My grandmother’s house had well water with a very high mineral content. Anytime I get a smell of water like that I’m right back in her kitchen.
No mention yet of meconium, huh?
Bondo and paint thinner. Takes me right back to my dad’s old body shop.
This.
Also, that funky sugary chemical smell of the gum when you’d open a pack of TOPPS Cards or Bazooka Joe gum.
My now deceased mother suffered from pretty severe bouts of depression as I was growing up. On her better days she would clean, often using Pine Sol. Coming home from school I could often tell what sort of afternoon I was going to have based on the smell of the house. Pine Sol = good day. No Pine Sol = mom in bed.
So to this day, I have a strong love-hate relationship with the smell of Pine Sol. I can’t bring myself to even buy any cleaning products with a similar scent.
Cedar for me. I spent many summers at a camp that was in the middle of a cedar forest, even met my wife there.
The smell immediately brings me back.
I thought I would be the first to name creosote. I think it goes back to the time my father put in a picket fence, and painted it on fence posts.
Smudge pots from the citrus groves surrounding our neighborhood
Automobile exhaust from leaded gas
The ocean - we were 10 miles from the beach
Fresh lavender, from my Great Aunts’ garden
Dill, from when my Aunt would can pickles
Coppertone sun “tan” lotion
Bactine
Solarcaine
Black raspberries crushed with sugar in milk
The first puff of smoke from a freshly lit Marlboro (both parents smoked)
A light waft of skunk on a hot night
Murphy’s Oil Soap
Avon Roses Roses Roses perfume
Every single one of these causes an immediate pang in my heart
None of these are associated with my childhood per se, but there are three scents I strongly associate with particular people:
1: Hot electrical insulation. My paternal grandfather had a huge model train set in his basement, and whenever it was running, it smelled “electrical”. That smell is very nearly the only thing I remember about him.
2: Apple cider vinegar. My maternal grandmother often used it in the kitchen (and Grandma in the kitchen was always a good memory, as she was an excellent cook). I still don’t use any other vinegar, myself.
3: Tomato plants. No, not the fruits (though I love those too), but the smell you get from rubbing the leaves. My mom is an avid gardener, and I always associate that smell with her.
I recently bought a jar of lime marmalade and the first time I opened the jar I could smell morning grandmother. It was a lovely place/time/person to be unexpectedly returned to for that moment. I get why she always ate it, it is really delicious.
The clean smell of my mom ironing our weeks school shirts on a Sunday evening. Bittersweet, actually…as a child that smell was the smell of the weekend ending, and it was not eagerly anticipated. But now, it brings me back to an easier time of life.
Dried yarrow flowers. And I have no idea why. Mom claims she’s never used them, but they are so deeply and instantly a “Mommy” odor to me. Best we can guess is that they kinda sorta smell like wheat germ, which she used a lot? But actual wheat germ doesn’t trigger that nearly so much as yarrow flowers. shrug
Ice cream stands. It’s kind of a combination between hot dogs roasting, ice cream melting on the pavement, and the warm sun shining on people standing outside.
The smell of a smoker’s hands and jacket after they’re done smoking, as well as the tobacco-y smell before they light up. Reminds me of my dad. Not the smell of a cigarette while it’s being smoked, though, that’s just gross.
And petrichor. I loved playing out in the rain as a kid. The smell of the air right after a light rainshower takes me right back.
Oh, and the smell of a well-read, well-loved book. It’s been so long since I read a non-ebook that I forgot.
A certain brand of mildew in the basement takes me right back to my Grandfather’s basement workshop where I used to follow him around. The scent gives me all the details from the squeak of the door and the grey painted stairs to the multi-coloured “Indian Corn” cobs he had hanging in the stairwell for some unknown reason.
And not to leave my other grandparents out, the smell of propane takes me back to their kitchen and the smells of Grandma cooking. Their small town was not on a natural gas pipeline and everyone had a propane tank next to their house.
So…I love the smell of mildew and propane.
Shalimar by Guerlain
My mother has worn that perfume my entire life, and it momentarily discombobulates me if I smell it and she’s not around.
Colorforms. Ditto/mimeograph machines. Mom wore Arpege perfume and I bought a small bottle of it after she died. Reminded me so much of her I had to get rid of it. My dad smelled like work and smoke and Dad. A wonderful smell that is so comforting. The slightly stale/moldy smell of cottages or sheds when they’ve been opened after being closed up. Oil based interior paint.
Eighty posts before someone mentions Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past?