Using Smells in Museums was co-organised by Liam R. Findlay (International Themed Smell Day, AromaPrime) and Sofia Collette Ehrich (The Olfactory Contractor). It was co-hosted and accommodated by Gus Romero (The Fragrance Alliance Network).
In alphabetical order, speakers included:

• Ailsa Easton (T3 Creative Agency)
• Lauren Henning (The Tall Ship Glenlee)
• Andreas Keller (Olfactory Art Keller)
• Antje Kiewell (Artphilia)
• Margot Kopera (Maryland Center for History and Culture)
• Natalia Kucirkova (University of Stavanger)
• Charlotte Mikkelborg (Picture This Productions)
• Jessica Murphy (independent researcher)
• Nezka Pfeifer (Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum)

Behind-the-scenes support was provided by Max Ehrich and Farhan Jivraj.

I became a certified Whiff-sistant!

​As was my duty, I visited Magic Kingdom's Smellephants on Parade trail during a holiday in April. Here, 'smellephants' have confectionery smells emitting from their podiums. Of course, I leant in close to see the fan machines inside...

The trail is part of a Scentsy partnership, and the smells were created by French Color and Fragrance Co.

Circus staff hand out maps, so you can follow the trail. If you can correctly identify the smells, placing relevant stickers onto relevant map spots, you are granted the title Whiff-sistant.

​The charismatic cast member Jake was giving out stickers to children and turning the leftover paper into origami birds.

I was delighted to have been able to experience this piece of theme park smell history.

I am excited to announced the debut of International Themed Smell Day, 11th July!

💰 A dark ride can cost vast amounts of money, but smell is a relatively cheap way to:

• Communicate story quickly
• Evoke emotions powerfully

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If your budget does not allow for an elaborate ocean sculpt or animation, a subtle sniff of sea breeze and the sound of crashing waves can deliver the same idea for less—potentially in a more immersive manner.

In this Blooloop article about creating dark rides, Christof Zimmermann comments that smell and music deliver the strongest perceived value relative to cost.

Zimmerman says that these elements are "significantly less expensive than numerous animatronics or high-tech ride systems ... and profoundly impact the guests' sensory experience."

Understandably, some dark ride designers can be put off by the possible 'extra' cost of smell, which is often considered an 'extra' effect and is therefore one of the first to be abandoned.

However, smells can often be a lot cheaper to implement than expected, and there are simple solutions for controlling their spread without the need for costly machinery or extraction systems. Sometimes, it is just about getting the timings right, so the diffusion is subtle enough to make a difference without spreading too far or being used up too quickly. Other times, it could be a case of picking the scent locations carefully—the impact of a scent in the pre-show can stay with visitors well into the ride itself; consider Alton Towers' Wicker Man roller coaster, which has a smoky scent in the pre-show and loading area, but which leads some guests to ask me whether the smell was from the smoke emitting from around the track!

As a long-time Tomb Raider fan, I enjoyed creating eight smells based on the levels of Tomb Raider (1996) to celebrate its 30th anniversary! The idea was that the scents might add a deeper feeling of immersion as I played the game.

The smells are blended scent oils, developed using AromaPrime's facilities out of hours. They include:
• Croft Manor: A woody scent with a slight dustiness, inspired by Croft Manor's wooden panels, wooden doors, wooden beams, wooden crates and old carpet.
• Cave: A fresh, slightly sweet scent, imitating an ice-cold breeze that has picked up the earthiness of the wolves, bears, bats and old city.
• Lost Valley: A humid, green, muddy scent smell with a hint of blood. According to work with the Natural History Museum, T-rexes smelt of meat rotting between their teeth.
• Colosseum: The stench of gore, lions, gorillas and gunsmoke under the intense heat.
• The Cistern: A damp, filthy fetor representing rats, crocodiles and gloomy depths of stagnant water.
• Khamoon: The fragrant yet sickly aroma of Ancient Egyptian embalming fluid, incense, resins and funerary oils, based on research into the smells of real Egyptian mummies. Lifted by a smoky undertone.
• Natla's Mines: The dirty, oily fumes of machinery, enveloped by the smoke of distant lava.
• Atlantis: A reek that pollutes the air in a nightmarish palace of flesh and fire!

Coming up with these smells, it struck me just how much of an ordeal Lara's nose must go through. Few of the levels in Tomb Raider must smell particularly nice, or even tolerable, mostly because of the close encounters Lara has with odious enemies. Plenty of warm dinosaur, lion and mummy breath...

I have taken a shot at predicting what moves visitor attractions will take this year when it comes to smell!
These predictions are based on my observations over previous years, new activity in the industry, and growing trends.

Interest in museum smell stations has skyrocketed this decade, and I expect the trend to grow. Smell stations are interactive features that allow visitors to sniff scents.
Last year, we saw many, many smell stations launch successfully around the world! Examples include the scented busts at the V&A's Marie Antoinette Style exhibition, the stinky rotating cubes at Thackray Museum of Medicine's POO! exhibition, and Kunstpalast's The Secret Power of Scents exhibition, which includes different kinds of smell stations in different rooms! Exhibitions like these examples have had incredible media coverage, which I am certain will encourage more museums to harness the potential of scents. On top of this, the smaller museums I speak to are becoming more aware of how simple smell stations can be to make, regardless of budget!

Others contributing to this snowballing popularity include the Odeuropa project (which sparked new discussions around the topic from 2021), scent practitioner Tasha Marks (AVM Curiosities) and scent practitioner Sofia Ehrich (who recently launched her practice The Olfactory Contractor). I recommend reading Sofia's observations on the topic of scents in museums!

Ambient scenting will probably take a back seat at museums this year. This is partly because immersive, theatrical sets are not popping up in museums like they used to. However, a more pertient reason is heightened focus on the conservation impact of diffused scents. I believe this focus stems from the smell station boom and museums thinking more about the effects of scents on their collections.
With all eyes, noses and budgets on smell stations, ambient scents for existing theatrical sets will probably not be topped up so much in 2026. It is not unusual for ambient scent top-ups to be neglected at visitor attractions anyway, especially when the sets have already absorbed the odours into their walls!
There are discussions about scents and conservation in academia that I believe will lead to new confidence among museums in the coming years, regarding the diffusion of scents beyond the well-controlled confines of smell stations. But this is for another year!

I anticipate more theme parks considering scent early in the attraction design process. After several years of parks ordering scents as last-minute additions, more teams are getting into the habit of starting early, allowing them to seamlessly incorporate scents into the overall plans for attractions. There is no doubt that this approach leads to noticebly well-considered results. I expect this to continue during 2026, especially with heightened focus on quality as the new Universal Studios park makes it way to the United Kingdom.

I expect theme parks will expand their ranges of merchandise inspired by the scents of attractions. There has already been a noticeable development in this over recent years.
During the 2010s, Efteling sold two 100ml room sprays for €8.00 each. Now, there are more sprays, each at 300ml for €17.50, plus €20.00 reed diffusers. Last year, Efteling added scents inspired by the rides De Vliegende Hollander and Piraña to the collection. On top of that, Efteling launched a scented pin, celebrating the 70th birthday of the Hansel and Gretel house diorama. Evidently, scented merchandise sells well!
Other theme parks continue to expand their attraction-inspired candle ranges. Last year, Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights introduced $35.00 pizza-scented and confectionary-scented candles to promote two new scare mazes. These added to the list of available candles inspired by other smelly Universal attractions.

With a ride closure or an unexpected change, a popular scent will likely disappear. Let's be realistic. It happens every year! In 2025, it was the stink bug pong in Animal Kingdom's It's Tough to be a Bug!. The year before that, it was the nostalgic odour of Efteling's Stoomtrein, which generations mourned. Which scent could it be in 2026? Is it time for someone to phone home?

I foresee newly revised smellscapes and experimentation for this Halloween's scare mazes. This prediction is based on the up-and-down pattern that Halloween events tend to follow when it comes to trying new ideas vs. using up leftover scent stock and keeping to old smellscapes. 2025 was largely a leftover stock year, which is fine—if it makes a pong, use it! However, barely any scents caused a stir on social media like they have done in the past (save a poo stench in Halloween Horror Nights' Terrifier maze, which left a few people giddy). Here's to 2026 being a stinker!

It would not surprise me if even more UK Christmas events introduce scents this year. Big names like Lapland UK and Hyde Park Winter Wonderland were praised for their diverse uses of scents in 2025, after both events' teams had spent the year investigating the best scent solutions. I expect these examples will inspire other Christmas attractions in the UK, especially if ideas are shared at the timely IAAPA Expo in London.

​With several potential faults, scent puzzles are not popular among escape rooms, but I can see more appearing around the end of the year. While there has been a steady flow of ambient scenting at escape rooms, I advised on several ambitious scent puzzle ideas in late 2025. If these work out well, which I am confident they will, we could see a period of more scent puzzles appearing in the industry. Hopefully escape room owners will see that despite past failures, these kinds of puzzles can work! You just need to know how to approach it right, which is something I am covering in the handbook I am writing. More on that later!

One of my favourite types of scent-related project is the development of a smell station!
A smell station, most popular in museums, is a stationary unit that allows visitors to access scents by choice. They are often a means of sharing educational facts, but they can also be used for entertainment and storytelling.
Here are a few memorable smell stations I have had the pleasure to contribute to, in big ways or very small ways, through AromaPrime and independently, during 2025.
I adore the levels of imagination behind many smell stations, and I am delighted to showcase these ones that different attractions have created!

Through AromaPrime, I was contacted by museum scent practice AVM Curiosities to collaborate on recreating the odour of Marie Antoinette's prison cell for the exhibition Marie Antoinette Style. This scent was informed by historical records, with Marie Antoinette having requested that juniper be burnt to mask the stench of her cell. The final odour is presented in a bust with sniffable holes that resemble beads on a necklace, as arranged by AVM Curiosities and the Museum.

I worked with the Museum, through AromaPrime, to develop an historical vinaigrette scent, among others, for this exciting children's exhibition.
Three smell stations were developed by the Museum's team, and one includes rotating smell pots beneath a giant nose. Whenever a new smell pot is positioned beneath the nose, a doctor reacts on a screen. I had never seen a smell station like this before, and it is one of my favourite designs of all time!
Another smell station involves illustrated blocks that visitors can turn to guess what they are sniffing from hatches.
The third smell station is simpler, with small holes in the wall for visitors to sniff up-close.

The popular POO! exhibition features two multi-scented smell stations, allowing young visitors to explore what would normally be a taboo subject.
One smell station includes rotating blocks on poles. Some of these blocks subtly emit rhino poo, penguin poo and T-rex poo scents, which were researched in collaboration with the Museum and provided by AromaPrime. Visitors can rotate the blocks, which have text and images on them, to guess what they are smelling and to discover facts.
The second smell station features two smell boxes for sniffing. One box emits a human poo scent, while the other emits the fragrance of 1937 coronation anointing oil. This contrast between scents helps communicate the fact that skatole is a component of poo but also the fanciest of perfumes.
Amusingly, the exhibition provides nose pegs!

​There were limitations in terms of the scent products that could be used when the Mary Todd Lincoln House got in touch about their new smell station. However, I was pleased to suggest some alternative approaches. The final smell station includes a lifelike combination of scent oils and organic materials acquired by the Museum to tell stories of the past. I was told that the top of each unit, designed by the Museum, can be removed for replenishing the scents.

Smell stations aren't just for museums!
AromaPrime was asked by Creative Studio Berlin to develop two bespoke scents for a 'sensory tree' smell station that was being designed for a new water park. I directed the factory in the development of multiple samples before we landed on final coffee flower and durian fruit scents.
The scents were provided in Aroma Blocks which were contained within lidded holes in the themed tree structure. It was interesting to advise on how the smell station should be designed, considering how the humidity of the water park could have possibly affected the potency and longevity of the scents, and the quality of the Aroma Blocks. The final solution was thankfully successful, and I imagine that the warmth of the space might actually enhance potency.

Using research provided by Nothe Fort's historians, I used AromaPrime's facilities to develop three scents to help visitors understand what conditions were like for Victorian soldiers. The scents included those of meals, musty sleeping areas and gunsmoke, and I presented these (among others) voluntarily for the Fort's Science Weekend.

Independently, I sketched designs for smell stations to present these scents, and I wrote/illustrated signage to include.

​The Fort's team built the final smell stations, which accompanied sensory maps I enjoyed illustrating as voluntary contributions.

A new exhibition, exploring the history and ethics of meat, features bespoke scents that I helped develop at AromaPrime, including that of overcooked bacon.
Scented material is held within containers developed by the Museum's team, and squeeze bulbs push the scented air out of holes on top. Such a fabulous approach! The colour chosen for smell stations can influence how visitors react to the scents; here, bright pink clearly communicates the subject matter and helps visitors perceive the scents as lifelike.

​For this exhibition on the history of fairgrounds, I developed several bespoke scents through AromaPrime, including those of Belgian sugar waffles. The scents of confectionery, burnt wood and manure are accessed in a repurposed popcorn cart that Tuur Demaegdt and Lars Hemmeryckx developed.

Here is an example of how incredibly low-cost a smell station can be when the budget is small. To finish off 2025, I worked with Weymouth Museum to reintroduce 'defunct' historical scents that were once a major feature of the town's immersive Timewalk attraction. The Museum simply presents handheld Aroma Cubes (from AromaPrime) inside little drawers on its activity table for visitors to interact with.

Smell stations are excellent for attractions, because they are often incredibly simple to make, and they typically pose minimal conservation concern for museums when done right. They are a brilliant means to engage visitors directly in a way that allows for agency.
Because smell stations can be so simple, I often expect I have seen it all, but the designs created by attractions this year have shown that there is still plenty of potential for totally new and memorable approaches. I look forward to seeing what smell station designs appear in 2026!