In just five years, the use of scent strips went from nearly zero to over one billion a year.

And perhaps all of the promotions will include a scent strip.

But some dramatic scent strip action is taking place beyond the world of perfume.

Why shouldn't beauty flow into the soul like a fresh scent strip?

Technology has more to offer than scent strips.

"Scent strips" have returned with the February issues.

(Readers longing for digital scent strips will have to be patient.)

Several perfume companies have found new ways of providing samples because of widespread dissatisfaction with scent strips.

At a pivotal point in the story, the reader is instructed to lift a flap and smell a scented strip.

(Devotees bought without so much as sniffing a scent strip.)

Department stores are often reluctant to stock a new fragrance without a manufacturer's promise of advertisements, magazine scent strips and other promotional activities.

"It costs more money to break through the clutter, which means bigger displays, more giveaways and massive use of scent strips."

One can only imagine the blast Proust would have sent the friend who gave him a subscription to a glossy magazine packed with "scent strips."

It contains an octenol scent strip that smells like a human and emits a gentle "heartbeat."

Enter the scent strip.

The next generation of scent strips is part of a growing effort by advertisers to reach magazine readers without being limited by the printed page.

"No scent strips.

Each was adorned with his or her own new fragrance, so that they resembled scent strips, wafting an odoriferous blue cloud in their wake.

Ambience is everywhere, mood is the mood, a scent strip the essence of contemporaneity.

After a deliberate pause while Wanda opened the flap on a perfume ad insert and rubbed the scented strip across both wrists, she looked up.

Ads in magazines featuring scent strips, for products like fragrances, draw the ire of readers who believe the smells are unpleasant or too powerful.

In many of those magazines, he sports a muscle T-shirt and an attitude, alongside a scent strip and Ms. Moss.

Of late our olfactories have been bombarded by car deodorizers, magazine scent strips and Glade Plug-Ins.

(Earlier, Roger Barnett made his fortune with Arcade, which pioneered the magazine scent strip.)

And the September issue of the British edition of Esquire carries a scent strip for Gordon's gin.