Your Hormones Can Impact Your Sense Of Smell: The Best Ways To Leverage It

During her pregnancy, Rosie Johnston always had a bar of soap on her person. "It would calm me down," the makeup artist and fragrance expert tells me. "Whenever I would feel nauseous, I would just hold this dry bar of soap and smell it." 

Fast-forward to her 40s, when she experienced early menopause, and Johnston once again had a hankering for fresh, clean scents—but this go around, she swapped the soap for essential oils. "I would feel shitty some days. I would feel tired. I would feel anxious. I would feel emotional. I needed that reset moment," she adds. 

Johnston's ebb and flow with fragrance is incredibly common, it turns out. Scent is such a complicated sense, deeply connected to emotions, learning, and memory, and there is some research to suggest that women's hormones play a role in both olfactory function and scent preferences. 

Before we dive in, you should know that the relationship between women's hormones and scent is a bit understudied. There is a lack of research on women's bodies in general, and scent is not exactly No. 1 on the list of scientific priorities (certainly cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's are more pressing topics of study for women's health), but still, we shouldn't ignore its impact on a woman's well-being. 

Scent, after all, has a strong connection to brain health—namely memory and recall. "The olfactory nerve has the shortest connection to the brain compared to any of our other senses," neuroscientist and author of The Source Tara Swart, M.D., Ph.D., once told mbg.

Odors can directly engage with the amygdala (which plays a critical role in the formation, retention, and recall of memories1) in the frontal lobe of your brain. Evolutionarily speaking, this makes it easy for your brain to identify whether your surroundings are safe or not. 

So it makes sense that as intense hormonal shifts (say, pregnancy or menopause) affect your brain chemistry, your sense of smell would experience some changes. 

"While the exact mechanisms are not fully understood, research suggests that hormonal fluctuations, particularly changes in estrogen levels, may play a role," says neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi, Ph.D., as estrogen receptors are present in the olfactory system. 

"Estrogen receptors are present in the olfactory system, which means that estrogen may directly influence olfactory function," Mosconi reminds us. 

In menstruating women, estrogen levels peak in the days leading up to ovulation with a secondary rise during the luteal phase—and when estrogen is at its highest, your sense of smell may be more acute.

"There are studies that show olfactory function peaks in menstruating women in the periovulatory period2 when our estradiol levels are highest," agrees board-certified OB/GYN and hormone expert Mary Claire Haver, M.D.

Since estrogen levels rise during pregnancy, it makes sense why plenty of women report a more sensitive sense of smell. Research has found that two-thirds of pregnant women rate their sense of smell as higher than normal3 and more sensitive, especially later in the pregnancy3. (This makes sense, as estrogen levels are highest during the third trimester.) 

"As estrogen levels decline during menopause, it can lead to alterations in the structure and function of olfactory neurons, affecting the sense of smell," explains Mosconi. 

Interestingly, research has found5 that women who experienced menopause early had less of a sense of smell than those who experienced menopause later in life. It does not seem to be dependent on other menopause symptoms (like hot flashes and night sweats), but these symptoms can lead to changes in nasal airflow and congestion, says Mosconi, which can have downstream effects on olfactory function. 

It's difficult to give recommendations here, as every woman has a different experience with scent. But generally speaking, try to give yourself grace as you move through these hormonal fluctuations. If scent doesn't bother you so much—that's fine! Feel free to take this information as nice to know. 

However, if your sense of smell (or lack thereof) is impacting your daily life, whether you're experiencing pregnancy, menopause, or subtler shifts in the menstrual cycle, know that these changes will level out with time.

"Knowing that this is possible, that your tastes and appetite can change throughout the cycle, can remove some of the fear of 'what's happening to me,' knowing that it will soon resolve," says Haver. 

For menopause specifically, Haver says hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may even help women maintain their sense of smell, with "studies showing6 that women on HRT have less olfactory dysfunction than those who are not," she explains.