Nonenal or "the Old People Smell"

It might be true, but is it bad?

VOL. 3 ... No. 111. July 16, 2025

Howdy Humpsters,

Stinky old person here.

“What,” you may be asking? Why would she say that???

Read on my friends.

I’ve been reading about how social media affects the mental health of all of us, especially young people, but I’m here to tell you it negatively impacts the mental health of old people too.

For instance, take my Facebook page (please). It has devolved into a scrolling column of advertisements or invitations to follow groups, with only every fifth or sixth post from an actual friend. My friends have been narrowed down to a few “regulars,” so if you haven’t seen me for awhile — and would like to — private message me.

I generally enjoy the Facebook group invitations that are based upon my actual interests, except there are far too many of them. It means the algorithm — or as I think of it — my ubiquitous online friend, Al G. Rhythm — is trying to give me what I seek. I’ve been privy to gorgeous videos of wild animals, adorable cats and dogs, babies and horses, political and social justice groups, miracles of nature, gardening, writers groups, travel groups, language learning groups, and local social groups. I’ve even gotten acquainted with a few real people online.

And the ads? I can tolerate them if they are based upon something I’ve expressed an interest in through my searches or purchases — online voice lessons, foods and supplements, editing software, art, writing courses, skin and hair care — I never buy anything, but I am stimulated by the possibilities. As a child of the original TV nation, I have some affection for ads, but most of the current ones are not clever or funny. They’re long-winded testimonials from satisfied customers and paid celebrities who take forever to get to the price.

But the advertisements based solely on my age? They get my my dander up! (Who but an old person would say “dander?”)

You’re welcome.

Photo by Alexandre Trouvé on Unsplash

Thanks to the age-related algorithm that decides which ads I should see, I now have access to drugs to lower my cholesterol, drugs to rev up or power down my blood pressure, drugs that can fill in the gaping holes that apparently have turned my bones to swiss cheese, drugs for depression caused by aging, and drugs or equipment to get rid of my highly offensive crepey-arm skin. I am assured that when my time comes, I’ll be able to replace my hips, my knees, perhaps a shoulder. I’m shown ways to eliminate or enhance (depending on the product) my graying hair, and most importantly, chemicals and equipment to scrape off, plump up, burn off, or fill in my horrifying, age-signifying wrinkles!

But two days ago, I saw the advertisement that pushed me over the edge. I promptly removed it from my page and instructed Facebook to leave me alone on this one.

This was their opening salvo: Did you know the “old-people smell” you’ve heard about is actually called Nonenal?"

No. I didn’t know that.

I don’t think in terms of “old-people smell,” but according to this company’s ad, we’re stinkers. There’s a name for our particularly offensive odor. It’s called “nonenal smell.” As we age, the fatty acids on our skin break down, and blah, blah, blah . . . they’ve got a product that will combat it. Sadly, there is no cure.

Have you ever smelled a kid going through puberty? How about those toddlers totin’ a load in their diapers and gushing the most gawdawful stuff from their noses and ears? Or a ten-year-old who hasn’t mastered the art of tooth brushing. How about twenty-something people still smoking and drinking like they’re going to live forever and oozing “cheap honky-tonk” the next day? Or the weed-saturated hipster doofuses who ride the subway in Washington, DC? Or middle-aged residents of the “lawn culture” after a few hours laying sod and pulling weeds?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t bathe or apply scents if we like to use them. I certainly wouldn’t want to stun anyone in an elevator with my old-people funk. But people of all ages produce odors. Does our youth-obsessed culture equate everything related to older people as being bad?

Or is it just another marketing ploy?

According to Scientific American, “A new study confirms that people, like many animals, easily recognize a unique—but not unpleasant—eau de elderly.”

Eau de elderly. Sigh. Wish I had thought of that.

Scents and Senescence: "Old Person Smell" Is Real, but Not Necessarily Offensive

Johan Lundström of the Monell Chemical Senses Center studies human and animal body odors and how the brain responds to smells. Knowing about earlier research on animal body odors and age, Lundström decided to test whether smell also informs how people evaluate age.

In their new study, Lundström and his colleagues sewed absorbent nursing pads into the armpits of T-shirts and asked volunteers of different ages to sleep in the shirts for five consecutive nights. The researchers divided the 44 volunteers into three groups: eight women and eight men between the ages of 20 and 30 (the young); the same number of men and women between 45 and 55 (middle-aged); and six women and six men between 75 and 95 (elderly). During the day, the volunteers stored the T-shirts in sealed plastic bags; avoided spicy foods, cigarettes and alcohol; and showered with odorless shampoo and soap.

After the fifth night, Lundström and his team collected and carefully quartered the sweaty nursing pads, placing four segments from each age group in different glass jars in preparation for a smell test. A different group of 41 young men and women volunteered their noses, taking a big whiff of the air at the top of a jar while blindfolded and rating both the intensity and pleasantness of the odor. Sometimes volunteers had to choose which of two odors most likely came from the older volunteer. Other times the volunteers had to label different jars "young," "middle-age" or "old-age."

How would you like to volunteer for this phase of the study?

Contrary to common complaints about "old people smell," the volunteers' blind ratings revealed that they found elderly people's odors both less intense and less unpleasant than odors from young and middle-aged people. Middle-aged man musk took top prize for intensity and unpleasantness, whereas volunteers rated the odors of middle-aged women most pleasant and whiffs of old man as least intense.

Not only did volunteers in Lundström's new study rate the scent of the elderly as less offensive than any other, they also had the easiest time singling out old person smell from a selection of odors . . . The findings appear May 30 in PLoS ONE.

Together, the evidence indicates that people recognize a characteristic "old people smell" not because of the aroma's intensity or offensiveness, but because of its uniqueness compared to the body odors of younger people. "I think it's true that old people smell a certain way," Lundström says, "but the idea that the smell is negative may largely be social stigma." An earlier study found that, compared with people aged 25 to 40, people over age 40 have higher levels of a fragrant organic compound known as 2-nonenal in their sweat and on their skin. The chemical, which the researchers described as having an "unpleasant grassy and greasy odor," might be "a major cause of the deterioration in body odor that has been observed with aging"—in other words, the biological explanation for why older people have a characteristic odor. But the compound has also been linked to the scent of cucumbers and aged beer, which are not distasteful to most people; others have compared old people smell to old book smell, which most people find benign at worst and enjoyable at best.

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Sounds right to me.

I’ll be marketing a perfume soon. It will be called “Eau de Elderly.” Its fragrance will remind you of summer afternoons eating cold cucumber and dill salad with your grandma, and sipping aged beer in that public library where you found refuge as a child surrounded by all the old books you finally have time to read.

Photo by Sidney Cirnigliaro on Unsplash

Until next time, my friends . . . get outside. Connect with nature and feel the warmth of the sun on your beautiful faces.

With love,

Janna

Quote Of The Week:

According to Glamour Magazine: Smelling like a granny is in. Grandma perfumes are Gen Z’s new, and unexpected, fragrance obsession.

To me, a grandma fragrance simply refers to a vintage scent that people often associate with an older generation – I don’t view it as a negative term. It can actually be quite meaningful when said with kindness. It reminds me of my grandmothers, both of whom have incredible taste that’s been really influential in shaping my own. — Camryn Kim, AKA TikTok fragrance aficionado Cammy Reviews.