Thinking about it that way, scientists in Israel created a white smell for the olfactory
bulb.
Using 86 different monomolecular odorants, they created multiple sprays ranging from
1 to 43-odors in each.
They diluted them so all the smells were at the same intensity, and an algorithm made
sure there was no odor-overlap in the mixture, using odors that were far enough apart to
hit across the olfactory bulb.
They then tested the scents with average people's sniffers.
The results showed the more odors they put in each spray, the more likely people were
to think they were all the same scent!
Apparently, anything over 30-odors starts to smell the same.
The researchers believe using this information, they can add more, non-overlapping scents
and create a white smell!
White noises and white light aren't just…
well they are more than they seem.
White light is all the frequencies of light mixed together at the same intensity, right?
It's white because it's evenly mixed and everything.
White noise is NOT just static or *scrambly* noise.
White noise is a specific combination of frequencies at the same intensity, just like white light.
Mix them together and they make white noise!
There's also pink noise, Brown noise, violet noise -- they each emphasize different ranges,
and mask different things.
White smell is the same, you mix the right number and types of odors together, and you
SHOULD end up with white smell.
White noise/light/smell works because those various frequencies overwhelm the brain's
ability to discern any specific one.
If your brain worked better, white noise would sound like a mix of different sounds, and
not one overwhelming *chhhhhh*.
In the end, that overwhelming of the brain ends up masking OTHER sounds which might interrupt
sleep, for example.
White smell does the same thing; using these monomolecular odorants, the olfactory bulb
becomes overstimulated, resulting in the brain interpreting it as a single masking odor.
The researchers call the smell Laurex and it doesn't seem to exist in nature.
Wouldn't it be awesome to have a reset button for smell?
I mean, coffee beans are commonly used as a masking odor, and though coffee DOES contain
lots of components, molecularly speaking they're too close together to make white smell.
Certain televised odor removers and sprays claim to eat up or remove bad smells, but
they simply interact with odor molecules, rendering them inert.
Some people even put baking soda in the fridge to absorb odor, but it doesn't; baking soda
is terrible at absorbing odors.
The baking soda-in-the-fridge trick should be replaced with a activated-charcoal-in-the-fridge
trick; because that one actually works.
In the end, the practical application of white smell is limited at the moment, they're still
figuring out how to produce it reliably.
Strong smells mixed with Laurex, like roses, smelled to the average noses like… nothing…
so there might be a day when I never have to smell bleach again.