When your sense of smell is strongest


	April 28, 2026

Original photo by Evheniia Vasylenko/ iStock

Your sense of smell fluctuates throughout the day.

Smell is one of humanity’s most important senses. It’s intimately tied to taste and memory, and it plays a pivotal role in detecting danger, whether from fires or rotten food. One little-known aspect of smell, however, is how it fluctuates throughout the day. According to research, your sense of smell is weakest early in the morning. So when is it strongest?

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		Numbers Don't Lie

Estimated percentage of people who are anosmic, meaning they have no sense of smell

Year the first modern perfume was created, for Queen Elizabeth of Hungary

1370

Estimated frequency (in days) at which human olfactory receptor cells are replaced

Years ago that olfactory receptors emerged in nature, in fishlike animals known as lancelets

550 million

Humans are more sensitive than dogs when it comes to certain scents.

The human nose often takes a backseat to other famous sniffers in the animal kingdom. Dogs, pigs, and elephants have nasal biology jam-packed with olfactory receptors, which makes them particularly gifted at smelling scents. But no two odors are exactly alike, and research from Rutgers University argues that the human nose — with our measly 400 different kinds of olfactory receptors — can actually sniff out smells important to humans better than even the most skillful bloodhound. For example, human noses are more sensitive to amyl acetate, a main odorant found in bananas, because ripe fruit was important for our survival thousands of years ago. For dogs, finding such fruit was much less important, and thus biologically deprioritized. Human noses can also sniff out the smell of fresh rain on dirt, a scent known as “petrichor,” better than a shark can smell blood in the sea, likely due to our essential need for fresh water. So don’t write off your sense of smell — instead, take pride in what your nose knows.