I have always been fascinated by odor. You can’t see it coming. You can’t hear it in the distance. You can’t feel its touch. You just suddenly smell it. Odor is nature’s James Bond … an arrogant, sneaky, spy-like vapor that more often than not leaves one shaken, not stirred.
The science of odor adds more to its mystery. To smell something, molecules from that thing have to physically get into your nose. These molecules actually evaporate from the object and float into the air. Your nose catches them and sends an electric signal to the brain, which interprets them as a specific smell. Thus, smelling technically occurs not in your nose but in your head. So here’s to thinking happy smells.
To better understand this process, think of smelling a football game: A quarterback (the thing) throws the ball (the odor molecule) into the air (the air) to be caught by the receiver (the nose), who runs it to the end zone (the brain), and a touchdown is scored (an odor is sensed). Interestingly, although many Chicagoans will have great difficulty visualizing this analogy, residents of Green Bay will grasp it instantly.
So, now that we understand the nuts and bolts of odor, let’s get down to specifics. Recently, researchers conducted a study about the smell of money – that is, U.S. paper currency. It seems that we can duplicate every odor, from a new car to a Burger King Whopper, but no one has bottled the smell of money … until now.
An artist named Mike Bouchet had a vision of an exhibit he would call “Tender,” as in legal tender, i.e., money. His plan is to spray the smell of dollar bills into an empty art gallery. Visitors would walk through it, smell the money and have some kind of artsy experience … kind of like viewing a Monet painting of the odor of water lilies.
To find his smell, Bouchet went to a chemist named Marc vom Ende, who was the senior perfumer for a German-based producer of flavors and fragrances. Ende was commissioned to reproduce the smell of U.S. greenbacks and wasted no time following the scent.
He gathered new and used paper currency into an apparatus that absorbed the molecules of the elements that were being released into the air by the cash. Performing chemical tests on these molecules revealed more than 100 different smells wafting from the images of the Washingtons, Lincolns and Jacksons.
The chemist identified three main odors: soap, linen and a key smell from Chanel No. 5. Now that actually sounds quite appealing, until Ende observed that when this combination of molecules accumulates in high quantities, it smells a lot like vomit, so it might not be a good idea to keep a wad of those presidents in your wallet.
The next key ingredient was ink, which is not surprising. But then came the smell of gasoline, which might explain why money always seems to burn a whole in our pockets.
Now things get a little bizarre. Traces of the odors of skin cells and body oils also were found on our money. I suppose that makes sense, but it’s unsettling nevertheless.
Finally, the scientist discovered traces of butter, cheese and hay. When I read that I thought there must be a bunch of rich dairy farmers running around with a lot of moolah. But then the study observed that these were elements commonly found in … gulp … fecal matter.
So, there you have it: Our money smells like a melting pot of soap, linen, vomit, gas, BO, poop and Chanel No. 5. Evidently having a bunch of money makes a lot of scents.
• Michael Penkava taught a bunch of kids and wrote a bunch of stuff. The speed of smell is 8 feet per second. That was discovered in an elevator. He can be reached at mikepenkava@comcast.net.