Why is it that when people come in from outside when it’s really cold out, they have that cold “smell”?—Edith Baker, via email
A: “That is a strange question,” says David Phillips, an emeritus climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. (Um, we’ve answered much stranger questions, David. You need to read more Cottage Q&A.)
The smell of cold is actually more like the absence of smell. Why? Odour molecules travel faster and farther in warm air than they do in cold air. “But also, in humid air, we smell smells better,” says Phillips; the higher moisture in warm air improves our olfactory sense. Plus, winds are more likely to be stronger in cold weather, he says. “More of the smells are dispersed, so we don’t get to smell them.” Okay. Sounds logical. But if cold air smells like nothing…how can a person smell like the cold?
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We all know clothing can absorb odours—smoke, for example, or cooking smells. Could clothing absorb the crisp, fresh smell of winter air, and give the wearer a cold smell?
“If there are particular compounds that are still volatile enough to have an odour in the cold, then yes, it’s likely that clothing would act as a sorbent,” says Rachel McQueen, an associate professor at the University of Alberta who researches the development and retention of odour in textiles. “But I really can’t say with any certainty whether clothing can ‘absorb the smell of cold air’ if it doesn’t really have a smell.”
According to Bob Pellegrino, a research fellow with the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, part of the problem with describing the “smell” of cold is the abstract terms that people use.
“We have little language for it,” he says. “What does ‘fresh’ mean?” The other confusing part is that when we’re smelling cold air, we’re also experiencing a physical sensation. “The inside of your nose is hot as hell, basically an oven, compared to the air outside,” says Pellegrino. So you can sense cold air entering your nose. “My opinion is that cold is not a smell, but a feeling.”
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One way to test this, he says, would be to have a group of people who can’t smell (anosmics) and a group of healthy-smelling individuals smell people coming in from outside. “I’d guess they can both ‘smell’ this difference, but they would use slightly different language, with the healthy individuals saying ‘fresh’ and the anosmics saying ‘cool,’ ” he says. Coolness is a physical feeling, not an abstract smell term.
Unfortunately, such a study doesn’t exist. Not yet, at least.
Got a question for Cottage Q&A? Send it to answers@cottagelife.com.
This article was first published in the Winter 2024 issue of Cottage Life.
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