One of the reasons I love circus peanuts is their powerful chemical smell. Especially the “bannana flavored” ones.
Ohhhh, that’s a good one! IIRC someone released a Play-Doh scented perfume a while back.
Not chemical-y like the others, but unusual (I think) in that I LOOOOVVVVE the smell of my hands after I’ve chopped onions and/or garlic. I’ll sit there subtly* huffing my own hands for hours afterwards.
- I hope
So you’re the one that loves them!
I forgot they’re supposed to be banana flavored and not dead finger flavored.
I used to like the smell of white shoe polish–I don’t remember what it was called, but it came in a bottle with a little applicator and my mom used it on my saddle shoes until I was old enough to tell her that I hated saddle shoes and make it stick. 
However, I did love huffing the shoe polish. 
ETA: Ooh, and I forgot about my favorite of all time: Bain de Soleil suntan goop. Not the stuff now, but from back in the '70s. It came in a tube and looked like reddish brown paint, and to this day catching a whiff of anything even close transports me back to my childhood, lying next to our little pool in the summer and reading book after book. If I could find something that had the same smell now, I’d buy some just so I could sniff it on regular occasions.
I do!
I also love the smell of bleach.
Gasoline, permanent markers, glue, I like the smell of pencils (reminds me of when I first started going to school), baby powder, perfumes and colognes and scented oils too…
I wonder why gasoline is basically universal… I thought I was the only one and weird, but also awesomely unique…
Vinyl. That’s all I’m going to say. I used to work in a fabric store and every time I had to cut vinyl was magical.
Nail polish. I love doing my nails. Brand-new crayons.
I made a list of my favorite smells from this thread:
Gasoline
Glue
Baby powder (My Addition)
Bleach
Play-Doh
Freshly sharpened wooden pencils
Permanent markers
Freshly printed money
New car smell
Oil
Sulfuric smell of lighting off fireworks.
White-out correction fluid
LYSOL
Diesel exhaust
A new book
Tar
Mowed lawn
New tennis balls.
Laundry soap.
Dryer Sheets (My addition)
New carpet
Turpentine
Stale cigarettes (My addition)
Rubber Bands (My addition)
Rubber
When you get a new toy and the plastic smell is there in the box(My addition)
Windex
Wood
Sunscreen
Rubbing alcohol
Fireplace Fire (My addition, not sure if this counts as a “chemical” smell)
Newspapers (new)
I like the smell of before it rains (My addition)
Opening a pair of new shoes
Pool chlorine
Beach balls
That’s from stearic acid. When you smell stearic acid you know you’re going to have a good time,
Yup. Surprised it took so long to come; it was the very first thing that came to me, anyway.
And Vick’s VapoRub makes me feel taken care of.
:smack: How could I have forgotten menthol?
Also rubber cement and grade-school paste. Almost good enough to eat!
I think it was already mentioned up-thread, but WD-40.
Linseed oil.
Vinegar in small doses. Reminds me of dying Easter eggs.
Spray paint in the most non-huffing way possible.
Can’t forget latex-based house paint either! At least while you’re rolling it on.
Oh, pencil shavings bring me back to school. And chalk dust.
I know this is a hijack but I have previously read somewhere that Baby Boomers overlap a transition period in regards to childhood smells and memory … early Boomers and older associate most childhood emotions with smells like cut grass, foods baking, and of the natural environment; later Boomers and later more the man-made product smells, like Play-Doh and crayons. Any input by age here? (Me, I am a later Boomer and clearly straddle both but more “artificial” smells.)
That’s interesting DSeid.
I’m a Gen-Xer, born 1973.
I have fond memory smells (and a love) of sharpened pencils, cut grass, water from a hose, baked cookies, etc. but of course those are all outside the bias of the OP. Not saying there isn’t anything to that though.
Many years ago in my college chemistry lab I opened a glass bottle containing a pinkish flaky substance. One whiff sent me to another galaxy, to my fictional planet (I used to live entirely within my head those days). It was just a ***sci-fi ***kind of smell. Difficult to describe. No smell affected me as strongly as that. Dont know what it was - but it was awesome.
It, uhh, didn’t smell garlicky… Did it?
I love the smell of new electronic toys, where you open the box and have to turn it upside down to shake it out because the foam packing is so tight. And then pull the foam off of each end and then open up the plastic bag to get the full aroma.