Anosmia Awareness Day 2026
Raising awareness of smell and taste impairment
This year to mark Anosmia Awareness Day we are sharing two powerful stories that highlight how impactful and invisible these sensory impairments are.
SmellTaste is the only UK charity supporting people with smell and taste impairments and we need your support. Please consider making a regular donation to continue our vital work. You can donate securely and safely here.
My story by Janis Sinton
I always had an acute sense of smell and taste. That was until I had a cold virus (Covid-type?) just before Christmas 2017. As was quite usual for me when I had a bad cold, I lost my sense of smell and taste, but this time they didn’t return. Early in 2018 we visited South Africa and stayed at Babylonstoren, a wonderful organic farm where they grew all the food that we ate. Imagine the smells around that farm! I just couldn’t smell anything and it was then that reality set in – I had lost my sense of smell completely, and of course it affected my ability to taste too! Eight years later I still have a very limited sense of smell. I am not totally Anosmic because I can smell rancid hot oil when I pass an extractor from a fish and chip shop or anywhere using a deep fat fryer. I call myself Hyposmic or Parosmic. I have been to visit an ENT specialist who could give me no indication as to why it had happened.
Smell and Taste have always been a big part of my life because I work in the Food Flavouring Industry. I started my company TasteTech in 1992 with my husband Roger. He was a food technologist and had worked in the industry for many years until his second redundancy triggered us to ‘do our own thing’. Since Roger’s death in 2007 I have continued to drive the growth of TasteTech as Managing Director. Our son Rob has worked alongside me and is now succeeding me as I work out what retirement for me might look like?
Imagine working in an industry that you love but cannot smell, or even properly taste, the products that we make. I can no longer be part of our tasting panel. I cannot smell the lovely essential oils that we use in our factory. It has definitely impacted me very deeply. Ironically I am also currently Chair of the UK Flavour Association and on the Board of the European Association!
Last year, through the Flavour Impairment Training project being undertaken at Nottingham University which TasteTech has part sponsored, I was introduced to Duncan Boak, CEO of SmellTaste. As a result I joined my local support group set up through the charity. I am working closely with Duncan to help him drive the charity forwards. It is the only charity in the UK that recognises the huge impact that smell and taste impairment has on the lives of the many people who suffer this. It is a huge problem that remains largely unrecognised by the NHS. Raising awareness, education and research are desperately needed but funding this work is a constant challenge, especially in the current financial climate. I will certainly do everything in my power to ensure that this great work continues.
My story by Lucy
There is a world I no longer occupy. I haven’t been there for around the past 8 years. It’s a world that enriches everyday life in ways most people take for granted but it is a world simply no longer open to me. The world I refer to is that of scent and smell.
I lost my sense of smell without explanation. It sounds odd but one day all those years ago I realised I wasn’t able to smell. A trip to my GP saw me referred for a brain scan to rule out a brain tumour and thankfully this scan came back negative. For my GP that was the end of the conversation because my nose functioned (or it did at least for breathing!) but after a little persuasion on my part, she agreed I could see an ENT consultant. The young ENT carried out a quick inspection of my nose, suggested a short course of steroids which did nothing and on the second appointment he just looked at me and said “I’m sorry”. There was a mumble about a charity called (at the time) SmellTaste and something about a higher risk maybe of neurological conditions and I was out the door.
Always one to try to be positive I focussed on the fact that I didn’t have a brain tumour and that was something to be immensely grateful for. However that hasn’t made the subsequent years any easier. There is not a day that goes by where I am not reminded, often multiple times, of how my anosmia effects my everyday life. One of the biggest daily reminder is my lack of taste. Apart from the five major tastes, sweet, salty, sour etc I have none. Food really doesn’t excite me much anymore and my love of cooking has diminished significantly. Even watching cookery programmes on TV holds less attraction now. Travel is no longer the same, new places, new countries have no smell just as memories don’t come back prompted by an old familiar smell. All those fabulous smells that bring joy to almost everyone no longer exist for me – bacon cooking, mowed grass, flowers, bread baking, Christmas spices, an open fire – the list goes on and on.
Apart from all of this, one of the hardest things is that anosmia is an invisible condition that you really have to experience to understand the impact. The invisibility makes it particularly hard. My issue I know, but I hate having to announce it to people. Pointing out that my nose can no longer perform this basic function makes me somehow feel stupid. The confession is invariably followed by the same questions, bewilderment and assumption that it is a result of having had Covid. But the very worse is when family members or friends forget. I know nobody means to cause upset but I find it very hurtful when I am asked to smell a candle or a plant in a garden because it has slipped their minds. I guess I’m upset as there is absolutely no possibility of me ever forgetting and their lack of recall feels like it trivialises a really awful condition. I could be partly responsible for this. I don’t shout about my anosmia and it fits with my personality to quietly get on with life. However I will never have the opportunity to let it slip my mind as the daily reminders are there should I every try to forget.
So for Anosmia Awareness day this month I decided to write this. Just to put some words down on paper and maybe start to be a little more vocal about what life is like with anosmia and not let my story and by association the story of others, slip by quietly. Because the unavoidable truth is that losing your sense of smell and taste is life changing even if not visible to others and excludes you from a whole world of smell and taste.
