Smell you later: The strange power of scent in love and friendship

Love Letters

In this week’s Love Letters, Meredith Goldstein shares how scent can shape attraction and friendship.

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In 2010, I wrote a story about Julia Jones, an actress who was about to join the “Twilight” movie franchise. She’d been cast as Leah, a werewolf. 

It was a very big deal because anything related to “Twilight” was huge at the time, and Jones was from Boston. 

I met Jones in person, in Los Angeles, for the interview. I tried to be professional, even though I was a “Twilight” fan who wanted to gush about why the books and movies had taken over my brain.

I do remember one moment that felt like a true lack of professionalism, though. I asked Jones, “What does Robert Pattinson smell like?”

It was not great of me. Pattinson played Edward, a vampire, in the films. (I assume most people know this.) He was the heartthrob of the moment, and I thought he was beautiful.

I wasn’t sure why I asked Jones what Pattinson smelled like. 

I just … really wanted to know. 

Jones didn’t have a great answer. From my memory, she said, “I think he smells like cigarettes?” She was kind to me, even though I couldn’t explain the question.

Now, as a relationship writer, I know why smell is very important to me. Shortly after starting Love Letters, I began thinking more about why we all like each other (or don’t). Smell seemed to be a big part of it.

I immersed myself in studies about pheromones and how they influence how we choose our partners. 

I developed a longtime obsession with a very famous “smelly T-shirt test” from 1995. For those who don’t know, this study, led by researcher Claus Wedekind, asked women to smell T-shirts worn by men, and then identify which ones were the most appealing. The results showed that women were likely to pick the smell of a man whose immune system opposed her own.

I wondered how my own allergies — and my lack of ability to smell many things — altered my own mate choices. Did smell work that way? Did a person’s pheromones transcend a stuffed nose? 

I also wondered: what about friends? Some friends smell like home to me, even right after I meet them. For all I know, it’s just a familiar laundry detergent, but it’s something I sense (literally, a fifth sense). I know what smells safe. 

This is probably why years after I interviewed Jones, I posed a similar question to Lena Dunham. I had a quick Q&A session with her in 2014 when she came to Boston to promote her book “Not That Kind of Girl.” I asked her, during the interview, not for publication, but for my own curiosity, “What does Taylor Swift’s house in Rhode Island smell like?”

Dunham was taken aback, and I tried to explain that smell was important. I said that every time Swift posted a gallery of party photos from that home (some included Dunham), I wondered, “Does it smell welcoming? Does it smell like pie?”

Then she understood, and told me the house smelled great. She didn’t have many words to describe it. 

She added that she was once asked by a fan of her “Girls” co-star Adam Driver, “What does he smell like?” … but she didn’t know how to answer. He just smelled like him, Dunham said. He smelled like her friend Adam. 

(In her defense, it’s difficult to describe excellent smells – especially a person’s scent. I read a lot of romance novels, and so often men are described as smelling of “salt.” “His natural salt,” etc. “Salt and sunshine.” “Salt and warmth.” I did like this Slate article about how challenging it can be.)

I am grateful that smart researchers are also interested in how smell affects the way we bond with friends. Last year, I was thrilled to discover a study by professor Vivian Zayas and a team at Cornell University. 

The research project, which aimed to consider how smell affects our friendship choices, had 40 women between 18 and 30 participating in a speed-friending event. It considered smell and real-person interaction.

Basically, through this study, the scientists learned that smell did have a role in bonding among friends.

The researchers also considered “diplomatic odor” – meaning, how our lifestyle affects our smell (diet, perfume, pets, etc.). 

They learned that when it came to scent, it wasn’t about people smelling “good” or “bad”; it was about personal taste, and some people smelling right to them. 

People were “idiosyncratic” about what they liked. That makes sense, of course. We also have preferences.

It also makes sense that the study pointed to the effects of real-life interaction on how we perceive smell. Essentially, a fantastic interaction with someone can change the feeling associated with their smell. As the researchers put it, in their abstract, “that the quality of the live interaction modified olfactory perception.”

To me, it’s a chicken and egg thing. Do I love the smell of my closest companions/partner because they treat me well? Or was I drawn to them because of their smell in the first place?

I have one friend who’s going to think I am writing about this because occasionally she forgets my horrible allergies and wears a perfume that gives me asthma. I swear that’s not the reason (although I am quite allergic to that one perfume). 

It’s interesting, though, because allergies aside, I probably got to know her best when she was wearing no perfume at all. I was mostly in her home, which smells like good food and whatever cozy scents get absorbed into a comfortable couch. 

But to that friend I say: You’re not why I’m writing this. Do not worry.

I’m writing this for a far more ridiculous reason – because of a mystery reborn. In 2020, I finally got my answer about Robert Pattinson. Allure magazine asked Pattinson to describe his smell and he said, “Lots of people tell me I smell like a crayon. … Like I’m embalmed.”

Oh, I thought. The parasocial romance was over.

But then, last week, in an interview with GQ, Pattinson said he no longer smelled like that. In fact, he suggested our smells change over time.

In the interview with GQ, reporter Trishna Rikhy asks Pattinson about his previously reported crayon-ness, and he says:

“My body chemistry has changed. … And it’s weird, you become less scented as you get older, I think. I don’t really notice my smell anymore. I used to have a very particular, pronounced smell. …a crayon-y one … Before that, it was quite a kind of vicious, vicious scent. And then something, I think, when it became crayon-y, it was like something died. I guess the seven-year cycle…. Maybe I was smelling of crayons when one self died, and when a new self was born, it was less scented.”

Now I’ll have to read research about whether we lose our essential smell as we age, and how those changes affect our bonds.

But in the meantime, I challenge you to consider the people you love and how you would describe their smell. It might be more difficult than you think.

Speaking of smells and love …

The Big Day, our weddings column, is looking for beautiful stories about how people got to … well, their big days.

I did love this recent story about a couple that went to a perfume workshop as a date (that’s a thing). Then they wore their signature scents at their wedding. Adorable.

Find the application for The Big Day right here.

If you can shovel out …

A reminder: On Wednesday at Wellesley Books, Boston Globe reporter Beth Teitell will join me for a book launch event featuring my former editor Janice Page for her memoir, “Year of the Water Horse.” The book is about her very Massachusetts upbringing, and how her entire life changed when, many years ago, she began working at a Chinese restaurant in Braintree.

Beautiful, beautiful

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Globe photos of the storm. It was taken by Finn Gomez, for The Boston Globe. If you can’t tell, that’s a car.

— Meredith

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