I haven’t smelled it in decades, but it would be the scent of a freshly run-off ditto. (I used to call it “eau de ditto”.)
Fresh cut grass. It doesn’t only take me back to childhood but to a specific place and day during cross-country (runnning) practice. I don’t know why because I spent my youth cutting the lawn on a weekly basis. It never reminds me of that, only x-c practice behind that school.
Welding – Daddy in his workshop putting the tractor back together.
Sweet corn growing and being picked…
Sheetrock grout or whatever you call it.
A sweaty horse being cooled out
All good memories…
Kool-Aid.
Strange how the smell of Creosote can evoke early memories but that is it for me too. Until I was 5 years old I lived in a sawmill town on the Columbia River. The old kind where the mill owned all the houses, the whistle blew in the morning for the men to go to work, at noon for lunch, and at the end of the day to go home. There was even a company store.
The train used to run through the town and the big log ships could pull right up to the dock to load. And the dock was covered in creosote. We moved out of town but Dad still worked there for a few more years until the mill burned down, and I got to return often to visit friends.
Nothing exists of the town anymore, not a building standing, just a pile of sand on a wide spot on the river bank and a name.
Bradwood only exists now when I smell creosote.
This is a big one for me. I grew up in Louisiana, and the smell of rain on hot earth and concrete meant the thunderstorm was rolling in, bringing a brief respite in a rush of cool wind. I still love thunderstorms.
Honeysuckle and wisteria are two more. Honeysuckle grew wild all around our place, and I sometimes competed with the bees for the nectar. Wisteria grew on the big arbor my dad built in the front yard, not far from my bedroom window, and my room was full of its scent on warm spring nights.
If Creosote is what I think it is, that’s a good one. I initially associate it with amusement parks. Does it smell like tar?
It is a kind of tar that was often used to preserve wood. If you had walked on the railroad tracks when you were young you might know the smell as the cross tie wood beams would be preserved with it. And the railroad bridges.
Same for old docks and wood pilings. Black tarry stuff. It is also the stuff that may build up in your wood stove and chimney and cause a chimney fire.
When our first child was born, my wife started using it on the crib sheets. The first time I took the sheets out of the dryer, I was transported back to being 4 or 5 years old, in a metal hospital crib. I had a flashback of my parents at the end of visiting hours, and the nurse lifting the side back up with a clang.
Freshly mown grass.
The Body Shop’s Dewberry scent brings back the same memories.
Pan fried fish.
When I was a kid we only had fried fish at grandma’s house on Fridays (Friday was the weekly holiday in Pakistan in those days and also the day Catholics ate fish)
I’ve been a vegetarian for many years, but recently my daughter has taken to pan fried fish. So I make it and miss my grandmother who died over 20 years ago. When my mother visited, and I was frying up some fish for my daughter, she had tears in her eyes.
Everything else my grandmother cooked was spicy as hell, except for fish. She considered it to be a crime to mess with the flavor of fresh fish.
Play-doh
Crayons
Mercurochrome
my Nanna always wore Tigress musk perfume - just a wiff takes me back to my childhood
Gasoline, motor oil, saltwater marshes - grew up in small boats on the Chesapeake Bay.
Two sort of indefinable smells-the way an old house smells, old wood and dusty attic, makes me think of my grandpa’s old house.
The second one is the way the air smells in the spring when you open up your window before it’s really warm enough yet but you just have to get fresh air in. It’s a combination of still-melting snow and trees budding, that’s how I think of it anyway. It takes me back to my bedroom window in my parent’s house.
Pitch. My maternal grandfather was a roofer, and always smelled of it when he got home from work. If there are roofers with a hot pitch pot around, I feel like Pop-pop Joe is right there. Funny thing is that he retired when I was in elementary school, and I was almost 40 when he died, so for most of my time with him, he didn’t smell of pitch at all. The assciation just formed so early in my life that it’s overwhelming.
Palmolive dish soap, the ‘original’ green kind only. Reminds me very strongly of my mom (probably a connection she wouldn’t be too keen on)
Hairspray takes me back. My grandma would not leave the house without a touch of lipstick and a whoosh of hairspray. Funnily, she also always wore Chanel No. 5, but that scent doesn’t have the same magic for me…
Mimeograph ink reminds me of elementary school. Fresh cut grass makes me think of Ernie Harwell’s voice over a transistor radio during Tiger games while my dad cut the grass.
English Leather after shave and Aquanet hairspray meant Mom & Dad were going out for the evening and Gail the super fun babysitter was coming over.
Sauerkraut smell takes me back to my Polish grandma’s kitchen. Whiskey smell reminds me of my grandfather.
Campfires and chlorine remind me of our summers spent at a local campground. Happiest memories of my life.
Revlon’s Flex Balsam & Protein original hair conditioner, Bonne Bell’s Ten-O-Six lotion and L Air Du Temp’s perfume by Nina Ricci remind me of my bedroom I shared with my older sister, specifically our teenage years and us getting ready to go out on Friday nights.
Play Doh for sure! It still smells the same. I don’t think I was ever willing to taste it as a child.
Mine would be libraries, and some bookstores. The old books, likely the nonfiction section, way in the back. I work in a library now, and every once in awhile when I wander into the stacks I get that smell, and it’s like being in elementary school again.