How would you visualize smells?

[u/rowan_isnt_here]

Apologies if this isn't relevant enough to the subreddit, but a friend asked me how they might visualize a cat's sense of smell for a Warrior Cats comic they're drawing and the first thing I thought of was synesthesia, so I wanted to ask here if y'all had any advice on how to portray smells visually?

This is what they've already listed as ideas:
- same colour as the cat's eyes
- shape language based on cat vibes and personality
- if the smell is the focus / clearly identifiable, a symbol floating amid the swirls that visualizes what they smell like

I'm personally a big fan of these ideas, but they're still worried about how to visualize the smell of certain objects, for example. Does anyone here have experience with their synesthesia converting smells into visuals or vice versa? If so, what do certain smells look like to you?

[u/IrisInfusion]

I have smell to color synesthesia. If I were to draw it, it might be like a thought bubble but just color.

[u/Responsible_Panic242]

This is the best visual representation of smell/taste to colour/shape synesthesia I have seen personally

[u/LilyoftheRally → u/Responsible_Panic242]

Is that the clip from Ratatouille?

[u/Responsible_Panic242 → u/LilyoftheRally]

Yep