Our olfactory system is possibly our most important. It does much more than we might give it credit for. First, our enjoyment of our food and drinks is primarily down to our sense of smell. If you drink wine or beer, perform an experiment next time you enjoy a glass or 3. Try drinking your favourite tipple from a variety of glasses. The difference in taste from glass to glass will be quite noticeable. With red wines you are looking for a large bulb glass. You will see people filling these up 1/2 way. Simply put that is not allowing the glass to work. These glasses are to be filled to their widest point, allowing most of the volume of the glass to be dedicated to the vapours that reach your nose. This is where you gain some of your biggest insights into what you are consuming. A tall, narrow glass will offer very little nose and the wine will seem dulled by comparison. Take your time with this experiment. Do it many times. On a Friday or Saturday, maybe.
Ah, Friday or Saturday….daydream. Please let me drag you back to the point. We consume with our noses. When you enter a washroom environment, it is your nose that provides you with the initial judgement. Your other senses will look to confirm this information. Stranger still is how intrinsically our sense of smell links to memory. Smell both supports the “filing” of memories and is the most powerful sense in helping to retrieve our memories. Even though women have a better sense of smell than men, the direct link to our limbic systems ensures that this sense is the one we trust the most. Walking into a washroom with even a slightly “off” scent causes an immediate critique of the environment. These criticisms have been shown to move outside of the washroom environment and into the rest of the location the washroom is in. In short, stinking toilet equates to poor shop/restaurant/business, etc. Getting scent right should be your highest priority in all environments.
Curiously traditional chemical scents produce a doubtful reaction for many. We wonder what these scents are covering up and engage our other senses critically. Strong artificial scents are not the answer in many environments. Many implementations now use air purification systems as these don’t cover up odours but neutralise them by removing the chemicals responsible from the air. A wonderful side-effect of this is to remove 99.99% of all known viruses and bacteria. I’m sure we all agree this is a strong positive case in our present environment.
There are still times and places for air fresheners. A brilliant use, space allowing, is to provide “scent breaks” between environments. Outside of washrooms in a food and beverage implementation is a powerful use provided the scents are not detectable from a consumption location. Moving between an industrial and commercial space is another. When you are looking to support your users “leaving” a less positive sense environment and entering a neutral or more positive sense environment, then air fresheners can provide a psychological “reset”. Great for people returning from the toilet to their meal in a “Uma Thurman/Pulp Fiction” kind of way.
Another scent case to consider is urinals. Modern urinal water management systems require less water, making it vital to ensure that they do not have malodours between flush cycles. Using a biological product such as Bio-P allows for longer cycles and neutralising of odours on impact. P Wave urinal screens support the Bio-P solution with a localised scent management. This solution is a simple brief service window retro-fit option for immediate water savings.
Scent based solutions need careful consideration to ensure people do not look for other faults. Get the scents right throughout and your users should look to form more positive opinions of your environment. Better restaurant reviews, more positive business negotiations, increased productivity can all be affected by scent. Speak to Zenith Washrooms today to have us help your business assess just how good it smells.
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