Scratch-and-Sniff Is Making a Comeback

There was a time when you could pick up a piece of paper, scratch it with your fingernail and find out what it smelled like. Strawberry. Pizza. Chocolate. Whatever somebody decided was worth putting into a tiny scented capsule. It was one of those ideas that seemed completely normal when you were a kid, even though looking back, the whole thing was pretty strange.

Scratch-and-sniff took off in the 1970s and quickly escaped the children’s section. Books and stickers were obvious places for it, but records got in on it, too. In 1972, Cleveland power-pop band the Raspberries released their debut album with a raspberry-scented sticker on the cover. Their hit “Go All the Way” reached No. 5, and a contemporary HiFi/Stereo Review even told readers to scratch and sniff. Years later, Ringo Starr joined in with his 1981 album Stop and Smell the Roses, whose initial pressing included a scratch-and-sniff element. Not everything smelled like roses, though. More than 40 years later, Australian punk band Private Function released a scratch-and-sniff vinyl inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow’s infamous “This Smells Like My Vagina” candle. That’s quite a journey from raspberries to roses to, well, something considerably less floral.

The technology was actually pretty clever. Fragrance was sealed inside microscopic capsules and applied to paper or other surfaces. Scratch it, break the capsules and release the smell. From there, scratch-and-sniff started turning up everywhere. Even MAD Magazine got into the act, running “MAD ‘Scratch ’N’ Sniff’ Strips” in 1979. A few years later, MAD tried something even crazier: a giant lemon scratch-and-sniff cover. The scented ink reportedly became so flammable that the printing had to be stopped. Apparently, even MAD couldn’t make a lemon without causing trouble.

Then John Waters got hold of it. His 1981 movie Polyester gave audiences numbered Odorama cards that they scratched at different points during the film. The smells included roses, pizza, gasoline, skunk and dirty shoes. And because it was John Waters, one of them was flatulence. At that point, scratch-and-sniff had officially gone from children’s novelty to something you could experience in a movie theatre. You could say the technology had really hit rock bottom, but at least it smelled that way.

And yet, somehow, scratch-and-sniff never completely disappeared. It kept popping up in records, magazines, video games, advertising, books and collectibles. Now it is having another little revival, with artists, designers, advertisers and publishers once again figuring out that people like being able to interact with something they are looking at.

Maybe that’s why it keeps coming back. We can stream music, watch movies and send photographs around the world in seconds, but smell is still stubbornly physical. You can’t email somebody the smell of a freshly baked pie. You still need something to scratch.

The Raspberries figured that out back in 1972. More than five decades later, we’re still scratching, sniffing and apparently finding new ways to make the whole thing weird.

I guess some fads just have a way of smelling their way back.