I know, I know. I’m a total cliche.
But I refuse to be shamed for it. After all, I have science on my side.
‘Tis the season for all things pumpkin spiced. Lattes, candles, cookies, hand soap, lotion, air fresheners. I just can’t seem to get enough of the cinnamon-and-nutmeg laced scents of the season.
I’m not alone.
Pumpkin spice products, in all their iterations, are a seasonal top seller. In 2023 alone, consumers spent over $800 million dollars on the perfume and palate of the autumn season.1
So what is the craze for this cozy scent and flavor? There are actually some biological reasons behind it.
First, a little pumpkin primer. The flavor and scent we typically refer to as pumpkin spice usually has very little pumpkin to it. Instead, what we’re often responding to is a heady combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, cloves, ginger, and allspice, a flavor profile that hits lots of sweet spots when it comes to what we love to smell and taste. That combination of spices does create a certain warmth in the mouth and body, which reinforces the comforts of the season. Pumpkin spice flavored warm drinks, for example, actually do warm us up a bit as the days get cooler. Once we correlate that scent and taste with the sensation we experience, boom, you’ve got a combo that your brain locks in on. Also giving pumpkin spice the home court advantage is its combination of sweet and spicy. There’s just something about the taste centers of our brains that particularly love this flavor profile.2
We may also be drawn to these combinations of spices because of their antimicrobial and immune-system enhancing properties. Now, I don’t claim that a sugar and dairy laden sweet coffee with these flavors actually does the trick. But it might just be that we do respond to these scents and flavors because our bodies know that in their real forms, these spices are good for us. There’s also something very satiating about spice combinations, which can in turn help us feel full and sated after eating or drinking something within the pumpkin spice collection.
The combination of spices we think of as pumpkin spice turns out to be incredibly versatile. We love it in drinks, pastries, soups, pies, candles and perfumes, just to name a few. There aren’t many other scent spice profiles we experience quite the same way. Think, for example, of a delicious steak. While you might love to have that nice piece of sirloin for dinner, and while your stomach might growl at the smoky/salty scent as it comes off the grill, you likely don’t spray down your living room in sirloin-scented spray before the guests come over, and I doubt you put on sirloin-infused body lotion before getting ready for the day. Pumpkin spice does hold a unique position as something we both love to eat and to wear.
Once these kinds of kinesthetic experiences are in place, the connection is in place. Everything that happens from there just accelerates the devotion.
In our American culture, pumpkin spice is closely aligned with several beloved U.S. holidays and traditions. From pumpkin pie at the Thanksgiving table to the festive scents of Christmas, the spice profile at the core of the pumpkin spice craze continues to reinforce our brain and body connection to it. We detect a waft of pumpkin spice in the air and we’re transported to a happy family gathering. We take a sip of our favorite fall drink and we can immediately picture ourselves bundled up at a fall football game, the night air crisp. The association between scent, flavor, and memory is a uniquely strong one. This is known as the Proust Effect. Recent research examining this powerful connection of taste and smell to the memory centers of the brain has revealed: “These memories have an even more positive emotional profile than nostalgic memories elicited by other means, with individuals reporting lower levels of negative or ambivalent emotions. Scent-evoked and food-evoked nostalgia also confer numerous psychological benefits, including enhanced self-esteem, feelings of social connectedness, and deeper meaning in life.”3
While neurology and nostalgia helps explain a lot of the devotion to pumpkin spice we see this time of year, you do have to admit that there’s an awful lot of marketing that goes into pushing out the pumpkin spice every year. Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte (lovingly known as PSL), arguably the domino that really set the pumpkin craze racing, was launched in the early 2000s. With that launch also came something else generally irresistible to the human species; limited availability. The classic PSL is only available during the fall season. Was there a law or something passed about this? Nope. But we all seem to accept and respond to the influx of pumpkin products in the fall and we scramble to get our fill before the supply gets tucked away for another year. That’s some smart marketing.
To be sure, there are those who resist the pumpkin spice train. There are others who really don’t care for it, for whatever reason. I’m content to leave those not of the PSL persuasion to their boring autumn preferences. But as for me, I’m leaning in to the health benefits of the spices, the appetite-curbing loveliness of a warm pumpkin spice drink, and the flood of memories that rise to the surface when anything pumpkin spice registers with my senses. Like I said, my devotion to all things pumpkin is based in science…at least, that’s what I’m telling myself.
Now if I could just find some pumpkin spice lip balm.
1 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pumpkin-spice-history/#:~:text=A%20search%20for%20%22pumpkin%20spice,to%20market%20research%20firm%20NielsenIQ.
2 https://www.tastewisekids.org/the-sweet-spot-taste-and-the-brain/
3 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36863096/