Why you can’t smell your own body

There are times when you can be thankful that you can’t smell yourself. After a run, after a Netflix weekend in bed, after accidentally walking through the perfume aisle at your local department store — these aren’t good times to sniff yourself. The global deodorant market has been estimated at over US$24 billion and is projected to grow to over US$37 billion by 2030. But have you ever wondered why you can’t smell your own body?

According to Science magazine (by way of Nature), “The human nose can distinguish at least 1 trillion different smells, a resolution orders of magnitude greater than the previous estimate of just 10,000 scents.” But your own body isn’t one of them.

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Why this? It’s easy. We’re tired of our own smell. Olfactory fatigue is a real thing and it prevents us from smelling ourselves.

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Reader’s Digest reports that we’re filtering out these types of all-too-familiar smells to make room for new, more important smells that could potentially save us from dangers like natural gas leaks or fire.

If you really want to know how you smell at any given moment, it is recommended that you smell your shirt or any other piece of clothing that has been in contact with your skin all day. Another trick is to rub your scalp and then smell your hands. Or to make it even easier, albeit more awkward, ask whoever is next to you whether or not you need to take a shower.