People on GLP-1 weight loss drugs say they have developed an unexpected and expensive hobby: a newfound obsession with perfume. Single bottles can cost over $400, and users report buying dozens, particularly sweet, dessert-like fragrances such as vanilla and cinnamon.
The Phenomenon of 'Ozempic Smell'
Katie, a 46-year-old teacher from the Washington, D.C., suburbs, started taking Eli Lilly's Zepbound in March 2024 after a medically necessary hysterectomy. She told The Independent, 'I was always mildly into fragrance, but it increased by a factor of a thousand.' She began ordering samples from sites like Lucky Scent and Scent Split, seeking variety. 'I went from owning a handful of designer fragrances found at Sephora or Macy’s to owning a collection of 50+ full bottles, most of which are from niche houses.'
Katie estimates she has spent around $3,000 on perfume in two years. Her current favorite, Byredo's Alto Astral, retails for $330 and smells like coconut water and incense. She is among many Redditors posting about the allure of perfume after using GLP-1s, a phenomenon dubbed 'Ozempic smell.' Users share suggestions and photos of their growing collections.
User Experiences
One Reddit user wrote: 'I started taking a GLP-1 last May and I’ve gone from owning two perfumes to 24, and that doesn’t include my travel sizes and decants. I’m also a total gourmand girl, I just want to smell like a bakery all the time lol.' Another user, Odd-Guarantee-7571, said: 'I’ve always been into scents … but it became obsessive when I started Zepbound. I want to smell everything, from soap to dog shampoo—as long as it’s fragranced I’m gonna smell it.'
One user noted: 'I can smell a gourmand, sweet fragrance and enjoy it without getting ravenously hungry. This has opened up my world of fragrances significantly.'
Scientific Explanations
Leslie Kay, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Chicago, explained that the drugs make the part of the brain processing smells extremely sensitive to food odors. 'The drugs could help engage the olfactory pleasure circuits and feelings of satisfaction, hijacking them for non-real food smells, like gourmand and other types of perfumes,' she told The Independent.
Paule Joseph, a Senior Investigator at the National Institutes of Health, added: 'GLP-1 receptors sit on mitral cells, the main output neurons of the olfactory bulb that carry the smell signal onward to the brain, so a drug that reshapes appetite is also acting on the tissue that processes odor.'
Hiroaki Matsunami, a professor at Duke School of Medicine, theorized the process occurs in the brain, not the nose. He said GLP-1 drugs affect nerve cells related to nausea, and 'it is not too surprising that it could also influence odor perception or odor-associated responses.' Catherine Dulac, a professor at Harvard, noted that our sense of smell is highly affected by internal states: 'Because GLP1 affects so much the organism metabolic state, in ways that we do and do not understand, this is not extremely surprising.'
So far, this side effect has not appeared in trials and mainly impacts users' wallets. Katie, even after going off Zepbound for six months, maintained her interest in fragrance. 'I’ve learned so much, and am fascinated by the whole process—the artistic side of the creation of a scent, but also the sourcing of ingredients, the creation of new aromachemical molecules and the industry as a whole,' she said.
