Nose Emoji
U+1F443:nose:Skin tonesAbout Nose ๐
Nose () is part of the People & Body group in Unicode. Added in Unicode E0.6. Type on GitHub and Slack to use it. Click copy above to grab it, paste it anywhere.
Works in iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, and every app that supports Unicode. Pick a skin tone above to customize it.
Often associated with body, noses, nosey, and 3 more keywords.
Meaning varies across cultures, see cultural notes below.
Scroll down for the full story: meaning, trends, combos, and more.
How it looks
What does it mean?
A human nose shown in three-quarter profile on nearly every platform. Emojipedia catalogs it as a body-part emoji meant to indicate smelling or something that smells. In practice the literal read is a minority case. ๐ has drifted into a figurative emoji for suspicion, nosiness, and "I'm onto you."
The dominant reading in 2025 and 2026 is "something smells fishy." E! News traced this directly to the English idiom: if someone's story is off, you smell it. Drop a ๐ under a suspicious tweet and everyone knows what you mean. Pair it with ๐ and it becomes the snooping-friends-group-chat staple: "tell me everything ๐๐."
๐ was approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as , part of the Unicode 6.0 sensory set that also added ๐๏ธ Eye, ๐ Mouth, ๐ Ear, and ๐
Tongue. Skin-tone modifiers were added in Unicode 8.0 (2015). It's one of the small handful of body-part emojis that get tone support at all, alongside ๐ and ๐๏ธ, which tells you Unicode treats the nose as personal enough to be worth customizing, unlike the mouth or tongue.
On Twitter/X and TikTok, ๐ is the low-effort way to flag a lie or half-truth. "And you expected me to believe that ๐" reads as skeptical but not confrontational. On Reddit it shows up in comments where someone smells a missing detail. In group chats it pairs with ๐ for the classic "pulling up a chair" energy when drama is brewing.
The wine, coffee, and perfume world uses ๐ literally and seriously. Sommeliers and fragrance brands market with it to signal scent, tasting notes, and review language. "The nose on this 2019 Barolo ๐๐ท" is a normal caption in that niche. Emojipedia's fragrance emoji cluster usually leads with ๐.
The drug reading (cocaine, sniffing) exists but is secondary and contextual. It shows up in club and nightlife TikTok, and in the kind of rap lyric screenshots that circulate on Twitter. Most users won't assume this meaning first unless the surrounding context is already there.
There is also a dark use case worth knowing about. Researchers at CyberWell and the ADL have documented ๐ being used as algospeak to target Jewish people, alongside ๐ง, ๐ท, and ๐. Platform moderation has been slow to catch up. If you're using the emoji normally, this is context to be aware of when you see it in a pile-on.
In texting, ๐ most commonly means suspicion ("something smells fishy") or nosiness ("tell me everything"). Literal readings for smell, allergy, or fragrance show up mainly when paired with ๐ท, โ, ๐น, or ๐คง. It is not an accusatory emoji like ๐คฅ; it's the person detecting the lie, not telling one.
In nightlife and club contexts, ๐ can reference cocaine (sniffing). It's a known secondary reading but not the default in most conversations. Surrounding context determines whether the reading applies. In wine, food, or wholesome captions this reading doesn't kick in.
The Unicode 6.0 sensory set
What it means from...
From a crush, ๐ is almost always suspicion, not flirting. "Hmm ๐" means they're not buying what you said. The correct response is to back up your claim, not to explain more, since overexplaining makes ๐ land harder.
Among friends, ๐ is the "tell me the real version" emoji. It's playful, it's pulled up a chair, and it wants context. Often paired with ๐ for maximum snoop energy. "Spill it ๐" is a near-universal opener.
Inside a relationship, ๐ is either literal ("what did you put in the pasta ๐") or gently suspicious about plans ("you swear you're not planning a surprise ๐"). It rarely escalates; it's too comedic to sting.
At work, ๐ is usually about food ("someone's cooking lunch in the microwave ๐") or mild office gossip ("something's up with the Q2 numbers ๐"). Don't use it to call out a colleague's honesty directly; the suspicion read is too loaded for Slack.
In family chats, ๐ leans literal: cooking smells, colds, allergy season. The occasional "who used my perfume ๐" is as spicy as it gets.
Usually they're skeptical about something you said. "Hmm ๐" means your story doesn't quite land. It can be playful (calling you nosy) or pointed (questioning your honesty). Respond with facts, not more explanation, since overexplaining reinforces the suspicion.
Emoji combos
Origin story
The nose emoji shipped with the big Unicode 6.0 batch in October 2010, the merge of Japanese carrier emoji sets (SoftBank, KDDI, DoCoMo) into the Unicode standard. That's why the original ๐ looked slightly different on Japanese carriers: SoftBank rendered it almost as an abstract button, DoCoMo as a cartoon, KDDI closer to a realistic profile. Apple's early iOS rendering set the Western standard: a brown, three-quarter-view human nose with visible nostril, which most other vendors eventually converged on.
The figurative "suspicious" meaning wasn't designed; it emerged from 2013 to 2015 on Twitter and Tumblr, where users were already saying "something smells off" and the emoji fit perfectly. By 2016 E! News was cataloging it as the suspicion emoji, and that reading has only deepened since.
๐ also got a quiet accessibility upgrade in Unicode 8.0 (2015) when skin tone modifiers rolled out: ๐๐ป ๐๐ผ ๐๐ฝ ๐๐พ ๐๐ฟ. That makes it one of the very few disembodied body-part emojis with full Fitzpatrick support, alongside ๐, ๐๏ธ, and a handful of hand and finger emojis. ๐ mouth and ๐
tongue were left tone-free, which has always been a design consistency question the Unicode Technical Committee never publicly answered.
Design history
- 2010๐ approved in Unicode 6.0 as U+1F443 (NOSE), part of the first big Western emoji expansionโ
- 2013Twitter adopts Unicode emoji natively; ๐ usage starts drifting toward "something smells off"
- 2015Unicode 8.0 adds Fitzpatrick skin tones to ๐ (one of the only body-part emojis to get tone modifiers)โ
- 2016E! News codifies ๐ as "the suspicion emoji" in mainstream mediaโ
- 2020COVID-19 pandemic spikes anosmia awareness; ๐ surges in health-content posts about smell lossโ
- 2023CyberWell publishes first algospeak research naming ๐ among emojis weaponized for antisemitic moderation evasion on TikTokโ
Around the world
In English and many Latin languages, the idiom "something smells fishy" gives ๐ its suspicion meaning cleanly. Spanish speakers say "me huele mal" with the same structure, so the emoji travels. In Japanese, the equivalent phrase is ใ่ญใใ(kusai) which literally translates to "smelly" but slangs to "suspicious," which is why Japanese TikTok uses ๐ similarly.
In Brazilian Portuguese, "cheiro" (smell) can mean "vibe" or "intuition," so ๐ can read as trust-your-gut rather than call-out energy. In Arabic-speaking markets, the emoji is much more literal: smell, cold, fragrance. The suspicion reading doesn't carry over the same way.
South Korea and China treat ๐ more literally on average. On Weibo and Naver, searches for the emoji skew toward skincare, plastic surgery discussions (rhinoplasty is a huge cosmetic surgery category in both markets), and allergy content. The K-beauty industry in particular uses ๐ for routines about pore strips and blackhead care.
Yes, unfortunately. CyberWell and the ADL documented ๐ being used alongside ๐ง, ๐ท, and ๐ as coded antisemitic hate to evade moderation on TikTok and Meta platforms. Normal usage of ๐ isn't affected. Reporting it is worth doing when you see it in a pile-on context.
Often confused with
๐คฅ (Lying Face) has a Pinocchio-style long nose and accuses someone of lying directly. ๐ is subtler: it's about detecting the lie, not identifying it. If you want plausible deniability in the group chat, use ๐. If you want to call it out, use ๐คฅ.
๐คฅ (Lying Face) has a Pinocchio-style long nose and accuses someone of lying directly. ๐ is subtler: it's about detecting the lie, not identifying it. If you want plausible deniability in the group chat, use ๐. If you want to call it out, use ๐คฅ.
๐ฝ (Pig Nose) is pink and snout-shaped, used for pig references, cute pet language, or nose scrunches. ๐ is a human nose. The wires cross only when people use ๐ฝ as a playful self-deprecating stand-in for their own nose.
๐ฝ (Pig Nose) is pink and snout-shaped, used for pig references, cute pet language, or nose scrunches. ๐ is a human nose. The wires cross only when people use ๐ฝ as a playful self-deprecating stand-in for their own nose.
๐ค (Face with Steam from Nose) is proud or annoyed, not suspicious. The nose is the stylistic focus but the meaning comes from the whole face.
๐ค (Face with Steam from Nose) is proud or annoyed, not suspicious. The nose is the stylistic focus but the meaning comes from the whole face.
๐คง (Sneezing Face) is the allergy/cold emoji. ๐ on its own can imply a stuffed nose in context, but ๐คง is the dedicated one. Don't send ๐ to a sick friend and expect "get well soon" energy.
๐คง (Sneezing Face) is the allergy/cold emoji. ๐ on its own can imply a stuffed nose in context, but ๐คง is the dedicated one. Don't send ๐ to a sick friend and expect "get well soon" energy.
Do's and don'ts
- โUse it to seriously accuse someone of lying in a professional channel; it's ambiguous enough to backfire
- โSend it to a sick friend and expect "feel better" energy; ๐คง is the dedicated one
- โAssume cross-cultural reads land; in Arabic and some East Asian markets, the suspicion idiom doesn't travel
- โUse it as a react on posts where it could read as a coded slur; algospeak research documents ๐ being weaponized this way
Caption ideas
Aesthetic sets
Fun facts
- โขThe human nose and brain can distinguish roughly one trillion different odors, according to a 2014 Rockefeller University study. For nearly a century before, textbooks repeated a 1920s estimate of 10,000 smells based on zero data. The old number was wrong by eight orders of magnitude.
- โขYour nose has about 400 types of scent receptors. Dogs have around 800, but humans are surprisingly competitive at detecting certain odors, especially food-related ones, per Rutgers research.
- โขDuring the pandemic, up to 75% of COVID-19 patients lost their sense of smell. About 70% recovered within three months, but 8.8% took over a year. Anosmia research funding grew more in 2020โ2022 than in the prior 20 years combined.
- โข๐ supports all five Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers, making it one of only three disembodied face parts (with ๐ and ๐๏ธ) that get that treatment. ๐ and ๐ do not, and the Unicode Technical Committee has never publicly explained the split.
- โขOn Vincent Van Gogh's 1888 self-portrait the bandaged ear is famous, but the nose is the compositional anchor. His December 1888 breakdown also coincided with him painting two nose-forward self portraits that year.
- โขEmoji-branded perfumes are a real product line. Emoji Cosmetics launched a 6-fragrance collection in 2019, partnered with Paramount, using ๐ in their marketing. One of the rare cases where the emoji literally sells the product it depicts.
How many smells can you actually distinguish?
Common misinterpretations
- โขMany new users read ๐ literally (smell or sniffing) and miss the dominant "suspicion" reading in texting contexts. If you get ๐ with no food or wine nearby, assume the sender is skeptical.
- โขSome assume ๐ is for Pinocchio/lying. That's ๐คฅ. ๐ is the person smelling the lie, not telling it.
- โขA fraction of users confuse ๐ with ๐ค (Face with Steam From Nose). ๐ค reads as triumphant or annoyed; ๐ alone is just the body part and its idiomatic meanings.
- โขIn wine and coffee content, outsiders sometimes read ๐ as disgust. In tasting-community usage it's respectful sensory-review language, not a negative react.
In pop culture
- โขPinocchio jokes on TikTok pair ๐คฅ๐ to call out a lie dramatically. The meme surged in September 2024 when the ironic "Lie to me Pinocchio" trend crossed over from Reddit.
- โขWine Instagram and sommelier TikTok lean on ๐ as the "tasting notes" emoji. Captions like "what's the nose on this ๐๐ท" are near-universal in the wine-review niche.
- โขThe 2024 Christopher Nolan follow-ups to the Dune franchise pushed "the spice must flow" posting, and ๐ made a cameo as the "I can smell the spice" emoji for a few weeks.
- โขK-pop fan accounts use ๐ when members mention their skincare routines; it's become adjacent to ๐งด and ๐โโ๏ธ in beauty-Twitter captions.
Trivia
For developers
- โขCodepoint: . CLDR short name: . Unicode 6.0 (2010), Emoji 1.0 (2015).
- โขSkin tone modifiers: for the five Fitzpatrick tones. One of only three disembodied body-part emojis (with ๐ ๐๏ธ) that accept tone.
- โขCommon shortcodes: on Slack, Discord, GitHub, and most IRC bridges.
- โขScreen readers typically announce this as "nose." Don't override with aria-label unless you really need an alternate intent.
๐, ๐, and ๐๏ธ were given full Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers in Unicode 8.0 (2015). Mouth and tongue were left monochrome. The Unicode Technical Committee has not publicly explained the split; the working assumption is that the outer face parts were flagged as more identity-relevant, while the internal parts were treated as generic.
See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.
What do you usually mean when you send ๐?
Select all that apply
- Nose Emoji (emojipedia.org)
- After Reading This, You'll Never Look at the Nose Emoji the Same Way Again (E! News) (eonline.com)
- Humans Can Distinguish at Least One Trillion Different Odors (HHMI) (hhmi.org)
- Human Nose Can Detect a Trillion Smells (Science) (science.org)
- Loss of smell post-COVID (AMA) (ama-assn.org)
- Loss of Smell and Taste with Long COVID (Yale Medicine) (yalemedicine.org)
- Hate in Plain Sight (CyberWell) (cyberwell.org)
- Sliding Through: Emoji Antisemitism on TikTok (ADL) (adl.org)
- Emoji Fragrance Brand (Fragrantica) (fragrantica.com)
- The Human Sense of Smell (Rutgers) (rutgers.edu)
- Lie To Me Pinocchio meme (Know Your Meme) (knowyourmeme.com)
- Spill the Tea origins (Merriam-Webster) (merriam-webster.com)
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