The Neglected Sense

Modern life seems to focus on delighting our senses.  How much time and energy and money goes into entertaining our visual, auditory, and taste senses?  Movies with brilliant special effects.  700 channels on our television, and the world a click away on the internet.  Music, audiobooks, and a cell phone with your 24-7.  Food, snacks, restaurants, candy bars.  Human beings spend most of their time immersed in sight, sound, and taste.

But, what of the neglected sense?  Oh, I suppose there are fancy candles you can light to give you home a certain smell.  And pine-tree shaped air-fresheners you can hang from your rear view mirror.  But, aroma therapy is hardly mainstream.  Our sense of smell is given a treat mainly as an accident.  Some cookies baking in the oven...or the smell of cinnamon rolls in a grocery store bakery.  The smell of old books in a used book store.  Rich scents steaming up from a fresh cup of coffee.

But, snuff-takers are again ahead of the curve.  The olfactory sense is a major component of our pleasant habit.  We choose, mix, and use snuff products in order to maximize our pleasure.  We connect certain snuff brands or scents with important moments in our life.  We compare notes about our sense of smell experiences, and engage in detailed discussions of this or that nuance of a scent we experience while snuff-taking.


While the nose takes a backseat to the eyes, and ears, and tongue of most people, snuff-takers put the nose front and center. 

Mark Stinson
Modern Snuff