Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2024 August 29
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August 29
editFresh scents
editIn my part of the world (for the purposes here, that might mean "Ontario", or "Western World", I dunno) there are a limited number of smells/tastes that are considered "fresh" and they have fairly well circumscribed areas where they're employed: mint, which is used to freshen breath (toothpaste/gum/candy); pine scent (we don't really have an appropriate article), which gets used for cars and furniture; and lemon, which gets used for furniture and room deodorization. There's a pretty limited number of others in the group: cinnamon sometimes gets used for breath freshening, some formulas use orange oil rather than lemon oil, that kind of thing. But we don't, broadly speaking, make use of pine toothpaste or mint room deodorizers, etc.
Or am I wrong and that's just the way things are near me? Our article on mint says that it was previously used as a room deodorizer, back when dirt floors were more common. I've seen cinnamon toothpaste and breath fresheners, but they're clearly a tiny minority compared to mint - are there parts of the world where that's reversed? Are there places where my list above would be completely inaccurate? Matt Deres (talk) 14:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- Consumer products for air freshening began to emerge in the late 1800s which coincided with the arrival of the first synthetically produced fragrant Aroma compounds. Aroma compounds can naturally be found in various foods, such as fruits and their peels, wine, spices, floral scent, perfumes, fragrance oils, and essential oils. Philvoids (talk) 19:53, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- "Smell is a social phenomenon, invested with particular meanings and values by different cultures." That's the opening line of Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell. I have yet to find the part where it discusses which scents in which part of the world mean "toothpaste" as opposed to "detergent". Card Zero (talk) 06:26, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- While I don't have a specific answer, one thing to bear in mind is that's it's likely in quite a few places, such products were either imported when they were first introduced, or at least produced by people or companies from what we'd now call the Western world. Some of the places would be colonies of such, and even when they weren't they were often heavily involved in earlier industrialisation. And even when this wasn't the case, it's quite likely they were at least heavily influenced by and relied on stuff from there, e.g. their synthetic aromas. For example, AFAIK, the infamous Darlie toothpaste generally has mint flavours which I suspect might hark from their early days. It was a bit difficult to find much about the founders in English (it's said to originate in Shanghai from the Niem family [1] but their details are a bit unclear) but from machine translations of the Chinese article zh:DARLIE好來 it seems the founders were 严柏林 and 严中立 with Niem being a perhaps slightly unusual transliteration of Yan (surname 严). The controversial name and marketing itself is enough to show some influence from what's now the Western world, but it seems they and their employees came from zh:中国化学工业社 (Sinochem) who were possibly one of the early brands of local toothpaste in China (which our Darlie article suggests were mint flavoured). The machine translation of our article on Sinochem suggests they had problems in the early days due to a flood of foreign products. Of course I'm not totally sure whether there was a reason for mint to be associated with such things in what's now the Western world before it happened anyway. Nil Einne (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Menthol has local anesthetic and counterirritant qualities, that's what's up with that. Card Zero (talk) 23:43, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- One of the most interesting things about menthol is how large a role it plays in Filipino and Latino folk remedies. See Vicks VapoRub where it is described as "a cultural touchstone among Hispanic and Latino Americans", in particular. Regarding Filipino culture, Gabbi Constantino writes: "It is a cultural trait that transcends generations, somehow marrying medical science and our propensity for anting-anting (talisman or amulet), sometimes on the same level as stereotyped eccentricities ('Don’t sleep when your hair is wet') or brow-furrowing dogma ('Watching horror movies will invite demons into you!'). Say, for example, the idea of cure-alls. Just as Nia Vardalos' big Greek family has learne]]d to trust Windex, many Filipinos have depended on a limited number of products (perhaps due to economics or convenience) to get through almost whatever ails us. Got a cough? Slather Vicks on your chest. Cough has morphed into a full-blown flu? Just put more Vicks. The comedian Jo Koy's mother Josie was one such believer. 'My mom never took us to the doctor. My mom raised us like we were still in the Philippines,' he joked in his Lights Out Netflix special. 'There was one time I thought I had pneumonia, I go 'Mom, I think I have pneumonia.' She goes, 'I’ll put extra Vicks in your body, Joseph. Just rub it everywhere, Joseph. Rub it on the bottom of the foot, then put a sock on the foot. And the Pneumonia will come out of the foot, Joseph,' mentioning a favorite go-to move of Fillipino moms to the howls of the Fil-American crowd."[2] Viriditas (talk) 22:39, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
- The presence of petroleum jelly in something intended for inhalation makes me worry in the context of Fire breather's pneumonia, but I expect that's entirely different and I'm being absurd. Card Zero (talk) 08:24, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- One of the most interesting things about menthol is how large a role it plays in Filipino and Latino folk remedies. See Vicks VapoRub where it is described as "a cultural touchstone among Hispanic and Latino Americans", in particular. Regarding Filipino culture, Gabbi Constantino writes: "It is a cultural trait that transcends generations, somehow marrying medical science and our propensity for anting-anting (talisman or amulet), sometimes on the same level as stereotyped eccentricities ('Don’t sleep when your hair is wet') or brow-furrowing dogma ('Watching horror movies will invite demons into you!'). Say, for example, the idea of cure-alls. Just as Nia Vardalos' big Greek family has learne]]d to trust Windex, many Filipinos have depended on a limited number of products (perhaps due to economics or convenience) to get through almost whatever ails us. Got a cough? Slather Vicks on your chest. Cough has morphed into a full-blown flu? Just put more Vicks. The comedian Jo Koy's mother Josie was one such believer. 'My mom never took us to the doctor. My mom raised us like we were still in the Philippines,' he joked in his Lights Out Netflix special. 'There was one time I thought I had pneumonia, I go 'Mom, I think I have pneumonia.' She goes, 'I’ll put extra Vicks in your body, Joseph. Just rub it everywhere, Joseph. Rub it on the bottom of the foot, then put a sock on the foot. And the Pneumonia will come out of the foot, Joseph,' mentioning a favorite go-to move of Fillipino moms to the howls of the Fil-American crowd."[2] Viriditas (talk) 22:39, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
- Menthol has local anesthetic and counterirritant qualities, that's what's up with that. Card Zero (talk) 23:43, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- While I don't have a specific answer, one thing to bear in mind is that's it's likely in quite a few places, such products were either imported when they were first introduced, or at least produced by people or companies from what we'd now call the Western world. Some of the places would be colonies of such, and even when they weren't they were often heavily involved in earlier industrialisation. And even when this wasn't the case, it's quite likely they were at least heavily influenced by and relied on stuff from there, e.g. their synthetic aromas. For example, AFAIK, the infamous Darlie toothpaste generally has mint flavours which I suspect might hark from their early days. It was a bit difficult to find much about the founders in English (it's said to originate in Shanghai from the Niem family [1] but their details are a bit unclear) but from machine translations of the Chinese article zh:DARLIE好來 it seems the founders were 严柏林 and 严中立 with Niem being a perhaps slightly unusual transliteration of Yan (surname 严). The controversial name and marketing itself is enough to show some influence from what's now the Western world, but it seems they and their employees came from zh:中国化学工业社 (Sinochem) who were possibly one of the early brands of local toothpaste in China (which our Darlie article suggests were mint flavoured). The machine translation of our article on Sinochem suggests they had problems in the early days due to a flood of foreign products. Of course I'm not totally sure whether there was a reason for mint to be associated with such things in what's now the Western world before it happened anyway. Nil Einne (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- "Smell is a social phenomenon, invested with particular meanings and values by different cultures." That's the opening line of Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell. I have yet to find the part where it discusses which scents in which part of the world mean "toothpaste" as opposed to "detergent". Card Zero (talk) 06:26, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Lavender was widely used to deoderise rooms, especially wardrobes and clothes drawers. It is a very common garden plant in Britain, so you could just pick a bunch and hang it where needed. Somewhat out of fashion, as the scent of lavender is now commonly associated with elderly ladies. Alansplodge (talk) 11:23, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- Strewing herb observes that "As people got smellier, the use of fragrant herbs became more popular." Card Zero (talk) 12:53, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed, the King and Queen still cary a nosegay at the annual Royal Maundy ceremony, originally intended to ward off the odours eminating from their subjects. Alansplodge (talk) 14:45, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
- Strewing herb observes that "As people got smellier, the use of fragrant herbs became more popular." Card Zero (talk) 12:53, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- Pine is a traditional scent for disinfectant, I think we mention it at pine oil. DuncanHill (talk) 22:34, 3 September 2024 (UTC)