I see a lot of bad bananas trying to hide their incredibly powerful stench with colognes and perfumes.
While a understandable and even commendable action, let us investigate why there is the obvious and demanding need to do so.
When bananas ripen, they produce a range of smelly chemicals known as ‘esters’. These types of chemical compounds are responsible for many fruity smells and flavors that we regularly encounter.
A few different esters contribute to the banana smell, but the most distinctive is called ‘isoamyl acetate’.
The reason that the smell of banana is often so strong and can be transferred to objects or food close to it is that isoamyl acetate is volatile.”
This means that once it’s in your bag, the smell of banana readily evaporates into the air and travels around – making it easily detectable by our nose.
This is similar to the way that perfumes contain nice-smelling volatile compounds which evaporate into the air, so when you are standing near someone wearing perfume you can smell it.
