The Marketplace: No Nose Knows

The truism is that the eye can lie, but the nose knows. Cool pools in the middle of the desert turn out to be heat vapor or over-the-horizon reflections. A bartender can suddenly split into identical twins. But drop a blindfolded man into the middle of a place that whiffs of tanned calfskin, saddle soap and cordovan polish. Is he in a shoe store? Not necessarily.

It is all a matter of progress. These days, when everything is vacuum-packed, cellophane-wrapped or synthetically concocted, nothing smells the way it used to. The coffee or cinnamon buns that stay freshest don’t smell at all. Gasoline companies add so many “super” compounds that even regular doesn’t smell regular any more. Once a knitting-mill operator finishes treating a sweater with chemicals so that it will keep its shape, it doesn’t smell like wool.

Modern technology is coming to the rescue. Already developed are aromatic compounds to spray on the outside of baked goods or canned foods, to mix in with the ethyl or the plastic leather, to knead into the finished cardigan. The new perfumes are called “industrial smells.” Says Ernest Guenther, senior vice president at Manhattan’s Fritzsche Bros., one of the leading smell manufacturers: “Twenty years ago, industrial odorants were only a small part of our perfuming business. However, they have increased 2,000%.”

Working with natural essences or synthetic replacements, industrial perfumers have also solved the problem of charcoal briquettes that don’t smell like hickory and finished furs that don’t smell like mink. Without help, shoes nowadays smell more like adhesives, rubber soles and dye than leather; many manufacturers have taken to deodorizing footwear, then spraying on a compound that smells the way shoes are supposed to smell.

This is not just a matter of esthetics. Auto salesmen have long known that the best way to hook a customer is to open the door of a new car and let him smell it (some companies already produce aerosol bombs that give secondhand cars that new-car atmosphere). The sharpest prod to coffee sales is the smell of freshly ground beans. A hotel has ordered spray cans full of roast-beef aroma to step up banquet-hall trade; an artificial-flower company is spraying its false blooms with essence of the natural thing. Now, sniff this page. Catch that scent of fine coated paper and printer’s ink? It’s the genuine article.