What's your favorite candle fragrance? | November Newsletter

What's your favorite candle fragrance? An enterprising entrepreneur asked her Facebook friends to send lists of favorite smells as ideas for her new scented candle business. Favorites included: new mown grass and new baby smell, but the most popular aroma of all was — Puppy breath! People, in fact, loved almost every doggy smell imaginable, from the top of a dog’s head to the bottom of a puppy’s paws, including wet dog fur and puppy tummy.

Cat fans voted too, for the aroma of kitty paws, as well as “a cat who has been dusting herself in the sand, then sun bathing.”(Nobody voted for “litter box.”)

Wake up and smell the coffee? Many want to do just that — brewing coffee and baking bread were by far the most popular food-based smells. Other favorites? Baking chocolate chip cookies, homemade chicken soup, strong cheese, turkey stuffing and apricot pie.

Some favorite smells evoked favorite people: Grandma’s banana bread. An uncle’s cigars. A fiance’s chest. “The smell of my Pop’s coat when I was a little girl.” Even:“My husband’s underarm.” (Now that’s love!).

What causes a runny nose? You may have heard the old joke: If your nose is running and your feet smell, you must be upside down! But why does your nose run? To understand why your nose runs, you need to know what mucus is. 

Mucus is the gooey material made inside your nose...and, believe it or not, your nose and sinuses make about a quart of mucus every day! For something kind of gross, mucus does a lot of good. It keeps germs, dirt, pollen, and bacteria from getting into your lungs by stopping them in your nose. But sometimes mucus doesn't stay put.

If your nose is running, there are several possible explanations:

When you have either a cold or the flu, your nose goes into mucus-making overdrive to keep the germ invaders out of your lungs and the rest of your body, where they might make you even sicker than you already are. Then:the mucus runs down your throat, out your nose, or into a tissue when you blow your nose. Or it can fill your sinuses, which is why you get that stuffy feeling.

People who have allergies get runny noses when they're around the thing they're allergic to -- like pollen or animal hair...because their bodies react to these things like they're germs.

Your nose also runs when you cry because tears come out of the tear glands under your eyelids and drain through the tear ducts that empty into your nose. Tears mix with mucus there and your nose runs.  

Finally, your nose runs when you're outside on a cold day. Although your nose tries its best to warm up the cold air you breathe before sending it to the lungs -- when tiny blood vessels inside your nostrils open wider (dilate), helping to warm up that air. But that extra blood flow leads to more mucus production. You know what happens next. Drip, drip, drip!

To stop the running, your doctor may give you an antihistamine if you have allergies. But most of the time, the best -- and easiest -- thing to do is blow your nose!

Winter clothes still smell of mothballs? As summer fades into fall and fall, to winter, you'll no doubt be taking your warm clothes out of storage and getting them ready for to wear in cooler weather. So, id that mothball odor clings to your favorite coat or best sweater, a few spritzes of Odor Universe will spray away any "moth-ball"  hangover for the coming season!