Do you love chocolate or do you prefer a bag of your favourite chips? With Halloween fast approaching, we decided to explore what exactly your snack preference says about you and how it can help you to decide on a new scent for a candle to tell your spooky tales with.

It’s all in the taste buds. Or is it?

Ever noticed all those bumps on your tongue? These are called papillae and most of them contain taste buds. Taste buds have tiny, microscopic hairs that allow you to experience flavours. We have roughly 10,000 taste buds on our tongues. The tiny hairs send signals to our brains, which tell us whether something tastes sweet, sour, bitter, or salty.

So why do some people prefer sweet over salty? It has a lot more to do with your DNA and the foods you grew up eating. In prehistoric times, poisonous foods were more likely to bitter, which is why most people have developed an aversion to bitter foods. Our DNA may also determine our threshold for certain foods, giving some of us a bigger sweet tooth than others. Sugar also has the advantage of lighting up the reward center in your brain, making it a fan favourite.

However, depending on your diet, you may develop different preferences. In many ways, you learn from what you eat. The more of one flavour in your diet, the more accustomed you will become to it.

How does liking sweet or savory say about your personality?

If you love chocolate cake, are you a sweeter person? According to a series of studies, the term ‘sweetheart’ might have a real root. People who preferred sweets were more likely to be agreeable, and more likely to volunteer to help with tasks like cleaning up.

Another poll of American snack eaters found people who liked sweet foods were more likely to enjoy snacking with friends, spend time at the beach, and enjoy comedy and mysteries. Savory eaters prefer to leisurely snack while watching TV or on a date, like to explore a new city, and enjoy science fiction or historical fantasy. But surprisingly, sweet tooths were more likely to choose bacon and eggs for breakfast, and savory fans opted for pancakes.

Salt-lovers were also generally defined as more laid-back, and likely to ‘go with the flow.’

Meanwhile, people who like extremely spicy foods are supposedly much bigger risk takers. A study found people who enjoy spicy foods are sensation-seekers and may derive a rush of adrenaline from eating a Carolina Reaper pepper over the actual flavour.

Do food preferences affect your fragrance choices?

You may have heard this before, but most of the flavor of food you taste comes from what you smell. If you were to pinch your nose while eating a bowl of ice cream, all your taste buds could tell you is that the ice cream is sweet. Without your nose, you’d never be able to tell if it was vanilla or chocolate ice cream you were eating. You need your olfactory bulb for that.

As we’ve discussed before, scent is extremely personal. Knowing what kind of food that you or a friend enjoy is another helpful tool to help you decide on the perfect fragrance. A sweet tooth will probably like a fruity or floral scent like Jardin d’Elisa or a vanilla bean and caramel candle. Whereas a savory person might prefer a natural scent like sandalwood or an olive and mint.

Not sure what you’re craving? Try our bestselling milk, light and softly sweet, which pairs just as well with a cookie, hot pepper or bag of salt and vinegar chips.

Tell us about your favourite snack in the comments below.