Jon, my family's extreme olofactory sensitivity seems to be tuned more strongly to non food things (chemicals, mould, etc). Which yes, does protect from chemicals and mould that harm. But it has a major downside, although I guess truth be told the down side is more that their (our) systems are as sensitive to the causes of the smells as they are to the displeasure of the smell. I am less sensitive to smell but equally (more?) likely to get headaches etc from the cause, so DH will be ranting about smells while I am whining about my headache... In the case of visiting friends we are both sitting there stiffly looking anti-social due to so much of our energy going to trying really hard to cope with their scented candles or the smell of their washing powder and not mentioning it.
It's tricky living with a man who has absolutely zero tolerance for anything fragranced - most personal care products are unacceptable (if I want to be in the same room with him).... No perfume ever, no deodorants, hair sprays, most soap and hair products are unacceptable. I wash my hair before going to the hairdresser to avoid their shampoos, then again when I get home to wash out the products they considered normal for "do not put ANYTHING in my hair". I just tried a new hair product this week out of desperation and had to wash my hair three times to get the smell out, and throw out the essentially unused product.
Maybe it's saving us from cancer but mostly it's inconvenient....
There was also the incident where we arrive at a holiday house and DH declared there was something dead there as soon as he got out of the car. It took 2-4 days for anyone else to smell it at all, by which time he was grid searching under the building with a night vision video camera... And he found a cat, house siding had to be removed to get it out (assisted by my mother who still couldn't really smell it)... He was miserable for 4 days of a 6 day holiday while the rest of us were either barely effected or not effected at all.
