# Is a woman's sense of smell stronger than us males? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 18, 2012, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106 "2012-03-18T02:37:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Linden\_Arden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Linden\_Arden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linden_Arden)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/1 "2012-03-18T02:37:27Z")
Or do I just get caught every time I do something I wasn’t supposed to? ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/2 "2012-03-18T02:40:19Z")
My wife and I seem to be able to smell different things. We had the seal on out toilet go bad. I could hardly stand it, and she couldn’t smell it at all. Yet other stuff, she smells and I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/3 "2012-03-18T02:47:15Z")
When she was pregnant, my wife could not stand the smell of my hand lotion, and I had to stop using it. It was not strongly scented. Indeed, I was barely aware that it had any smell, and when she was not pregnant, it did not bother her at all. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/4 "2012-03-18T02:55:00Z")
On the other hand, some women like to wear extremely strong perfumes to the extent that some people around them (both men and women) are nauseated. Also, to return to the earlier theme, when she was a pre-teen my younger daughter liked to use a hand lotion (that, as I and my wife agreed) smelled extremely strongly of fruit. All in all, I think that individuals respond differently to smells (and sometimes the same individual under different conditions, such as my wife while pregnant), and some may be more generally sensitive than others, but it may not be true that women in general are more sensitive than men (or vice-versa). ---
**Author:** ![Linden\_Arden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Linden\_Arden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linden_Arden)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/5 "2012-03-18T02:59:36Z")
My Mom caught me on my first beer at 16. I had come home late many times before and she said nothing. One beer I choked down at 16 to be cool and two hours later she said “I smell that beer on you!”. It was not chance and I got no closer than 10 feet from her. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/6 "2012-03-18T03:24:51Z")
That’s what I was told in my wine tasting class. I didn’t ask the professor for a cite, however. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/7 "2012-03-18T03:26:58Z")
Well they can apparently [smell a man’s genetic compatibility](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117027&page=1) which is a pretty remarkable accomplishment. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2012, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/8 "2012-03-18T03:31:06Z")
Here [Women Smell Better Than Men](http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=women-smell-better-than-men-09-04-09) > [@](#): > > Research at the Monell Chemical Senses Center finds that women have keener senses of smell than do men, and that men’s body odors are harder to cover up than are women’s. Christie Nicholson reports ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-womans-sense-of-smell-stronger-than-us-males/616106/9 "2012-03-19T13:45:39Z")
Just to offer an anecdote, many years ago several (male) friends and I were visiting San Francisco and went to the Exploratorium. One of the exhibits they had was about these body smells. There was a little plastic squeeze bottle you were supposed to put your nose over and squeeze. The sign said that most men can’t smell it, but those who do find it offensive, and most women can smell it and generally find it pleasant. The first several of us tried it and smelled nothing. I was thinking that this might be another one of those Exploratorium exhibits that was in a state of disrepair. Then the last of us smelled it, and reeled back, making a sour face. He said it smelled like a really bad locker room. Unfortunately we had no women in our group for a control.