My den nobile smells of mothballs?

[astrid]

Originally Posted by Ordphien

I think nobiles smell putrid.
They all smell of rotting mustard boiled in sugar to me.
So it's not just you lol.

Mine went outside where I didn't need to smell them.

My question to you is what circumstances in your life led you to knowing what THAT smells like!! Haha

For me it just smells like mothballs aka naphthalene. I work in a chemistry lab so I often pick out particular chemical smells and for me this is a dead ringer!!

I was at an orchid society meeting the other night and someone's large and gorgeous cattleya also smelled like naphthalene to me. Yuck!!

---------- Post added at 12:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Tschimm

Yes. That's what I meant. In a German forum, we always say : ,ich hol schon mal das Popcorn', if we are expecting an entertaining thread. 😄

No schadenfreude (didn't find a translation for that word... Your threads are often very special and I like special things :-)

Yeah. Schadenfreude is used in English actually, because it is such a good word. One of my favorites!!

Also, in my neck of the Internet, we use this gif

[jcec1]

Females have a better sense of smell, and it varies according to the menstrual cycle too. Perhaps, you are experiencing a "sensory perfect storm", and at other times it may be less intense. It would be interesting to find out if it is men or women who describe the scent, as this could have a bearing on it's attributes.

[astrid]

Originally Posted by jcec1

Females have a better sense of smell, and it varies according to the menstrual cycle too. Perhaps, you are experiencing a "sensory perfect storm", and at other times it may be less intense. It would be interesting to find out if it is men or women who describe the scent, as this could have a bearing on it's attributes.

Very interesting. My friend is pregnant right now and she said, "my body wants to protect the bay so any time my nose smells something remotely unsafe, I throw up!!"

I just went and cleaned finer fridge to eliminate a smell that no one could smell but her. Poor thing. I would expect women to tend toward more acute smell for our baby-carrying abilities.

That said, I am just very picky about everything revolving around scents and tastes. I have a mile-long list of foods I won't eat and a very clear top ten most hated scents list.
That said, I can smell mothballs a mile away any day of the year. I hate them so much, and the smell is almost impossible to remove from things!

[Ordphien]

An extremely unfortunate experience involving a hidden (expired) glass jar of mustard, a pot of boiling sugar water, and me not looking when reaching for a jar above the stove.

I'm extremely smell sensitive. I pick up on very minute scents. But I don't actually mind most smells.
That one got to me. I had to go outside and gag while my family cleaned it.
I still shudder from the memory.

Hmm.... I wish all the women in my life knew they are supposed to smell better than men.
Because I swear their noses barely work. The most frustrating one to me is that to them, all flowers smell the same. Mind boggling.

[astrid]

Originally Posted by Ordphien

An extremely unfortunate experience involving a hidden (expired) glass jar of mustard, a pot of boiling sugar water, and me not looking when reaching for a jar above the stove.

I'm extremely smell sensitive. I pick up on very minute scents. But I don't actually mind most smells.
That one got to me. I had to go outside and gag while my family cleaned it.
I still shudder from the memory.

Hmm.... I wish all the women in my life knew they are supposed to smell better than men.
Because I swear their noses barely work. The most frustrating one to me is that to them, all flowers smell the same. Mind boggling.

Idk if I said it here, but I firmly believe that people have a hard time differentiating smells because we are not trained to differentiate them. In some modern languages, there are not two words for green and blue, but one. They don't differentiate.

So, because they don't grow up learning to tell the difference, their brains don't distinguish the two.
Much like how in Japanese language, people just use a flipped 'l' sound to make an R or a an L sound. If the brain doesn't practice learning the difference, the person can't tell a difference in the two sounds.

And I think it extends to smells, too!
Here is a great radiolab episode about colors and how we learn to call things by different colors:
Why Isn't the Sky Blue? - Radiolab

Oh man that sounds like a horrible scent, too!!! Yuck!!! I would die.
I burned my arm pretty badly this week by reaching over something uncarefully, but at least you only had to deal with a temporary bad smell! Haha I am going to scar from this.
Maybe the are trends of smelling ability between human genders, but of course each individual varies in their abilities. Just like certain dog breeds tend to be more playful or more energetic, but individuals vary, or how a type of orchid is "fragrant " but sometimes you get a stinky or scentless dud.

[NYCorchidman]

This just goes on to say that different people smell the same thing differently.
BTW, I have also read that women may experience some change in the olfactory sense depending on the hormonal change in the body.
Someone posted how his wife who really liked certain smell could no longer stand it while she was pregnant. lol

Someone mentioned den. unicum. I agree, whoever said its scent is like tangerine is...well, very different. To me, it smells more like some cheap crayons and I hate it. hahaha
We've talked about Den. kingianum. I also find it very sweet but too strong and there is some weird end note, like ash of some sort. not very pleasant.
no more kingianum for me. hahaha

Now on to nobile hybrids.
Different hybrids have different scent but in general, I would say they are sweet, like honey plus musk sort of. As someone said, Love Memory 'Fizz' is a great example.
I have my Oriental Smile 'Fantasy' in bloom and it is sweet and citrusy at the same time. very pleasant and love it!!!!

[astrid]

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

This just goes on to say that different people smell the same thing differently.
BTW, I have also read that women may experience some change in the olfactory sense depending on the hormonal change in the body.
Someone posted how his wife who really liked certain smell could no longer stand it while she was pregnant. lol

Someone mentioned den. unicum. I agree, whoever said its scent is like tangerine is...well, very different. To me, it smells more like some cheap crayons and I hate it. hahaha
We've talked about Den. kingianum. I also find it very sweet but too strong and there is some weird end note, like ash of some sort. not very pleasant.
no more kingianum for me. hahaha

Now on to nobile hybrids.
Different hybrids have different scent but in general, I would say they are sweet, like honey plus musk sort of. As someone said, Love Memory 'Fizz' is a great example.
I have my Oriental Smile 'Fantasy' in bloom and it is sweet and citrusy at the same time. very pleasant and love it!!!!

Well now that I have smelled more kingianums, I have noted that the different colors seem to smell differently. The first one I smelled was like baby butt powder, but I went ahead and bought one and it is bright purple and smells like wonderful honey. So it isn't all of them that smell bad.

I am beginning to question my whole reality ever since that blue and black (OR IS IT GOLD AND WHITE?!?!?!) because my visual perception of that dress has flip-flopped three times so far and now my feeling about fragrances is getting weird.

I am also reading a book about fragrance chemistry right now that is discussing the process of olfaction, and how anosmias (inability to smell) work. There are anosmias certain people have toward certain chemical families (which allows scientists to better categorize chemicals and functional groups) and I think that is what is at play here with people perceiving orchid fragrances so differently. If there is a whole puzzle making up the smell, but you're missing a big piece, it's gonna be a wreck! haha

I am so fascinated about this I want to study it more!