A lot of people claim they can't smell SALT

Just google "smell of salt". Crazy! A lot of results show up, people saying that salt doesn't smell. How is that even possible?

Salt, even when in small qualtities, can be discerned with ease. You can tell if a food is salty enough-or too salty-or unsalted at all- by sniffing it. You can even smell it in tomatoes.

I think it has a very strong scent. And in search for a more healthy, chemical-free salt I've tried few kind of salts... also been in few salt mines/pits, whatever they're called, around here there are plenty of them./ Salt definetly smells. I don't think you need a sharp nose to smell it, it's just... very obvious.

And in one of those links they say water doesn't smell like anything? They teach us endlessly that stuff in chemistry classes. So not true. In a forest, even if you can't hear a river, you can track it by the scent if it's close enough. Animals can do that from further distance even...

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200808170 82809AAGBsZx

www.ign.com/boards/threads/what-does-salt-smel l-like.172677671/

greenanswers.com/question/does-salt-have-smell /

A lot of other results, just put on some exemples... I'm very surprised of how much... nothing ppl can smell. Are those the same ones that criticize perfumes (as being offensive)? Like blind men criticizing colours.

I have seen people claiming that salt has no scent, but I agree that it has a certain smell to it--both in perfume and on food.

I'm going to go right now into my kitchen and take a sniff of a container of sea salt and report back...

I'll be eager to hear what Sherapop, who has a chemistry background, will say here.

It has been my impression that, when you smell water, you're not smelling WATER, per se. I think that, when I smell water that I've poured into a glass, I'm probably smelling the chlorine that has been added to it. (I just took a sniff of the glass of water that's on my desk and think I may also be smelling a hint of the dish detergent I used on the glass.) Outdoors, when I smell water, I think I'm usually smelling the water's effect on dirt and flowers and trees. (This article points out that animals may be smelling geosmin rather than water: web.expasy.org/spotlight/back_issues/035/ This article points out geosmin's affect on how water tastes: gallery.usgs.gov/audios/411 )

I don't smell anything when I sniff iodized table salt, but there certainly are types of salt that smell. Doesn't that have to do with the other minerals that are in with them?

Bouzeos,
If you want to prove it once and for all to the doubters around you, have someone give you a blind smell test, putting alternately a dish of salt and a dish of nothing under your nose. Then you will have incontrovertible evidence!

It smells like potato chips. lol

I am not at all sure whether pure NaCl should have a scent, but how often do we encounter pure NaCl? That is the question...

:

You made a great point here, I'm sure it's true, but not sure to what extent.

Just made an experiment with distilled water. 2 cups, one with, one empty. Only inhaled once from each, so I won't be able to tell if it's something in there by the distance of the air exhaled...
I can definetly tell there's water in the one with water.
Ok now, to the salt, yes, salts can smell a but diffrent from type to type, bit overall the same, mostly. Smells like salt.

I never smelt NaCl (pure) ... hm... did anyone? share the impression pls.

Just wondering, does SUGAR - the other white grainy stuff - have a smell in its pure form ?

I can neither smell SALT nor SUGAR when it is utterly pure, my eyes may make a distinction, only.
Mostly people smell the stuff that is added to either SALT or SUGAR ??

Don't know ... but then, my nose is not that fine.

Salt smells like sand to me.

*takes a whiff of sea salt*

Yeeeep.

(Thank God no one is watching me do this)

White sugar in large quantities has quite a strong smell and I find it quite unpleasant, almost disturbingly like vomit. Yuk!

I find that salt smells different depending on what kind it is. Sea salt definitely has a faint odor. Iodine-enriched salt also does. But the regular super fine salt we use doesn't smell like anything to me. It's probably purposely refined to such point.
However I think "salty" notes (as in perfumes or certain food items like tomatoes) and the smell of salt per se are two different things.

Sugar does smell, though. Any kind. And it's not a particularly pleasant smell too.

I have found that salt tends to magnify the smell of whatever it is added to. Sometimes it's nice. As in some cooking dishes. Sometimes it's horrifically awful.....like dead sea life.

Uhmm.....I can´t smell salt, I am pretty sure about that.

If at all, I might be able to detect some kind of smell when holding the salt package right under my nose but never ever could I find it in seasoned foods or even in salted noodle water.

Guess my nose is just not so great

I'm the same way. Salt in the packet never smelled to me; it's just there. Sugar is the same way. Now I can taste it just fine and I can smell sea salt because it's different.

Yes, I know what you mean. Sugar only smells nice when being transformed to caramel