What are some scents that "take you back?" I guess we'd better stick with good/pleasant scents for this question because I realize there are some that aren't so good as well. Mine... hmmmm... I think the top one is Avon's Sweet Honesty perfume. Now, I have no idea why this happens which seems odd. I know I used to stay with my aunt and uncle to babysit for my cousins and my aunt sold Avon... loved Sweet Honesty back then, but that wouldn't be a trigger. My uncle died of a heart attack when he was 38... but it wasn't during the time I was there, and there's no memory attached to Avon with him... so yes, strange. I have some on my bathroom shelf that I bought about a year ago... hadn't a clue that it's still a scent they sell! Sometimes I spray it on after a shower and it *always* gives me that same very strong nostalgia feeling.
Cigar smoke-My dad and a favorite uncle. Whisky- The same uncle. Gunpowder smoke- Many great old day's doing my favorite thing. Burning leaves- Great old days before liberals banned everything. My favorite season also. Woodsmoke & coffee- My farm house days. There's probably more but that's all I can think of now.
Yes Cigar smoke always reminds me of Christmas the only time my Dad smoked them Shellac 78 rpm records reminds me of my record buying days of the early 1950s Woodsmoke and Autumn/Fall intertwined Water colour paint powder and lavender furniture polish reminds me of Infants school. Many other smells bring up vivid memories..............
Those are sweet memories, @Ike Willis . There is one particular kind of cigar smoke that I used to love smelling so much. I could always tell that's what it was. I'm thinking it was cherry... did that exist in a cigar or am I mis-remembering? Burning leaves, yes... and although my grandparents didn't have the smell of woodsmoke at the farm (except on butchering day) that farm coffee always smelled better than coffee anywhere else. Often my grandma made sure there was a sugar cookie smell in the air at the same time.
I have a large thick glass jar of seashell shaped bath soaps that I've had forever (I won't use them) ... and the collective smell when I open the jar and take a whiff, takes me back in time to a happy place. For the life of me, I just can't describe the sweet scent. ... but it's my little piece of heaven.
I realise there are scents that take me back to times linked with them, and others I simply like but don't connect with anything really. I always loved the smell of petrol/gasoline as a child sort of like a pre glue sniffing addiction but the smell now I like but no memories are associated with it.
I live near our Love's Bakery. When the winds blow from the north we get the scent of bread baking from the bakery that I love. Whenever there is baking scents and smells it brings me back to a time when I was younger and things were so nice and when you're young you just had no worries unlike today.
Oh, absolutely, @Krissttina Isobe ! It's exactly the same for me... we are a block and a half from a large bakery and no matter which way the wind is blowing, I can smell it. Love that smell so much! Where it takes me back to is my grandmother's kitchen because she used to bake bread. Now, as much as I love the aroma coming from the bakery, nothing has been able to compare with the smell (or taste!) of that homemade bread baking in that farm kitchen!
Pipe smoke... Field & Stream and Cherry Blend pipe tobaccos. The smell of burning rubber from drag strips and Saturday night "drag Main" events. The pungent smell of my Mom singeing the pin feathers off chickens. We would dip the chickens in boiling water and then pull out all the feathers. There would still be "pin feathers" that would have to be burned off over the kitchen stove. The house smelled of burning skin/feathers for days. Fresh cow manure. We hand-milked some Jersey cows. Seemed about the time you sat down and began milking them, they would relieve themselves of the day's grass accumulation. In another life... many years ago... I sat through an autopsy of a man killed while driving drunk. When the pathologist opened the abdomen cavity and that day-old alcohol/intestine smell permeated the room...... Mothballs. Some of the "older" folks used to have mothballs in every closet/room. At church or shopping you could smell the mothball odor at a distance.
When we first went to Singapore in 2013, we saw a rack of old scents (cologne and lotion) in Mustafa, an Indian mall that is open 24/7. What's good in that mall is the cheap items they sell. My husband gathered some bottles of cologne and I was surprised to see that they were the olden cologne like the green Brut, the orange Jovan and the unique bottle of Old Spice after shave lotion. It's cheap so I guess it's all right. And my husband bought that for old time's sake. He uses those scents when he is just at home... to reminisce the good old days.
I like the cooking aromas of vanilla or cinnamon, reminds of old days when apple pie was part of Sunday dinner when I was younger.