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Posts with tag scent

Lingering food smells? Try this

Be it fish, garlic, or cabbage, dinner is delicious - until it's all gone, but its scent remains in the air, permeating the furniture and generally grossing you out.

Aside from sticking a fan in the window and setting it to 'exhaust,' Apartment Therapy has some great suggestions on how to get rid of those lingering odors:
  • Leave a dish of vinegar on the counter overnight, or leave it out while you're cooking (careful of boiling it, though, because then you'll replace the fish smell with vinegar, and that's not really any better)
  • Simmer a mixture of half-vinegar, half-water on the stove
  • Simmer a mixture of lemon and orange rinds on the stove for about half an hour. Throw some cloves in, too, if you have them
  • Before you cook fish, core and slice an apple into thin layers. Then submerge the apples and fry them in oil until they turn brown. Then, go ahead and cook your fish.

Chocolate chip scent banned from bus shelters!

Even though it sounded like a promising idea, activists for the "scent sensitive" have gotten the chocolate chip scent banned from bus shelters after only one day! These complainers - oops, I mean activists - claimed that the smells could potentially trigger an asthma attack, although there were no cases of such things occurring. CBS Outdoor, the company that put up the scented strips for the California Milk Processor Board's campaign, said that the strips used no chemicals and that there was no way that they could have directly triggered any allergic reactions, although they are complying with the city's request to take them down.

Honestly, if you can't handle the scent of chocolate chip cookies, how on earth can you handle taking a bus in a big city? Do these activists actually walk around San Francisco? It's not the cleanest-smelling city in the world. Besides, in just about any city the scent of chocolate chip cookies would be an improvement over exhaust, sewer and trash fumes. Perhaps they found the scent to be too appealing and were actually worried that cookie cravings would cause people to hyperventilate in excitement. Or maybe they were worried that their own cravings would make them blow their diets the next time they walked by a bakery.

It just makes good marketing scents

I don't know how many of you folks out there have noticed that it isn't just the perfume makers who are using those scented ads in magazines. Pepsi did the same when it released its Black Cherry / Vanilla flavored Diet Pepsi Jazz. Scratch and sniff ads have been around for awhile but for dog food? Pedigree tried them at supermarkets and pet stores. Have you walked into a bakery and smelled that warm and comforting aroma of just baked bread? My local bakery has an electronic dispenser that sprays an artificial baking scent into the store every few minutes. Mars has been scenting its M&M World retail stores with a chocolate smell to make the experience more enveloping. Verizon recently did the same in its stores with the release of LG Chocolate phones. Do you remember smellavision from old TV cartoons? Well it's here. ScentAndrea has an 8,000 scent dispensing, flat panel screen monitor available in stores like Kroger's and Wal-mart to help make sales.

Scent is the most powerful of the human senses, and the most primitive. This is something I first learned when I was studying psychology in college. The right scent can trigger deep and long forgotten emotions and bring up feelings of every type. Marketers have known about this for a long time, which is why scent is starting to play a bigger role in many products advertising budgets. The best part about it from the sales perspective is that smell can help nudge you in a certain emotional direction without the person even noticing it. Sort of like a nasal version of Vulcan mind control. To boldly go, where no one has smelled before. Keep your eye's out... Uh, nose, for a lot more scent marketed advertising to come.

Waffle spray

While the smell of waffle cones from Ben & Jerry's is alluring, I'm not sure how long that appeal would last once you invite it into your home. For $15, you can find out. The Ben & Jerry's online store also sells sprays that mimic their Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavors. I'm not sure if this stuff is edible, but part of me worries that people will start using them like other food sprays. I suppose they could also be used as perfume. I know that the friends of mine that worked at Ben & Jerry's always smelled like waffle cones when they got off work. It wasn't terrible, but I think they got sick of it pretty quickly.

[Via Boing Boing]

Hotels use food smells

Sure, the smell of apple pie is comforting and welcoming, but when I heard that some Sheraton Four Points Hotels were going to use the scent of cinnamon apple pie as a way to make guests feel welcome, I was a little skeptical. Luckily, it appears they're also using plenty of real pie as well. A Four Points exec has even joined the board of directors of the Pie Council of America (yes, it exists). Other hotels use food smells as well, including green and white teas, fig and bergamot, according to USA Today. Coincidentally, a recent episode of Good Eats also talked about how smell relates to memory and emotion.

[Via AdJab]

BLT scented candles

From Grateful Palate, the brilliant folks that brought us the Bacon of the Month Club, come these bacon, lettuce and tomato scented votive candles. Justifying the need for the smell of bacon in one's home seems unnecessary, but nevertheless, the Grateful Palate offers this pitch: "You may want to light them in your kitchen, office or bedroom or wherever you seek sensual pleasure and enlightenment; by yourself or with someone special." I'd say that "someone special" is an understatement. If anyone responds favorably to your setting the mood with a bacon candle, then you're talkin' soul-mate. I still don't quite understand the "Bacon=Freedom" part, though. The set of three, which sells for $33.95, would seem to go against the hunger-quelling candles that Sarah posted about last month.

Get into the spirit with whisky perfume

At Luxist, Deidre reported that a new scent called the Spirit of Scotland is to go on sale soon. Following in the footsteps of another unusual scent, the Spirit of Scotland is supposed to smell like malt whisky. While people have sample the scent and given it positive reviews, not everyone feels that it actually smells like whisky. Apparently, it has smoky, peaty notes with floral overtones. Honestly, it seems like you wouldn't want to walk around smelling like whisky all day, so it's probably just as well that the perfume is not an exact match for the spirit. Of course, if you already walk around smelling like whisky and are looking for a way to hide that, this could be the perfect product. 

Ads that appeal to the senses

A few months ago, I mentioned that some food producers were testing out a new advertising strategy where they add smells to their packaging , trying to lure customers in with scents that promised how tasty their products would be. Grocery stores also appear to be applying this technique. The flyer pictured here, for example, is one I recently received in the mail from my local supermarket that tried to lure me with its sensory (scent-sory?) appeal.

To experience the smell, the oven door had to be "opened," but I was cautious in my approach because the warning label read "Do not open if you are highly sensitive to fragrances." How strong could this smell be? Keeping the flyer at a distance, just to be safe, I peeled back the label. It actually smelled pretty good and, much to my surprise, not entirely unlike the blueberry muffins it was trying to represent.

One small sample wasn't overwhelming, but I certainly can't imagine a whole store filled with them. Like the perfume samples that infest so many magazines, I can imagine advertisers increasing the strength of their scents until they're overwhelming. Walking through the bakery section and smelling fresh breads is one thing, but once the cereal aisle starts to smell I think the idea will lose a lot of its appeal.

Stop and smell the packaging

AriZona Beverage Co., which produces a line of popular iced teas, is experimenting with some new advertising techniques. The company already uses bright, eye-catching labels and graphics and is now experimenting with adding scent to its packaging. AriZona is working on embedding the smell of its products inside the cap of its bottles, but other companies are using other technologies to appeal to consumers, like scented inks. The Washington Post reports that the sales industry is frantically trying to come up with new ways to lure shoppers into trying their products, as television ads are shown to be increasingly less effective.

Continue reading Stop and smell the packaging

The Scented Version of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

charlie and the chocolate factoryThe audience at Monday night's Japan premiere of the Johnny Depp film "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" got a special treat. Attendees of the movie at the Virgin Toho Cinemas also enjoyed the aroma of chocolate. Aromatrix, a device manufacturered by a U.S. environmental air quality management company provided the scent during several scenes in the movie. Apparently this also happened during some screenings in the U.S. I wonder if this sent people scurrying to the concession counter for Wonka bars.

Tip of the Day

Drying fruit is easy, mostly hands-off and yields a sweet and healthy snack.

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