| Page 2 of 4 < > |
Don't Lose a Sale by a Nose
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
How you respond to various scents depends on how you were first exposed to them, Wysocki said. "If your first experience of smelling a rose as a very young child is walking through a garden hand in hand with your mother, it will be a memory much different from someone who experienced roses for the first time at the funeral of their mother. . . . It's very difficult to make predictions about what will be a pleasurable or acceptable smell to everyone out there."
Whether the odor is good or bad, women tend to smell it more intensely. "Women's perceptions of smell are generally better," Wysocki said. "Typically, women can detect odors at much lower levels."
Men and women also give off different smells. They have "a different body odor," the neuroscientist added. "It can be discriminated so that other people can tell them apart."
So perhaps a tiny spritz of male pheromone might attract women to a house?
"Not one I've heard before," he said with a laugh. "There is no 'sell your house faster' pheromone."
Even scents that you enjoy in one situation can be repellent in another. A perfume that delights at a party might be too personal in a home that you're considering buying.
Is there any generalization we can make about what makes a house smell good?
"Florals are generally well accepted," Wysocki mused. But for selling a home, "leather might be more appropriate."
Unless you have an aversion to horses.
"Well, there you go," he said. "Spearmint is very pleasant smelling and people chew spearmint-flavored gum. But spearmint is an unacceptable scent in England because it's used in horse liniment."
A highly unscientific, informal survey of a bunch of people who live mostly in the metropolitan area turned up a lengthy list of scent preferences, which on close examination broke down into two categories: food and nature.
It's not surprising that the aroma of cooking, and particularly baking, topped the list of scents that speak of home -- particularly bread, chocolate chip cookies, brownies and apple pie.
