Can very strong odours damage our sense of smell?
The actual sensation of smell can’t do any harm, but the substances that cause it might. There’s a difference between temporary and permanent effects. Your whole olfactory system (nostrils to brain) gets used to odours. So an initially strong smell quickly becomes hard to detect, which can be frustrating when you want to track something down, but it soon recovers. Permanent damage occurs through respiratory infections or brain damage, and recently some cold remedies have been found to cause harm, but not because they smell strong. We all lose our sense of smell as we get older, so enjoy it while you can.
