Radler Parfums — The evidence register: Perception

Scent, Memory & Emotion

unsourced In Swann’s Way (1913), Proust described how the smell of a madeleine dipped in lime-blossom tea triggered a complete, involuntary return to his childhood.
sourced The usual explanation: smell reaches the brain’s memory and emotion regions by an unusually short route, and studies have found odor-cued memories often more emotional than memories cued by words or pictures. · Herz (2016). The Role of Odor-Evoked Memory in Psychological and Physiological Health
unsourced Body odor is shaped in part by genes of the immune system (the MHC), and some studies suggest people prefer the scent of partners with different MHC profiles; the evidence is mixed. Perfume changes this signal more than it hides it.
sourced A 2014 study (Bushdid and colleagues) estimated that people can tell apart more than a trillion odor mixtures; a later critique argued the math overstates it, so treat the figure as vivid rather than settled. Either way, the nose encodes smells… · Gerkin and Castro (2015). The number of olfactory stimuli that humans can discriminate is still unknown
sourced The Proust effect — the involuntary, vivid memory a scent can bring back — is a well-known idea in the science of smell, and one that researchers have tested in the laboratory. · Herz (2016). The Role of Odor-Evoked Memory in Psychological and Physiological Health

house interpretation Here is what the evidence actually supports. The old promise of scent as remedy, drawn in-house
sourced Smell reaches the brain’s emotional centers by an unusually short route. · Herz (2016). The Role of Odor-Evoked Memory in Psychological and Physiological Health

house interpretation The same formula can smell different on different people — and on the same person from one day or season to the next. One drop on a paper strip, one on skin: drawn in-house
unsourced Healthy skin is slightly acidic, and its chemistry varies from person to person. Perfumers commonly observe that dry skin lets a fragrance fade faster and oilier skin holds it longer; how much pH itself changes a scent is less clear.
unsourced It is one proposed reason two people wearing the same perfume smell different: their bacteria may transform some of its molecules differently.
unsourced What you eat and your hormones can change the volatile compounds your skin gives off, so a fragrance may wear differently over a week or a year. Claims that particular hormones favor particular notes go beyond the evidence.

from the house’s claims register and the records, checked against the pages’ own words when the site was built