Before choosing a scent for an office, there is one finding every owner of a space should know. A research team from Qingdao, China, published it in the journal Building and Environment in March 2025: the effect of a scent on cognitive performance depends on whether the person likes it.¹ Not only on the kind of scent. On the liking.

Chosen so that one was liked, one disliked, and one split the room.

The researchers picked the three scents deliberately. Sweet orange, which all 24 participants liked. White vinegar, which nobody liked. And peppermint, which split the room: 15 liked it, 9 did not. Each participant did cognitive tests under each scent, filled in questionnaires on comfort and attention, and had their brain waves (EEG) recorded in two test rooms of 3 by 2.7 metres.¹

Pleasant first, then sharp.

Under sweet orange — and under peppermint for those who liked it — participants’ pleasantness rose, and cognitive performance rose with it. Under white vinegar the opposite happened. The very same peppermint gave a larger cognitive improvement in the group that liked it than in the group that did not.¹

The brain recordings explain the mechanism: theta-wave power (a sign of falling attention) correlated negatively with performance, while beta-wave power, pleasantness, attention level and the odour-comfort rating correlated positively. In other words: a pleasant scent makes people more alert, and more alert people work better. Invigorating scents do have an effect — but it is filtered through taste.

The same scent can help one person and bother another.

One person’s choice can fail for thirty.

In many offices the scent is chosen by one person — the owner, the building manager, or the supplier. This study shows the risk: a scent the owner loves can lower the performance of the part of the team that does not. That is why Japan’s largest bank chose its scent by a vote of employees and customers, and nine in ten voters liked it. The key is not the scent one person likes most, but the scent nobody dislikes.