Can Scent Alleviate Loneliness?

Can scent cure loneliness? 

This was a very peculiar question once I began scrutinizing this certain sentence to grasp the facets and ways in which this could hold true. Personally for me, I have had waves of lonely periods vacillating within my life where I could not feel seen or heard as a person or completely isolated within my room and my overwhelming thoughts even if it's in a crowded room. There are cases of data also showing how loneliness has been augmenting because of digital screen-time, reducing socializing to a forty minute event of the day which depicts a decline from the past data. 

The Givaudan program: "Message in a Bottle", is quite a riveting initiative to not just express scent as an extension of couture or fashion but rather as an incentive to instill emotions from nostalgic memories and provide a comforting effect and aura. Some also have a calming effect in certain aroma chemicals, as well. There's a prominent focus on clean, fresh, intimate scents to bring a sense of closeness and familiarity. People also prefer gourmand olfactive families in perfumes due to its warm, fuzzy, comforting flare that grounds you. Moreover, as a perfume enthusiast, I feel very comforted by oriental ambery scents with a sheen of sunlit resins. 

I really loved how the program delves into the concepts of philosophy like "neo-animality" where we require a tactile, skin-like presence and emulate the feel of someone next to you and about how the red thread of human connection runs on like an invisible string tied between the ankles or pinky fingers, according to the respective East Asian traditions, exploring how the universe pulls us back to the memories, intuitions or presence of soulmates connected to us, whether it's platonic or romantic through rich, lush, crimson red berry scents and even tying up with Zignago Vetro for manufacturing red bottles for its symbolism.

It also made me contemplate about how scent is such a powerful limbic stimulant of a sort, with an alchemy of transporting you to a memory within the hippocampus and how the "Proust effect" truly manifests. For me, when I smelled a perfume- it was lacquered in orange blossom with an air-conditioned ambroxan, breezy bubble flowing with a pulse of warm, spicy amber- like a temperature juxtaposition within the warmth and coolness of the notes. 

Once I smelled it, I could see the memory of a beach where I had been during the USA, within my mind feeling the swish of cool water waves and the warm zephyr combing through my hair. In a pensive moment, smelling a fragrance could truly feel like escapism to a place or the presence of a person that truly makes you feel seen and safe. 

Although, scent cannot replace a person completely or truly mask away the need of socialisation, it's like a way to experience art within your spirit- to open up your senses, give yourself a whiff of hope and shift away a negative mood for a while. It's in the magic of scent truly bypassing our thalamus for logic because it seeks the emotion pining within our hearts like a soft dagger shot straight to the core- except that it bleeds with the gleam of our silver linings in life during tough times.