Reference point
Pull off a strip of clear tape and smell the adhesive side at once.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Lightly sour, with a solvent note and a thin synthetic sweetness.
The sour note is acetic acid — the same compound as in vinegar, at a very low concentration. It is one of the few places where an office smell and a kitchen smell meet in the same molecule.
The smell is strongest at the moment of peeling, as the adhesive layer comes away from the roll.
How to smell it
Pull off a long strip and smell the adhesive side at once. Then leave the strip in the air for five minutes and smell again — the solvent has gone and only the adhesive base remains.
Why this one is hard
Because it is too brief and too familiar. Most people have peeled tape hundreds of times without ever deliberately smelling it.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Adhesive tape
Household objects family
Both contain acetic acid. Tape is dry and has solvent; pickled greens are wet, with a fermented-vegetable base.
Scientific note
Tape adhesives are usually acrylic or rubber based, carrying a small amount of solvent and residual monomer. The sour note comes from acetic acid, formed when acetate groups in some adhesives slowly hydrolyse. Old tape kept for a long time has a clearly more sour note than new tape — the process continues inside the roll.
In Vietnamese life
Adhesive tape is so common it has become invisible. In Vietnam it goes with packing goods and with markets, and the sound of tape being torn is one of the characteristic sounds of the online-selling trade.