My wife and daughter hate it. I’m not sure why I like it, although it seems to make me think of summer and childhood… maybe the first time I smelled it was on the way back from a nice day at the beach or something.
Another odd smell I really like is fresh broccoli. I notice this mostly at the food co-op, where the broccoli is kept in a large bin that you practically have to stick your head into in order to retrieve some… every time I make a purchase I try to get as large a hit of the smell as possible without looking weird. Again, I don’t know why I like it except that it seems somehow very exotic and “jungle-y”.
I tend to be the same way. I also like the smell of gasoline and oil and such; almost certainly because my father worked on cars a lot ( professionally and otherwise ) and I smelled it a lot when I hung out with him as a kid.
What I can’t stand ? Besides the usual like cigarette smoke, artificial scents that are supposed to be pleasant. Perfume, cologne, shampoos, Kleenex; it doesn’t matter. If it’s been given a scent it burns my nose and throat and all smells the same to me. Obviously I’m sensitive to some common ingredient in such things, but I haven’t a clue as to what it is.
Actually I don’t mind the smell so much, though I don’t go out of my way for it. I’m flashing back to a time in 3rd grade though, when part of the school parking lot was being repaved and we had to walk past that on our way back from recess. Being 8 years old, we all complained loudly of the smell.
Sister Mary Discipline wasn’t too impressed and made us all walk back past it to the play area, then back to the classroom again, until we did it quietly.
I don’t like the smell of tar or asphalt, but I do like diesel and creosote. I also know why. My father is a diesel mechanic and my grandfather worked at a creosote plant. The smells remind me of home and comfort.
Tar is the smell of hot amusement parks, the school blacktop at recess, and walking to and from the beach in my grandparents’ town when I was a child. Tar is perfectly OK in my book.
I love the smell of tar, chreosote and other such smells…it is the smell of my dad’s workshop, the houseboat my best friend grew up on, and lonely old barns and railroads where we used to roam as children on warm summer days (you dindn’t smell that in winter, too cold).
In fact, my guilty pleasure some years ago was a piece of tarsoap. I would have used it, but my husband complained of the (very strong) smell, and I had to keep it in an air-tight container. Every now and then I opened the container, sniffed that soap and smiled.
I’m another one who loves the smell of tar, and almost any petroleum product. Tar is indeed a very summery, childhood smell. Probably because most roadwork is done in the summer, and during the school year I would have been in school, not riding my bike around or walking through the neighborhood. Just thinking about it makes me nostalgic!
I don’t really recall what tar smells like, so I can’t say. I do love the smell of plastic, though. Opening a sealed box full of plastic miniatures (when I used to play games that used them), mmmm.
