Scent that triggers fond memories finds favour

When the scent of a cosmetic triggers a fond memory that you hold, it is more likely to find your favour, says a study.

"A scent's ability to elicit personal memories is more important than mere positive hedonics and how pleasant it smells," said one of the researchers Rachel Herz from Brown University in the US.

The researchers set out to test how odour-evoked memories influence customers' perceptions of a product.

Such so-called "Proustian memories" are usually formed early in life and are thought of less frequently than recollections elicited by visual or verbal cues.

Samples of four scented body lotions were sent to 271 US women between the ages of 22 and 31 years old.

Before starting to use these for a week, the women completed an initial online survey. They rated the lotion fragrances for pleasantness, intensity, familiarity, uniqueness and the degree to which these elicited personal memories.

In a post-survey the participants rated how much they liked the lotions.

It was found that lotion fragrances that smelled pleasant and which evoked potent personal emotional memories were preferred.

These were judged to be superior in many ways to the same lotion whose scent is equally pleasant, but did not trigger any recollections.

The degree to which the fragrance evokes a Proustian memory for a given person determines how much a lotion is liked, and how highly its performance is rated, the researchers said.

The study was published in Springer's journal Chemosensory Perception.