The Power of Scents & Fragrance

Memories evoked by smell are more emotional and pleasant than those created by other senses. The ability to smell and the associations smells evoke start occurring very early on in life. Newborns use their sense of smell right from birth to familiarize themselves more with their world than any other sense. In fact, this is where the bond between you and your baby begins—babies can recognize their mothers by smell alone.

Within the first few weeks of life, your baby’s brain starts to make associations during experiences between the emotions they feel and the scents they smell. Pleasant smells, when paired with your loving touch, can create lasting memories your baby will remember for a lifetime.

Why is fragrance more than just a pleasant scent? It’s all about the brain’s makeup.

When we see or hear something, signals are sent to the thalamus, a part of the brain that acts as a gatekeeper, before those signals are processed in the brain. But when we smell something, the signals are transmitted directly to the area of the brain responsible for processing smell—called the olfactory bulb.

This scent processing area is connected via the olfactory pathway to the parts of the brain that are responsible for our emotions, known as the amygdala, and our memory, known as the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex.

As a result, smell activates these regions more quickly and triggers more emotionally vibrant memories than any of the other senses.