Guest Contribution from Agnese Fiorino, Psychologist
The hidden power of smell. At Superb Salt, we’re big believers in the power of the senses – especially when it comes to daily rituals that nourish our minds and bodies. This week, we’re thrilled to welcome psychologist Agnese Fiorino, who explores a fascinating and often overlooked sense: smell.
In this guest article about the hidden power of smell, she unpacks how scent connects to our most primal emotions – and how tuning into aroma can support emotional well-being. Whether it’s the smell of garlic sizzling in a pan or the earthy notes of a sea salt scrub, scent shapes our experience more than we often realize. From the comforting aroma of cinnamon in a warm kitchen to the sharp, peppery notes of fresh basil or thyme, the scents of herbs and spices can instantly ground us, trigger memories, and shift our emotional state.
Read on to discover why smell might just be the most powerful sense you’re not paying attention to.
The Hidden Power of Smell: The Oldest Emotion
Scent and Survival: Why Smell Is the Oldest Emotion
Author: Agnese Fiorino, Psychologist
Smell is not just a sense – it’s an ancient emotional shortcut. Unlike vision or hearing, which route information through the brain’s cortex (where we interpret, analyze, and name what we perceive), olfaction bypasses these cognitive layers. When we smell something, the information travels directly to the limbic system – the part of the brain responsible for emotions, memories, and instinctual responses.
This makes smell the only one of our five senses with such a direct connection to emotion. It’s a fast lane to the emotional brain.
That’s why certain scents can move us instantly, triggering joy, fear, nostalgia, or disgust before we even register what we’re smelling. And it’s why, for instance, the scent of someone’s perfume, a specific type of wood, or the salty air of a childhood beach can bring back a rush of feelings that seem to arrive from nowhere.
The Madeleine Effect
This emotional potency is perhaps most famously captured in literature by Marcel Proust. In In Search of Lost Time, the taste and smell of a madeleine dipped in tea awaken a long-forgotten childhood memory, buried deep within the narrator’s unconscious. This involuntary memory – reawakened not by thought, but by sensory experience – illustrates how scent is intricately woven into our implicit memory systems.
Implicit memories are those we don’t access through conscious effort. They live in the body, in sensations, in reactions we can’t always explain. For people who have experienced trauma, scent can act as a powerful trigger. A smell from the past—a cleaning product, cigarette smoke, or a certain type of food – can suddenly unlock fear, shame, or helplessness stored in the nervous system, even if the person can’t recall the associated event. The body remembers, even when the mind does not.
Disgust: An Ancient Emotion
But smell doesn’t only connect us to beauty or nostalgia – it also plays a critical role in survival. One of the primal emotions most closely tied to smell is disgust. From an evolutionary standpoint, disgust protects us. It helps us avoid harmful substances, spoiled food, or dangerous environments.
In nature, there are no hospitals or antidotes. For our ancestors, eating something rotten – even in times of hunger – could lead to death by poisoning or infection. The sense of smell evolved as an early warning system. The sharp recoil at the scent of decay or fermentation isn’t just unpleasant – it’s a life-saving instinct.
Disgust also has social and moral dimensions. It helps regulate boundaries: what’s safe, what’s taboo, what belongs inside or outside the body or the group. Smell is deeply entangled in these lines – think of the emotional reactions to body odors, unfamiliar foods, or substances associated with illness or danger.
Scents, Salt, and Emotional Traces
Every smell tells a story. In therapeutic work, and in the simple rituals of daily life, scent can be an invitation to presence, to grounding, or even to healing. The sharpness of salt in the air, the faint memory of sun-warmed skin, the comforting aroma of bread, wood, or earth – all these sensory traces carry emotional weight, consciously or not.
Understanding the emotional architecture of smell – its power to protect, recall, repel or soothe – opens new doors to how we care for ourselves and for others. Whether through memory work, trauma recovery, or sensory rituals, the olfactory world connects us to the oldest layers of who we are.
Smell is more than a trigger. It’s a threshold.
Agnese Fiorino is a psychologist and writer passionate about the intersection of the senses and emotional wellness. She supports individuals in reconnecting with themselves through mindful practices, daily rituals, and psychological insights. You can learn more about her work at:
Website: agnesefiorino.it
Email: info@agnesefiorino.it
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