I've never smelled this chemical, but I wonder if it's a little bit like skunk spray smell?
There's a saying! "Skunks don't have the WORST smell, just the MOST smell"
It's not the worst smell in the world. I would say it's not even remotely as unpleasant as summertime "dumpster soup", sewage, or whatever. But man, skunk smell is just so intense and overwhelming.
> “Skunks don't have the WORST smell, just the MOST smell"
I did my coding bootcamp in downtown Chicago, near the Merch Mart, and (at least back in 2013) there was a chocolate factory not too far away. I remember walking to class and being almost overpowered by the smell. For awhile it turned me off of chocolate entirely, and I normally have a pretty strong sweet tooth.
I remember feeling so sorry for the people who had to work there, day after day.
> I remember feeling so sorry for the people who had to work there, day after day.
As a kid one of the tours we did was a chocolate factory. When the person leading the tour told us the employee told us workers were allowed to take as much chocolate as they wanted we were super jealous.
At the end of the tour, there was a buffet of chocolate snacks nobody wanted to touch (though we were allowed to and did bring bags of products home), the person told us that after a day of working at the factory, most workers have no taste for chocolate snacks whatsoever, and those which do will generally fuck up, binge, get an indigestion, and at best be a lot more reasonable (at worse stop eating chocolate if it was bad enough). Without the allure of the forbidden fruit (sneaking snacks out), chocolate is definitely overpowering enough that it's a turn-off.
Soup factories are notorious for smells. A single pot of cooking food generally smells good, but layer up a dozen different soup flavors and in total it smells like rot.
I live in 3 blocks from a chocolate factory, and don't find it disturbing. Rather nice. The first time I felt it at a marketplace nearby, and thought someone was making some hot chocolate stuff, and even wanted to take a look what it was, but couldn't find. Sometimes it gives a mild chocolate smell around, nothing more.
When my dog got sprayed by a skunk, it smelled overwhelmingly like a combination of burning rubber and rotten motor oil. Neither of these brands of smells is the worst I’ve ever encountered from a pure quality standpoint, but yes, it felt like it completely coated your nasal and throat passages. You choke on it.
Oh, dogs and smells, this makes me remember my poodle who, as every dog, would routinely look for stinky stuff to lay in. Once he found a dead cat -- it was rather nasty to wash him in the bath after that. Another time he was running around and found a rot fish thrown away near a trash tank -- this was the smelliest washing ever. Had to wash him twice with soap, then with shampoo. Another time, in winter, there was parking area covered with hard snow, compacted by car tires. And he laid and started rolling on a seemingly featureless spot. It turned out, some diesel fuel had been spilled there.
There's a saying! "Skunks don't have the WORST smell, just the MOST smell"
It's not the worst smell in the world. I would say it's not even remotely as unpleasant as summertime "dumpster soup", sewage, or whatever. But man, skunk smell is just so intense and overwhelming.