Long relegated to the bottom of the hierarchy of the senses, smell is anything but unimportant. Directly connected to the brain regions involved in memory and emotion, it plays a major role in how we perceive food, in our pleasures and memories, in our social relationships, and even in the way we find our bearings in the world. Losing our sense of smell does not simply mean no longer being able to smell: anosmia reminds us of everything this sense does for us every day, often without our realising it, to the point of affecting our enjoyment of life and our connections with others.
An anthropologist, philosopher and historian specialising in smell, scents and perfume, Annick Le Guérer completed a doctorate at the Sorbonne in 1988 on blood and incense, developing an anthropological reflection on the sense of smell and odour. Introduced to fragrances in childhood by a perfumer in her family, she became interested in a field that researchers had largely neglected in the 1980s. Here she reflects on the powers of this long-underestimated sense, which is now the subject of extensive research.
Annick Le Guérer spoke to Grand Cru and Etiquette on 21 September 2026.
A sense long despised, from Plato to Freud
For centuries, philosophers disparaged the sense of smell, associating it more with instinct and pleasure than with knowledge. When Annick Le Guérer began researching it in the 1980s, it was still widely regarded as inferior. Scientists and anthropologists alike paid it little attention. It was precisely this relative lack of interest that led her to make it the focus of her research.
The roots of this contempt go back a long way. As early as antiquity, Plato and Aristotle considered smell less noble than sight and hearing. In the seventeenth century, Descartes described it as “coarse”; in the eighteenth, Immanuel Kant judged it the “most ungrateful” of the senses, contrary to freedom and unworthy of cultivation.
According to the historian, this devaluation stems in part from the distinctive nature of smell. It is a sense of contact – “fusional” and intuitive – that operates without passing through words or reason. Its lack of a specific vocabulary may also have contributed to its poor reputation.
Yet this absence of rational mediation can also be a strength. Nietzsche rehabilitated smell by presenting instinct as a virtue: “My genius is in my nostrils.” Psychoanalysis, by contrast, perpetuated this distrust. Freud linked the repression of smell to the progress of civilisation, even going so far as to regard a person with a good sense of smell as neurotic.
Since then, the situation has changed profoundly. Annick Le Guérer speaks of a “complete reversal”: smell is now the subject of extensive research and conferences. She notes, in particular, that in 2004 Linda Buck and Richard Axel received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their research into the sense of smell.
Why do we love – or hate – certain smells?
How we perceive a smell depends both on innate predispositions and on learning. Annick Le Guérer gives the example of a baby: when presented with the smell of vanilla, the baby turns towards it; when confronted with sulphurous smells, the baby turns away. An initial olfactory response therefore exists even before social learning begins.
Upbringing then refines and organises these reactions. Parents teach children what is appropriate to smell and what is best avoided. Smells associated with food are valued, while those of excrement or decay are generally rejected.
This process explains how a smell that might be repulsive in one context can become appealing in another. The historian cites Camembert in France: its strong smell is appreciated when associated with a familiar food and a particular eating context.
Cultural differences are, moreover, less pronounced than one might think. Annick Le Guérer mentions Americans’ fondness for the smell of cinnamon, for example. That preference does not make the smell incomprehensible or unpleasant to French or Italian people. Overall, certain tendencies are found across many cultures: floral and sweet smells are generally preferred to putrid ones.
Smell thus emerges as a sense whose mechanisms are universal, while the way we learn to interpret it is shaped by culture. The same holds for our taste in wine, which owes as much to what we inherit as to what we sense: [Taste makes value, value makes taste: what makes a wine great? →]
Wine and perfume: a history dating back to ancient Egypt
For the perfume historian, who has devoted several lectures to the subject, the worlds of wine and perfume are closely linked. Their shared history goes back a long way: wine is thought to have been used as a base for the earliest perfumes, before oil became more common.
She cites kyphi, an Egyptian perfume dating back to the sixteenth century BC. Plants could be left to macerate in wine before the mixture was made into a solid perfume. This was then burned like incense to scent a room or clothing. Diluted in a liquid, it could even be swallowed as a form of treatment “from within”.
The closeness of wine and perfume is also reflected in myth. Annick Le Guérer mentions, in particular, the myth of the perfumed panther, a creature associated with fragrance which, according to the story, could only be captured with wine, drawn in by its smell.
Wine aromas: a matter of preference rather than disgust
When it comes to wine, dislike is more a matter of preference than disgust. Annick Le Guérer says she has never personally encountered a smell she would describe as truly repulsive. It is, above all, a matter of individual taste.
Some wine lovers, for instance, may prefer softer or sweeter profiles to robust wines with woody or animal notes. But not liking a smell does not necessarily mean finding it repellent.
Wine is therefore a particularly good illustration of the subjective nature of smell: the same olfactory characteristic can give one person pleasure and leave another indifferent, without provoking outright rejection.
Why can a smell bring back a memory?
The sense of smell is closely connected to the brain regions involved in memory and emotion. This is why a smell can bring a memory to the surface without the need for words. Conversely, losing the sense of smell can affect both emotional life and memory.
A smell can bring back a person or a period of time with particular force. Annick Le Guérer describes the example of a garment worn by someone who has died: smelling it again can bring that person back “vividly, very vividly”. A smell then becomes a trace left behind by individuals.
This also explains the role of smell in human relationships. Our language bears witness to it: in French, to say you cannot stand someone, you say je ne peux pas le sentir – literally “I can’t smell him” – or, more colloquially, je ne peux pas le blairer or je ne peux pas le piffrer, both derived from slang words for the nose. The historian also recalls that the psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto advised people considering marriage to ask themselves whether their smells “harmonised”.
Anosmia: what do we lose when we lose our sense of smell?
Losing the sense of smell means losing far more than one sense: it means losing part of our ability to taste, as well as pleasure, memories and connections with others. Long regarded as a secondary problem, including by the medical profession, anosmia can have significant consequences. The Covid-19 pandemic helped bring this reality into sharper focus.
The first impact is on taste. When smells can no longer be perceived, much of our ability to enjoy food and taste wine disappears. But the deprivation extends well beyond the table.
No longer being able to smell one’s baby, a loved one or even food can, according to Annick Le Guérer, feel like a genuine “amputation”. The consequences can also be social: some people who have lost their sense of smell gradually withdraw, lose pleasure in many activities and become more distant from others. In the most serious cases, this suffering can lead to suicide.
Conversely, the evocative power of smells is now used with people living with Alzheimer’s disease: asking them to smell certain scents or perfumes can help bring memories back.
Perhaps it is deprivation that best reveals what the sense of smell gives us. Wine offers a particularly tangible illustration. “You can no longer taste wine; you can no longer taste life,” says Annick Le Guérer.
The dining table thus reveals just how important this sense is: food and wine are not simply a matter of taste; our perception of them also depends on the smells that accompany them. Behind the pleasure of eating and drinking lie our recognition of people and places, our emotional memory and, in a sense, our relationship with the world.
Developing your sense of smell to find your way through life
Learning to smell is something that can be taught. Annick Le Guérer mentions the Nez en herbe association, which introduces children from nursery-school age to perceiving, recognising and identifying smells.
Developing your sense of smell is not simply about being able to distinguish a greater number of fragrances. It is also about learning to pay attention to a sense that shapes our relationship with pleasure, other people and our surroundings.
The French expression avoir du nez – to have a nose for things – then takes on its full meaning. For the historian, “sensing things well is important for finding your way through life”.
Long considered an inferior sense, smell thus emerges as deeply embedded in our everyday existence. It connects us to food and drink, brings memories to the surface, nourishes our emotions and plays a part in our relationships with others. Perhaps it is only when we lose it that we fully appreciate all it was quietly doing for us.
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