I don't know about smell but some tape on the UK market is awful. We got a roll of brown packing tape for some Christmas things. It split no matter how careful you tried to be. The bit you pulled would get thinner, break off and then you would fight to get the tape restarted and it was at least very good at sticking to itself. It did the jobs in the end but I don't think I could have imagined a simple matter of using a roll of tape could be so frustrating.