Your Skin Can Smell

You thought you were savvy to your senses… but the clue was just under your nose all along! Well it’s all over your body, really.

Researchers from Germany’s Ruhr University Bochum have recently unveiled a previously unknown function of the skin: smell. They found scent receptors on this outer layer that appear to be involved in the body’s healing process.

The team identified a receptor within the skin, OR2AT4, that binds to sandalwood oil and triggers cells to divide and migrate, which is an important part of the skin repair process. In fact, cell proliferation increased by 32% and cell migration by almost 50% on skin cells tested in the lab, when they were exposed to the scent of sandalwood.

What does this mean for skin care? Well for one, it definitely says something about the validity and importance of aromatherapy. If certain smells have different binding sites on the skin, it makes sense that different essential oils would provide different benefits.

We hear it said often enough: your skin is your largest organ. It can seem very different from your kidneys or your heart, but it clearly serves many purposes, some still unknown, and should thus be cared for and “fed” with the same diligence as our inner bodies.

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