Reference point
Dab rubbing alcohol on a cotton pad and hold it a hand’s span from your nose.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Sharp, clean, cold, and gone almost instantly. There is no layer behind it — it is a flat smell.
It is a rare entry in the dictionary where the lack of structure is itself the characteristic. Ethanol is a very small molecule that evaporates extremely fast and leaves nothing behind. Most entries in this dictionary unfold over time — something arrives first, something stays. Alcohol does not: it arrives and leaves at the same moment.
It is also the reference for understanding why the solvent in a perfume is not counted as part of the fragrance: it vanishes before the fragrance has had time to open.
How to smell it
Dab alcohol on cotton and smell from a hand’s span away in the first three seconds. Wait thirty seconds and smell again — the pad is almost odourless.
Why this one is hard
It is not hard, which makes it a good reference for calibrating your nose before a long smelling session.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Rubbing alcohol
Medicinal family
Alcohol is gone within a few dozen seconds and leaves nothing; the medicated balm has menthol and camphor, so its cold note lasts long after the alcohol has gone.
Scientific note
Ethanol is one of the few substances in this dictionary with a boiling point below 100 degrees — 78 degrees. It evaporates almost instantly and carries with it other compounds dissolved in it, and the cold on your skin is not because the alcohol itself is cold but because it takes heat as it evaporates.
In Vietnamese life
The smell of rubbing alcohol is tied to hospitals and vaccinations in almost everyone’s memory. It is one of the few smells whose associations are nearly the same in many places.