Question: what makes you smell?

Katherine Haxton answered on 14 Mar 2012:

Me? or people in general?
People can smell because of chemicals that are volatile (get into the air easily) and those get up your nose and interact with your olfactory (smell) cells. Sweat and other body fluids smell once bacteria get to work breaking the chemicals down into smelly ones so if you don’t wash for a while, the bacteria really get to work and the smell increases.

You can test your olfactory system – try eating something strong tasting while holding your nose and see how it tastes. Then eat another bit without holding your nose and see if it tastes different. Most of what we call taste is actually smell, and caused by smelly chemicals getting up your nose as you eat them.