The Aroma of Old People

September 2025

By Richard Fleming

Photo courtesy of Antonio Vivace

OK, after several years of ruminating on some of the good and some of the challenging aspects of growing old, the time has come to delve into one of the more sensitive topics about aging. Do old people smell? To cut to the chase – yes, yes we do. It is an intrinsic part of the biology of aging. But we need not despair. If you read to the end, you will see there is a silver lining to this story.

It is a well-known fact the human body emits odors. In this post, I will not address the smells which occasionally emerge from our gastrointestinal tract, nor the aroma coming from people who do not shower regularly or don’t like using deodorant. I will limit my observations to the typical scents released by normal, clean human skin.

The quality and nature of these aromas evolves as we age. During each stage of life – infancy, childhood, young adulthood, middle age, and old age – our skin produces an evolving set of odors. And as we proceed deeper into the realms of seniorhood, the intensity of the odors tends to deepen and the quality becomes more distinctive.

I still remember times when I was young, standing in line in a store, and smelling what seemed like a weird odor coming from an old person in front of me. It was not the typical pungent smell of someone who did not use deodorant, as was true of many of my male classmates in junior high school. The odor I sensed from old people was kind of a dusty, musty scent. Many other observers have also noted a distinctive smell when old folks are close at hand.

*    *    *

What accounts for the aromas emerging from human skin, and why do they change over time? To explain briefly, our skin cells produce anti-oxidants to help maintain their health. As we grow older, our skin cells’ anti-oxidant activity declines, along with so many other bodily functions. This leads to increasing oxidation of fatty acids in our skin. The degradation of fatty acids not only contributes to wrinkling of our skin, it also leads to increasing production of a chemical called 2-nonenal which builds up on our skin surface.

Nonenal is a substance with a grassy, somewhat greasy smell. It is not water soluble, meaning it is difficult to remove with soap and water. The more nonenal on our skin, the more we smell musty or stale. So, there are clearcut biological reasons for old people’s normal skin to smell different than younger people’s skin. The culprit is nonenal.

*    *    *

Two follow-up questions naturally emerge.

First, is there an evolutionary advantage to old people smelling old?

Frankly, I have no clue. Some aspects of growing old have no apparent benefits in the process of human evolution. My best guess is that the increasing production of nonenal in seniors is simply a byproduct of the loss of our skin’s anti-oxidant capabilities, which happens because our skin starts to grow tired after decades of service. After all, it is the largest organ in the human body. We cannot expect it to function at peak performance until the very end.

Second, how distinctive is old people’s smell? Is it significant enough to affect our community interactions?

Knowing that scientists are eternally inquisitive, it was predictable they would look into this question. A fascinating study of old people’s aroma was published in 2012. Researchers collected scent samples produced by three groups of people: 20-30 year olds, 45-55 year olds, and 75-95 year olds. This was done by having absorbent pads attached to people’s skin for five consecutive nights. All smell donors were instructed to shower every day and eat similar foods.

After the samples were collected, a different group of exclusively young people was asked to smell the pads from the three age groups. They were asked to guess which age group each scent came from.

And what was the result? The smell testers were able to identify the scent coming from old folks with remarkable accuracy. They had a harder time distinguishing between the scents produced by the younger and middle-aged folks, but they knew which skin pads had been worn by the elderly.

But the inquiry did not stop there. The scientists also asked the smelling group to identify which skin pads had the most unpleasant scent. Here too there was remarkable agreement. The worst scents came from one group: middle-aged males. Gen Z men, take note.

The scents produced by the old folks were distinctive, but not particularly unpleasant. Oldsters smelled kind of musty.

*    *    *

So what are we to conclude about this phenomenon of aging? We can confidently say the commonly-espoused belief that old people smell different is true. Even when we maintain good hygiene, our skin emits an odor which clearly defines who we are. But we can also state that our “old folks aroma” has been scientifically proven to not be unpleasant. (Forgive the double negative. Unfortunately, assessing the benefits of aging requires frequent use of double negatives.)

We have no reason to be embarrassed or bashful in the presence of young people. I look at it as a parallel phenomenon to how the scent of good wine improves as it ages. In similar fashion, we seniors acquire a unique smell as we age, an aroma we can claim as a measure of our excellent vintage.

If you enjoyed reading this post, please consider forwarding it to friends who may be interested or posting a link to your social media feed. Also, if you are not yet a subscriber, it is an easy way to be notified of future posts, which I upload once or twice a month. Just enter your email address below, then check your email for a return message that requires a confirmatory click to complete the process. Subscriptions are free and no advertising will come your way.