Our Senses & Arousal: The Power of Smell

The smell of roses can remind you of a romantic dinner. The smell of hot chocolate can remind you of sledding as a kid. The summer air might elicit thoughts of a family cottage, while the smell of certain foods can instantly take you to a time or place you’ve long forgotten. Without question, the power of smell plays an important role in how we interpret, remember, and live our lives – and that most definitely includes our sex lives.

Smells Can Be Sexy

Certain scents and smells can completely turn on our sex drive, making us ravage for more. That guy in college with the amazing cologne? Ever loved the smell of someone’s sweat? That one candle that you always light during sex? Yeah babe, you’ve been triggered in the best of ways. We can make smell a beautiful part of our sex lives.

How To Build Arousal And Intimacy Through Smell

Heres how to use the power of smell to improve your sex life:

Pheromones

Pheromones are simply the smells that we as animals create to signal behaviors in others. Not exclusively sexual, this can also be why certain smells remind us of our mothers or fathers, since we use smell from the day we are born to recognize our family. One study showed that we are actually put off by the sweat of a family member since the DNA is too close to ours. This helps us find mating partners that don’t share the same DNA! Sexually, this is why we may be so drawn to someone’s “scent,” their sweat, or want to nuzzle our face in their hair. This is also the exact reason we may want someone to sit on our face and embrace their natural scent fully. It’s normal AF, and sexual AF. 

There are plenty of pheromone “perfumes” or “sprays” on the market that claim to work with your natural chemistry to enhance your pheromone potential. If true, they can help alchemize and magnetize your very own scent for potential lovers – yum!

Prep your space with sexy scents

While we love our partner’s scent, we can also incorporate other scents to set the mood. “Sexy” scents have been coined since the dawn of time (like, how many Bath & Body Works’ lotions did you have in high school? Too many).

I find that during sex, the smells you have in the room should be light enough that you can breathe them (incense tends to overwhelm a room – amiright?). For this reason, I like using self-love sprays to spray my pillows and sheets – and even spritz myself – as a sensory reminder to myself to prioritize my pleasure and build intimacy.

Aromatherapy To Set The Mood

Being a high anxiety individual myself, I was introduced to various forms of aromatherapy such as incense and essential oil diffusers. I found that certain aromas like lemon, peppermint, or sweet orange could really wake me up during my workday. On the flip side, I found that aromas like lavender and eucalyptus could make me relax into a deep sleep. Since smells can influence our moods drastically, I started using aromatherapy to relax before sex, easing the tension in my muscles. If you’re tense before sex, try putting a few drops of lavender in your your palms, rubbing them together, and taking a wonderful inhale.

You can also make custom “sensual” blends picked out by your partner and apply them before sex. I like creating fun blends and putting them on my neck, inner wrists, and inner thighs to create a deliciously scented experience. I’ve found that playing with scents from peppermint or cinnamon can create the sensation of cool or warm as well. 

Add Sensuous Scents To Bath Time

Whether you’re taking a bath solo or with a partner, how can you make it more sensual? Scents, of course!

• Light a scented candle or up your game with a 3-in-1 massage candle with natural oils that act as both a moisturizer and a luxurious massage oil – in and out of the bath.
• Add two or three spritzes of your favorite self-love bath spray to the top layer of your bath water.
• Sprinkle in rose pedals, pieces of eucalyptus, lavender, etc. to build the perfect goddess bath. As the pedals soak in the warm water, they release intense aromas.

Take a whiff, babe, and embrace the power of smell

If you aren’t using your nose to embrace the multitude of scents and odors around you, invest in the power of smell! Smell, like touch, is crucial to enhance pleasure, intimacy, and relaxation…plus it’s hot AF!

Check out our other installments of “Our Senses & Arousal” series and get the most out of your pleasure.

(Originally posted on January 21, 2022. Updated on January 4, 2023.)