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Dollars and Scents
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Envirodine Studios, a scent marketing company outside Atlanta, has sold more than 4,000 EnviroScent machines since it began producing them four years ago. Chief executive Jeffrey S. Sherwood would not disclose the identities of his clients but said they included household names.
"If you looked at the biggest retailers in the country, you'd be surprised by how few people don't use scent," he said.
Experts say fragrance is an effective sales tool because smell is the sense most directly connected to emotion and memory.
"You smell a rose, and your brain doesn't go, R-O-S-E," said Charles S. Zuker, a researcher with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "Your brain recalls what a rose is like."
Daniel Lieberman, an associate professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, called smell the most "primitive" of the senses. Odor receptors in the nose are actually brain cells, he said. He cited recent studies that linked increased electrical and metabolic activity in the brain to pleasant odors.
Sometimes, a seemingly innocuous scent can evoke a negative reaction.
The American Lung Association has received several complaints about scented stores, spokeswoman Janice Nolen said. The fragrances have triggered flare-ups for asthma sufferers and those sensitive to certain chemicals.
"I don't want to sound like the Grinch," Nolen said, but "sometimes these fragrances can be a barrier to people."
Evelyn Idelson of Cleveland Park, 80, is one of them. She first noticed that her laundry detergent was scented. Then her dishwashing liquid. Now, she said, everything smells. "I can't stand it," she said. "I think it's an invasion of personal space."
Two weeks ago in San Francisco, the California Milk Processor Board had to take down ads in bus shelters that gave off the scent of chocolate chip cookies. Spokeswoman Molly Ireland said she had received complaints from several groups, including an anti-obesity organization and people with diabetes. Taunting them with the smell of off-limits cookies was just cruel, they said.
The milk board took down the ads a day after putting them up.
