VOCs – volatile organic compounds. Sounds rather ominous, doesn’t it? Yet, the majority of us love the smell of VOCs. We love it when 50-60 different chemicals “off-gas” and we inhale the euphoric smell with pleasure. Some of these chemicals are toluene, ethylbenzene, styrene, xylenes trimethylbenzene, polyethylene terephthalate, and formaldehyde.1, 2 Most of you are thinking this sounds crazy. However, these VOCs make up the major components of what we informally call that “new car smell.” And what a wonderful smell it is!
Unfortunately, after you’ve owned the car for a while, the smell wears off. Manufacturers have attempted to create air fresheners and sprays that would replicate the smell. Their attempts, though, are lacking.
This smell is created by the new components in your vehicle. Plastics, coatings, fabrics, wiring, and metal begin with the fresh smell of their chemical compositions or coatings. As components combine and bake in the afternoon sun, their decomposition creates the off-gassing of aromas. “At new-car concentrations, these chemicals are not terribly dangerous, but they’re not exactly aromatherapy, either. They do break down quickly, to the tune of about 20 percent decay every week, so the smell doesn’t linger all that long. That’s why we call it new-car smell, not car-I’ve-had-for-five-years smell.”3
Experts say that the aromas aren’t lethal. However, they aren’t good for you, either, and should be avoided. The process of eliminating that smell can be expedited by keeping the windows down, allowing the car to “air out.” Or, you can just sit back and enjoy the first five weeks or so. I’ve never heard of someone dying from sniffing the air of their new car.
Do you and I have that new car smell or has it worn off? Think about these Scriptures.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” As a new creature, our life is described in Ephesians 5:1-2, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; (2) And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”
Unlike the new car smell, the aroma of salvation is never supposed to wear off. Our life should be a fragrant reminder that we are walking with Jesus. The person who wears too much perfume or cologne can be gone from a room for hours and yet their aroma still lingers. Can it be said of us who are walking in Jesus that the aroma of that walk lingers? We can never walk too close to the Lord.
As we go to church today, let’s not sniff the air around us, trying to detect this aroma on others. Give yourself a good sniff! And remember the admonition found in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16. “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: (16) To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?”
1https://auto.howstuffworks.com/new-car-smell-toxic.htm
2https://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/auto-manufacturing/what-causes-new-car-smell.htm
3Ibid.
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