“It has been a strange couple years for scent, and for attraction. The pandemic has upended the usual rhythms around fragrance: the date-night spritz, the misted cloud before a work day; the heady little vial packed along for vacation. Mask-wearing muffles the chance encounters with someone else’s doused cologne: waxy tuberose at the opera, department-store lumberjack on the train. And a virus known to impair one’s sense of smell has notably gotten in the way. According to a study published in November, olfactory dysfunction has been shown to linger beyond six months for an estimated 700,000 to 1.6 million people, if not more. It’s far from a trivial matter, as the authors point out. That loss, known as anosmia, has been connected to quality of life, safety around spoiled foods and noxious fumes, and the creeping onset of depression. The tandem pleasure of eating is also at stake. As the New York Times restaurant critic Tejal Rao wrote last January of her bout with COVID-19, “Cutting up garlic and ginger was like working in a toy kitchen—as if everything was plastic and had to go back in the box when I was done.” “
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/01/perfume-to-rekindle-eroticism-louis-vuitton-spell-on-you