# Nostalgic, evocative scents **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 30, 2017, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197 "2017-10-30T00:39:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/61 "2017-11-29T01:53:34Z")
Bazooka Bubblegum, Silly Putty, Play-Doh, electo-oily Lionel train engine odor, melting plastic squares from Mattel Vac-U-Form, balsa-wood airplane dope = childhood fun memories Mimeograph ink, mucilage, Elmer’s glue and paste, combo smell of bologna sandwich/peanut butter TastyKake/slightly spoiled boxed milk bagged lunches = childhood school memories Yorkshire pudding w/drippings, lemon Junket, fried scrapple, barley sugar candy, Philadelphia soft pretzels = childhood food memories[ol] [/ol] ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/62 "2017-11-29T02:28:34Z")
> [@Tibby or Not Tibby](#): > > …combo smell of bologna sandwich/peanut butter …] And BANANAS! The smell of bologna and bananas-- when metal lunch boxes sit all morning unrefrigerated in the anachronistically-named “cloak room” and then the lunch boxes are all opened at once… Ahhhh! The combo scent of Bologna & Bananas wafts across the grade school cafeteria. Except in my case, this was southern California, and we ate outside in a courtyard. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/63 "2017-11-29T03:26:06Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > And BANANAS! The smell of bologna and bananas-- when metal lunch boxes sit all morning unrefrigerated in the anachronistically-named “cloak room” and then the lunch boxes are all opened at once… Ahhhh! The combo scent of Bologna & Bananas wafts across the grade school cafeteria. Except in my case, this was southern California, and we ate outside in a courtyard. I typically traded my banana for something more nutritious…like a Tootsie Roll. But, you’re right, there were definitely strong aromatic notes of “banana” in the admixture of scents wafting from our cloakroom at lunchtime. I didn’t have the luxury of eating in a courtyard in elementary school. We could, however, smoke tobacco (or, more often, other inhalants) in our high school courtyard years later. In fact, as punishment for classroom high crimes and misdemeanors (which I was not immune to), the teacher would lock guilty students in the cloakroom during lunch break. Inhaling all those vile lunchbox/bag odors was worse than being sprayed with WWI-era mustard gas without benefit of a gas mask. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/64 "2017-11-29T04:55:38Z")
What I want to know is who was wearing those cloaks? ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/65 "2017-11-29T12:08:01Z")
A few months ago, my eldest daughter spotted a box of [Tamiya toy soldiers](http://www.hobbiesguinea.es/7884-13156-thickbox/tamiya-35032-1-35-british-infantry-8th-army-desert-rat.jpg) at a flea market and completely out of the blue, asked me to buy them for her. A few days later, I bought her some [acrylic paint bottles](http://www.themodelbasement.co.uk/user/products/large/tamiyaxfpaints.jpg), then set about showing her how to paint her soldiers. But before that, I couldn’t resist the urge to catch a quick sniff and I was immediately transported back to 1985-1987, when I used to build WWII models. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/66 "2017-11-29T12:33:57Z")
And where on Earth did anyone call it that? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/67 "2017-11-29T13:13:53Z")
Polo cologne. If I want to be transported mentally back to 1985, that is the quickest way to do it. I still love the smell but it is extremely dated. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/68 "2017-11-29T13:29:25Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > What I want to know is who was wearing those cloaks? > [@LSLGuy](#): > > And where on Earth did anyone call it that? I assume you’re asking me? I attended five schools between 1st and 8th grade (1954-1961), in California, Massachusetts, and upstate New York, and the area (not a whole room) where you parked your coats, lunchboxes, etc., was called that in all of those places. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/69 "2017-11-29T13:54:32Z")
You’re a bit older than me, but I’d never heard a room or walk-in closet like that called anything but a “coat room”. If it had an attendant it was a “coat check”. We didn’t have anything like that in my SoCal elementary schools, so the first time I encountered these closets was traveling back east / up north with family in the late 1960s. By then they were “coat rooms” in my (very small) experience. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/70 "2017-11-29T14:10:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > And where on Earth did anyone call it that? > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > What I want to know is who was wearing those cloaks? > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I assume you’re asking me? I attended five schools between 1st and 8th grade (1954-1961), in California, Massachusetts, and upstate New York, and the area (not a whole room) where you parked your coats, lunchboxes, etc., was called that in all of those places. 😕 They were called that in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina as well. Though elementary school would be a lot more intriguing if more kids would wear cloaks. Fedoras, too. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/71 "2017-11-29T14:25:35Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Polo cologne. If I want to be transported mentally back to 1985, that is the quickest way to do it. I still love the smell but it is extremely dated. And [Drakkar Noir](https://3.static.fragrancenet.com/images/photos/900x900/124949.jpg) ! ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/72 "2017-11-29T14:55:51Z")
A scent that I’m pretty sure is/was [Spring Rain](https://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Crabtree-Evelyn/Spring-Rain-4209.html) - my mom would put some oil in a ring diffuser that sat around an incandescent light bulb. Incense - we’d burn this at home on weekends (usually when cleaning, I think) The smell of gas and lake water - for a period growing up we shared a small little motorboat with some other family. Every time I go down to a marina on a hot summer day, where the sun is baking the wooden docks, and the smell of gas mixes with warm aroma of decaying plant matter in the water, it brings me right back. I spent a few summers at a summer camp at Skidmore College, and there was one hallway I walked through daily that smelled like whatever industrial cleaner they used. Kind of tangy and pungent; not bad per say, but definitely unique. Only a few times since then have I come across that smell in other institutional/industrial settings, but it’s unique and instantly recognizable. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/73 "2017-11-29T16:13:25Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I assume you’re asking me? I attended five schools between 1st and 8th grade (1954-1961), in California, Massachusetts, and upstate New York, and the area (not a whole room) where you parked your coats, lunchboxes, etc., was called that in all of those places. 😕 Yep! I was in elementary school from 1966-1972 and it was always called the cloakroom. I love the term, makes me laugh. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/74 "2018-05-09T00:33:52Z")
I can be stopped in my tracks by the right combination of Old Spice and cigarettes thanks to my late husband. A lot of smells that trigger memories for me have already been mentioned; Noxema, oil paint and turpentine, sparklers, lilacs A memory that evokes a smell for me is that when I watch Wizard of Oz the scent of Johnson & Johnson’s No More Tangles floods my brain. I’m old enough that we only got to see it when it would show up once a year on broadcast TV. For weeks my mother could keep us in line by saying “Knock it off, or you won’t be allowed to stay up for Wizard of Oz.” My sister and I had to take our baths early. Then, we’d be in the living room in our voluminous ruffly flannel nightgowns, with matching quilted polyester robes and slippers. Our mom would spray our hair with No More Tangles and comb it through in the living room in front of the first moments of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2018, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/75 "2018-05-09T01:46:34Z")
> [@gwendee](#): > > … > A memory that evokes a smell for me is that when I watch Wizard of Oz the scent of Johnson & Johnson’s No More Tangles floods my brain. I’m old enough that we only got to see it when it would show up once a year on broadcast TV. For weeks my mother could keep us in line by saying “Knock it off, or you won’t be allowed to stay up for Wizard of Oz.” My sister and I had to take our baths early. Then, we’d be in the living room in our voluminous ruffly flannel nightgowns, with matching quilted polyester robes and slippers. Our mom would spray our hair with No More Tangles and comb it through in the living room in front of the first moments of the movie. That vignette made me smile. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2018, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/76 "2018-05-09T04:52:52Z")
A few years ago, I stepped into a little Catholic school and was instantly transported to St. Simeon’s in Bellwood, where I attended K-6th grades in the 60s. It was the mixed scent of beeswax candles, pencil shavings, crayons, and paste floor wax, with a faint whiff of incense. Call it Eau de Parochial School. ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2018, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/77 "2018-05-09T05:07:50Z")
Good - Violets candy. I swear they changed the formula. It taste really flowery now. Sad - Chanel No. 5. When my Mom wore it, it meant that she and my Dad were going somewhere without me. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2018, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/78 "2018-05-09T09:48:07Z")
I had the pleasure of working a few times in very old storehouses which were a sort of mishmash of hardware storage, ships chandlers and assorted junk stores - they typically had a great smell which was made up of tar, dust, hemp rope, spices, spilt wine and assorted other unidentifiable scents - it was fantastic. One of them (In Swansea, IIRC) was a three or four storey building with wooden staircases and a boat-shaped hole in every floor (no guard rail - just don’t walk off the edge) - I think they used to keep different kinds of equipment and supplies on each floor and haul up a boat (maybe a lifeboat) up through the middle of the building, and fit and equip it with different stuff as they lowered it back down. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2018, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/79 "2018-05-09T12:43:17Z")
Mom grew up in a little village in England. Back in the 1970s we visited her parents and other relatives there a few times. Someone nearby was burning coal (possibly for home heating?), and when the wind blew in the right direction you caught that little bit of sulfur on the breeze. Years later, the colleges I attended had on-campus power/heating plants that ran on coal. Whenever I caught that scent, I immediately thought of those childhood visits to an exotic country thousands of miles away where people drove on the other side of the road and paid regular visits to the [chip shop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_chip_shop) down on the corner. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2018, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197/80 "2018-05-09T12:55:18Z")
**Ditto fluid** has already been mentioned – takes me back to elementary and high schools. we used that stuff a lot, and I remember smelling the freshly-copied pages. **Play-doh**. In his book _Big Secrets_ , author Poundstone noticed this one, too, calling its odor “Proustian” (after Proust’s _Remembrance of Things Past_) When Disney built a giant-size playground in the wake of _Honey, I Shrunk the Kids_, it included a giant can of Play Doh, and the outfitted it with something that regularly emitted that Play-Doh scent. **Ozone** – bad for you, but it recalls electric train transformers and similar electrical stuff. **Burning Wood** – campfire smells inevitably take me back to my Boy Scout days. **old Pulp Paper** – rcalls the old newsstands and comic stores of my youth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-evocative-scents/800197.md?page=5)