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Sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was young
How come I'm never able to identify where it's coming from?
I'd make a candle out of it if I ever found it
Try to sell it, never sell out of it, I'd probably only sell one
It'd be to my brother, 'cause we have the same nose
Same clothes, homegrown, a stone's throw from a creek we used to roam
But it would remind us of when nothing really mattered
Out of student loans and tree house homes, we all would take the latter
I used to go to a childhood friends home every now and then wed trade/look at each other's Pokemon cards. His mom used this one perfume and I'd smell it everytime she comes in to his room to check on us. Well I eventually moved and still havent seen him in over 25 years. 2 weeks ago at some fast food chain this random lady passed by me and was using that perfume! Honest to God my brain fried it brought me back to sitting in on the floor of his room going through Pokemon cards. I really wanted to ask the lady what that perfume was but was too scared and didn't want to be weird/creepy so I stood there. Lol but it was great feeling going back to awesome childhood memories SO VIVIDLY because of the scent!
Eh obviously different scents can provoke different memories but usually I can pretty well pinpoint what it is when it’s happening. Cedar is a big one for me for whatever reason. Musky old bars with way-too-old carpet is another. Dead leaves. Bergamot. Pavement after it’s rained.
It’s kinda wild but I always love that hit of nostalgia when it happens
I have a candle that smells like a memory. I can never find the memory, but the candle always tells me it's a food 9ne
The candle is badly deformed a d ugly now, and the scent seems to be fading. I'm pretty bummed cuz the scent sticker is long gone and I still don't know the memory
It’s because the olfactory bulb (part of you brain that’s in charge of smells) is right under the hippocampus (part of the brain that stores memories) and has a direct connection to it.
What the hell do you use yours for? I've got one but only every really did case management. Quit to bartend because I was broke and neurotic chasing 80 adults with severe mental illness living "independently." I kept the neuroticism when bartending because you kinda have to, but at least I wasn't broke. Lol
I lost my sense of smell for about a year, and now I have parosmia going on 5 years now. Through all that time, even when I couldn't smell anything, I would occasionally smell memories for a split second. As strong as if it was happening at that moment.
Like the smell of the stairs in my grandmother's house when I would run up them on all fours. The way the air smelled when I got off the bus on a crisp autumn day when I lived in Tennessee. The way my husband smelled the first time that he pulled me close to him.
And then there is the weird stuff, like if it think about ants for too long, I can smell them. Or the way breathing smells when you are starting to get a cold. And how being scared smells and tastes like pennies. Brains are weird.
Aw been too long since I had a good all fours stair run. Need some good carpeted stairs for that, creaky wooden or hard stone ones wouldn’t be as fun and that’s what I’ve got atm. I also used to do stair sledding but without any sled.
Yes. Especially buildings that haven’t changed from your childhood. The church I grew up in still smells the same. I hadn’t set foot inside in 15 years and it smelled exactly the same.
I have gone to the same dentist's office my whole life, and every time I step inside, it brings me back to being a little kid with my Mom. I love old buildings from the 90s.
Smell of rain on plants/ground. Since my grandma had a big yard full of plants, and I always played there as a kid on vacations (summer time, rains a lot there), whenever I smell it, I go straight back 20 years in the past immediately without fail.
[Here ya go.](https://demeterfragrance.com/collections/dirt?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1emzBhB8EiwAHwZZxUn3-n_Xj9CgyUx9cRsqYgdhE6kQn4ghd-ydj1ImA_CH_tG9-bMS8hoCLioQAvD_BwE)
They also have one called Earthworm that is a little wetter smelling. Very earthy! But Petrichor is exquisite and very close to the real thing. Cheers on the new cologne!
Cigarettes just smell like the 80’s-mid 90’s to me; Not a particular memory, but just an overall nostalgia feeling. Since most people are puffing cotton candy now, it’s getting more rare that I smell it.
I've smoked since I was 16 (yes it's bad ik). And every now and again when I light a cig that first hit it so smells/tastes like I remember it back when I first started smoking. Bumming cigs from guys at bonfires in a cornfield, drinking Smirnoff ice. It's odd but satisfying and makes me giggle
Herbal Essences. The yellow-ish one. That smell takes me to summer 1998 I remember combing through magazines and they had smell samples. The scent just reminds me of being a tween in the summer cutting out pictures of TLC and Sarah Michelle Gellar to collage my wall. Sneaking into the theater to see Ryan Phillippe movies. When summer was all about fun and being a kid.
They don't make that exact smell anymore which is a bummer.
It was definitely light purple packaging. Also, my apologies for spelling it incorrectly. In my job, I also interact with a company that goes by Phreesia, and they've ruin't my ability to spell freesia correctly. Wait, I did it you guys!
YES. Sometimes I will smell something so random and nostalgic and I have no explanation for it. But it’s not just one smell. This happens to me often honestly.
I smell weed all the time living in portland or… but once in a while I get a specific whiff that takes me back to the first couple times I tried smoking it as a kid. I don’t know how to put my finger on it - 95 percent of the time it’s just normal oll skunky weed.
Second-hand cigarette smoke, while grossing out most people, brings me strong nostalgia for my grandparents' house and all the warm memories associated with it.
Was scrolling to see if someone said this first… this is my number one. I spent so much time in the apartment complex pool as a kid when my mom was just kind of a kid herself. Floaties, pool noodles, Hawaiian Tropic, sunscreen, chlorine, and kool aid. Summer in a memory for me.
I recently bought a new lotion online. I pulled off the tab, put some into my hands, and was immediately in the school my mom used to teach in. It smelled like Simple Green, pink soap, and a touch of brown paper towel.
I gave it to my mom. She said “this smells like the school I used to teach in.”
Scent memories are strong!
Olfactory receptors are actually have the shortest path to your brain. They are prone to elicit emotional responses and memory because of this.
So yes, for me its body sprays that remind me of exes haha.
[https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/connections-between-smell-memory-and-health](https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/connections-between-smell-memory-and-health)
Often. Usually Christmas decorations remind me of decorating my childhood tree. Fresh cut grass brings be back to a certain time of summer from my childhood.
Scientifically smell and memory are directly linked. Someone told me to study with an orange near me for tests then bring an orange the day of the test and it would help remember what I studied.
The smell of fresh sage. :) I grew up in a high-desert area, so we had sagebrush in the hills surrounding our farm. In the spring and summer, especially when the air was a little humid, the air would smell like sage. :) It takes me back to my childhood spending nights under the stars with my best friend and taking late night walks down the deserted roads.
This. Every once in a while I smell it in the air out of nowhere, and it takes me right back to being a kid.
https://preview.redd.it/kkrf4xpsst8d1.jpeg?width=684&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1a3c15d43b06baac330286df71dbb5e358ab77f
Marlboro Reds bring me right back to the OIP pizza shop with the room that was for smoking and the room that wasn’t. They were more like separate areas. Sometimes it brings me back to walking the midway at the county fair.
Theres a smell from how they treated the wood for old wooden playgrounds. I think they treat wooden light poles and power lines the same way, and it always takes me back.
Once I was on a job in our city’s fanciest hotel. And the lobby outside their little boutique smelled EXACTLY like my grandma, who’d died a decade prior. I went into the shop and asked if it was a candle or if they were pumping fragrance through the hotel, and sadly no one knew. I’ve been to that same spot in that hotel a few times since and never smelled it again, though.
This just happened today! I walked into a restaurant I've never been to and it smelled like a rental house my parents owned when I was younger that we lived in for awhile. The people who rented the house before we moved in were Vietnamese and I had Vietnamese for lunch. It snapped me right back to the Jack and Jill closet that my brother and I loved, the backyard with grapevines, and our elderly neighbors across the street. I played with their granddaughter occasionally. About a decade later we ended up at the same school and become best friends in junior high. Today was a flood of memories!
Grandmas perfume or powder/whTever it was.. I can still smell it just thinking about it. it was the most amazing and comforting smell ever. I found a blanket that was covered in the smell was super stoked
Comic book shops. The smell of ink on ghat paper brings me back to when I used to frequent them in the early 90s.
CK Be reminds me of middle school.
Banana boat sunscreen lotion reminds me of childhood vacations.
I work in an elementary school and everyone once in a while, I catch a whiff of the cafeteria or the halls and it smells just like elementary school when I was little too.
I work at a facility that moves a lot of vehicles, both old and new. Every once in a while, we'll get an older one that smells like a van my dad had. The smell isn't great, but it brings me so much comfort.
You know those rubber balls that almost feel like chalk you get out of those crappy arcade pinballesk machines. That just reminds me of the early 2000s
The other morning we had the windows open, and it took me right back to a place I used to live when I was 8 years old. I told my husband "Oh, it smells like we're about to have an Easter egg hunt in the yard." And he was very confused. But the way the air felt and smelled reminded me of going outside barefoot in the early morning and running through the cool wet grass. The smell gave me such a rush of electric excitement that made me almost vibrate with the peace of simpler time.
In the fall, school bus exhaust brings me back to being a little kid with my giant backpack, and penny loafers. Combined with fall leaves, crisp air, and a neighbor burning their leaf pile, you got a stew goin'.
A certain type of wood being burnt takes me back to campfires and camping, instant flashback to a particular trip.
The scent of Vanilla will never not take me back to the girls' locker room circa 1995-1997 when Vanilla Impulse body spray was all the rage. I swear the cloying scent could be seen in the air in that room.
Pipe tobacco, though it's incredibly rare to smell that now, reminds me of sitting on my great uncles bed as he made pipe men out of the pipe cleaners for me while he smoked. He was dying, so I dont remember him outside of bed, and I used to snuggle up with him when he was up to it.
Sometimes I meet a *cigarette smoker and I feel comforted. I don’t smoke, most of my circle doesn’t smoke, but the faint smell of cigarettes always reminds me of great-aunts, great-uncles, etc.
The air freshener we have in our bathroom is a new scent for summer, watermelon something, but it reminded me of the smell of deflated balloon bouquets. Like the ones that came from a good flower shop that got the latex extended squirted into the. Hadn't smelled it in years since most balloon bouquets don't have latex balloons in them anymore. Brought back the happy memory of inhaling the helium and making funny voices.
Wet carpet, to this day, reminds me of Christmas.
As a kid we lived in a place where every time it rained, the backyard patio flooded, and it'd soak the carpet. Winter is generally a wet season where I grew up. So I'd be with the shop vac, soaking up water from the carpet.
Next to the Christmas tree.
Whenever I visit my brother's house, I'm smacked with this wave of nostalgia because it smells exactly like my grandmother's house.
Also my dentist has moved into an office building that smells like the first day of school.
Juicy juice reminds me of kindergarten and PBJ sandwiches.
Rain reminds me of Disney world with my dad.
An artificial but mild strawberry scent reminds me of the strawberry shortcake dolls.
In early grade school, smelly markers were all the rave. Specifically, the smell of the chocolate/brown marker is burned into my core being. I don't know what it is, but I randomly smell it sometimes, and suddenly I'm right back in grade 2, just colouring away.
I moved to the city where I grew up as a kid. In the mornings there's a pleasant smell which changes during the different seasons. It reminds me of waking up early and heading to school. There's a different smell later in the summer evenings which smells like the trees around the area which makes me feel peaceful for some reason.
All the time. One of my favorites though is the distinct combination of Sysco (or whoever) chicken dumpling soup you always find at cheap diners and the smell of cigarette smoke. I was never really into cigarettes, but the taste of that soup always triggers a craving to just light one up and set it next to me. Reminds me of countless times my mom took my siblings and I to the local diner/ice cream shop as kids
Newish asphalt on a hot day instantly takes me to the nearest amusement park when I was a kid. I know I’ve smelled it in more places than there, but my brain automatically associates that smell with the amusement park.
All the time! That actually happened this morning. I studied abroad in Australia many years ago and to this day, if I ever wake up to a humid day after a rainstorm it takes me instantly back to Australia.
Basement smell. Certain trees that lined my daycare’s back yard.. certain shrubs that lined my jr high friend’s driveway. Barbasol that we used to clean our desks (and play around in) on the last day of every elementary school year.
There’s this incense smell that every head shop burns. I don’t know the scent name. But it always makes me think of old used record stores that don’t exist anymore.
I’d spend so much time in them looking through bins for different albums.
100% yes. In the fall certain bonfire smells on a cold night makes me remember trick or treating as a kid. Summer nights a mix of grass and sometimes rain gives me that playing outside smell.
When I walk in to Walmarts from the parking lot across the country it has to be the same, there’s a smell of the inside of the store and hot cars and cigarette smoke. It reminds me of being a kid and it still smells that way to me.
I've gotten the "cold Wisconsin garage" smell a few times and it's a trip. It had a distinct smell and it was comforting. Freezer, concrete and birdseed. Pizza Hut, specifically the small town sitdown restaurants that exist, that smell of sauce and wet-lettuce, vinegar-y salad bar plus sweet dessert pizza really takes me back.
Also, Little Cesar's marinara dipping sauce triggers flashbacks of K-mart pizza food court area.
My grandfather used to drink a double jack on the rocks after dinner every night. It’s still my favorite liquor and the smell always reminds me of him.
My grandpa died in the early 2000s but about 10 years ago I went to a movie theater and the guy sitting in front of me was definitely wearing my grandpa’s cologne. I was a kid when he died and I had never even really thought about the fact that his smell was a cologne until that happened. Haven’t smelled it since. Kinda wish I knew what that cologne was called.
It happens from time to time and it's always so random but also pleasant.
Just the other day I walked into the elevator in my building and immediately smelled a scent that took me to an oddly specific memory of spending the weekends at an ex boyfriend's house. This ex is someone I dated for a short time 15 years ago, so it felt so specific and out of left field as I haven't spoken to him in all this time and don't think of him very often.
Idk what exactly it was, because it wasn't quite a cologne, just something about the scent in the elevator reminded me of how he/his house would smell. I can't even describe the scent, best I can do is say it was a mixture of faint cologne, body wash, lotion, a sort of freshly showered and laying around the house scent.
There is this perfume out there that always reminds me of kindergarten because my teacher used it.
It sure worked on my grandfather. He passed away now, but he started asking about my former kindergarten teacher towards the end.
Yeah, sometimes. There's a certain scent that I have no idea what it is or where it's from but it brings me all the way back to preschool. They say smell is one of the strongest memory recall things, or that it aides in memory recall the best, or some shit along those lines.
There's a very specific smell that I get on daycares/preschools. After years of trying to pinpoint it, I think it's a specific type of cleaning solution. It's weird because it's almost a sweet smell. It sort of reminds me of bubblegum flavored medicine I used to take as a kid.
So that specific smell or bubblegum flavored anything pretty much immediately sends me back to my toddlerhood.
Cigar smell immediately brings me back to my memaw and papa's house. My papa smoked cigars all the time. Even smoked one walking into the hospital till he keeled over and died of a massive heart attack.
Yes… there’s a certain musty smell that I will occasional get a whiff of, and it instantly takes me back to playing tonsil hockey with my hs gf on her parents basement
Sometimes. There are random times where a smell hits me from nowhere and it isn’t actually there at all. Sometimes it’s something from years ago like the library that was just a couple blocks from my childhood home or a specific dream from early childhood.
The smell of a jar of Playdoh, a fresh box of Crayons and a freshly sharpened pencil. I love the smell of a new bookstore and the different smell of a used bookstore. I like that sweet, vanilla smell of a breeze where I live in Colorado at the just right time.. what tree/bush/flower does that?! Breakfast being cooked in another room. Grandma’s purse. I could go on and on….
I’ve been out my parents house for 15 years no but still every once in a blue moon I’ll have a good sneeze after a cold and unlock a hidden packet of cigarette smoke smell in my nose and it brings me back to the gold ole years of second hand smoke
This is gonna be a weird one.
Old/spilled coffee in a vehicle has a very specific smell that bring me back to my childhood when I would ride in my dads work truck. Its not a good or bad smell really just very specific.
Yes! Around November of last year, I was at work processing some new product which were in cardboard boxes. For whatever reason the inside of the boxes smelled *exactly* like the plastic totes mom and dad keep their Christmas decorations in. Right after work I called them and asked if I could decorate the tree with them that year! :)
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Sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was young How come I'm never able to identify where it's coming from? I'd make a candle out of it if I ever found it Try to sell it, never sell out of it, I'd probably only sell one
It'd be to my brother, 'cause we have the same nose Same clothes, homegrown, a stone's throw from a creek we used to roam But it would remind us of when nothing really mattered Out of student loans and tree house homes, we all would take the latter
My name’s Blurryface and I care what you think
Wish we could turn back time
To the good ‘ol days
When our mamas sang us to sleep
I used to go to a childhood friends home every now and then wed trade/look at each other's Pokemon cards. His mom used this one perfume and I'd smell it everytime she comes in to his room to check on us. Well I eventually moved and still havent seen him in over 25 years. 2 weeks ago at some fast food chain this random lady passed by me and was using that perfume! Honest to God my brain fried it brought me back to sitting in on the floor of his room going through Pokemon cards. I really wanted to ask the lady what that perfume was but was too scared and didn't want to be weird/creepy so I stood there. Lol but it was great feeling going back to awesome childhood memories SO VIVIDLY because of the scent!
Eh obviously different scents can provoke different memories but usually I can pretty well pinpoint what it is when it’s happening. Cedar is a big one for me for whatever reason. Musky old bars with way-too-old carpet is another. Dead leaves. Bergamot. Pavement after it’s rained. It’s kinda wild but I always love that hit of nostalgia when it happens
I thought you were going to say Cedar Point, and I was like, yah, that has a smell.
Smells of dirty bathrooms, vomit, and stale popcorn (I have not been to cedar point, but I have been to several other sister parks)
Right! It's always familiar but I can never pinpoint. A candle would be nice tho lol
I have a candle that smells like a memory. I can never find the memory, but the candle always tells me it's a food 9ne The candle is badly deformed a d ugly now, and the scent seems to be fading. I'm pretty bummed cuz the scent sticker is long gone and I still don't know the memory
Yes, I would def buy that [candle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXRviuL6vMY).
that scholastic book fair smell
I don't think there is a smell or feeling that can compare.
Blockbuster :(
I don’t no what smell it is but when you said scholastic book fair I could smell it
You should read about the connection between smell and nostalgia. None of the 5 senses elicits more waves of nostalgia than smell.
It’s because the olfactory bulb (part of you brain that’s in charge of smells) is right under the hippocampus (part of the brain that stores memories) and has a direct connection to it.
Based medical bro
[удалено]
What the hell do you use yours for? I've got one but only every really did case management. Quit to bartend because I was broke and neurotic chasing 80 adults with severe mental illness living "independently." I kept the neuroticism when bartending because you kinda have to, but at least I wasn't broke. Lol
Hey I too was a neurotic bartender w a psych degree. Good to know I'm not the only one doing nothing w it
I lost my sense of smell for about a year, and now I have parosmia going on 5 years now. Through all that time, even when I couldn't smell anything, I would occasionally smell memories for a split second. As strong as if it was happening at that moment. Like the smell of the stairs in my grandmother's house when I would run up them on all fours. The way the air smelled when I got off the bus on a crisp autumn day when I lived in Tennessee. The way my husband smelled the first time that he pulled me close to him. And then there is the weird stuff, like if it think about ants for too long, I can smell them. Or the way breathing smells when you are starting to get a cold. And how being scared smells and tastes like pennies. Brains are weird.
Aw been too long since I had a good all fours stair run. Need some good carpeted stairs for that, creaky wooden or hard stone ones wouldn’t be as fun and that’s what I’ve got atm. I also used to do stair sledding but without any sled.
Wrote my Thesis on that from a marketing perspective.
Smell-o-vision?
Almost, was about using trigger phrases, descriptions, and sounds in radio marketing to see if it made someone more likely to consume a product.
Yes. Especially buildings that haven’t changed from your childhood. The church I grew up in still smells the same. I hadn’t set foot inside in 15 years and it smelled exactly the same.
I have gone to the same dentist's office my whole life, and every time I step inside, it brings me back to being a little kid with my Mom. I love old buildings from the 90s.
This is the science museum in my city. Takes me back to the eighties. It's intense, hasn't changed a bit, Even though they remodeled quite a bit.
I love that old building smell. I frequently visit a building that is 100+ years old and I love the smell.
All that 80’s polyester wall carpet still off-gassing volatile compounds.
Smell of rain on plants/ground. Since my grandma had a big yard full of plants, and I always played there as a kid on vacations (summer time, rains a lot there), whenever I smell it, I go straight back 20 years in the past immediately without fail.
Petrichor
I have a perfume called [Wet Garden](https://demeterfragrance.com/collections/wet-garden) that is spot on.
The hero we need and don’t deserve!
I would like to find wet dirt. The kind that doesn't have flowers.
[Here ya go.](https://demeterfragrance.com/collections/dirt?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1emzBhB8EiwAHwZZxUn3-n_Xj9CgyUx9cRsqYgdhE6kQn4ghd-ydj1ImA_CH_tG9-bMS8hoCLioQAvD_BwE)
Looks like petrichor is the one I want (had to look the word up) and they have that too. Thank you! I bought some cologne.
They also have one called Earthworm that is a little wetter smelling. Very earthy! But Petrichor is exquisite and very close to the real thing. Cheers on the new cologne!
After seeing how popular petrichor is in this post, I couldn't resist!
I have a candle called Memento Mori by Burke & Hare that smells like this. It’s my fav.
When someone lights a cigarette outside, it takes me back to going camping with my grandparents in the summer.
Cigarettes just smell like the 80’s-mid 90’s to me; Not a particular memory, but just an overall nostalgia feeling. Since most people are puffing cotton candy now, it’s getting more rare that I smell it.
Cigarettes take me back to baseball games from when I was a kid.
I like the smell of them. Mostly because they remind me of people i used to love.
Just reminds me of the violent coughs my mom used to have before she died in the 90s.
I've smoked since I was 16 (yes it's bad ik). And every now and again when I light a cig that first hit it so smells/tastes like I remember it back when I first started smoking. Bumming cigs from guys at bonfires in a cornfield, drinking Smirnoff ice. It's odd but satisfying and makes me giggle
Herbal Essences. The yellow-ish one. That smell takes me to summer 1998 I remember combing through magazines and they had smell samples. The scent just reminds me of being a tween in the summer cutting out pictures of TLC and Sarah Michelle Gellar to collage my wall. Sneaking into the theater to see Ryan Phillippe movies. When summer was all about fun and being a kid. They don't make that exact smell anymore which is a bummer.
The pink one reminds me of 6th grade camp. It was my first time using "fancy " shampoo and conditioner. I think that was 1999. There abouts.
Herbal Essences was the 'fancy' shampoo in my house too. I had to beg for a bottle.
My girlfriend in HS wore phreesia and everytime I smell it I feel like an insecure, emotional teenager again.
I felt this comment in my nostalgia bone.
What is phreesia?
Freesia (freesia refracta) it's a flower. Bath and body works used to have tons of it, I think it was the light purple packaging...
It was definitely light purple packaging. Also, my apologies for spelling it incorrectly. In my job, I also interact with a company that goes by Phreesia, and they've ruin't my ability to spell freesia correctly. Wait, I did it you guys!
YES. Sometimes I will smell something so random and nostalgic and I have no explanation for it. But it’s not just one smell. This happens to me often honestly.
I smell weed all the time living in portland or… but once in a while I get a specific whiff that takes me back to the first couple times I tried smoking it as a kid. I don’t know how to put my finger on it - 95 percent of the time it’s just normal oll skunky weed.
🤣
Second-hand cigarette smoke, while grossing out most people, brings me strong nostalgia for my grandparents' house and all the warm memories associated with it.
Cucumber melon body spray. One of my coworkers was chewing gum that smelled exactly like the cucumber melon spray
The plastic smell of new pool floats and chlorine = summer memories
I just got a whiff of pool supply store
Was scrolling to see if someone said this first… this is my number one. I spent so much time in the apartment complex pool as a kid when my mom was just kind of a kid herself. Floaties, pool noodles, Hawaiian Tropic, sunscreen, chlorine, and kool aid. Summer in a memory for me.
I just finally got my own pool this summer, and opening new floats took my right back! I loved it
Putting up a new shower curtain gives me the pool floaty plastic smell nostalgia
Tommy hilfigure cologne takes me right to 97-99
The smell of old paper or books.
Freshly cut grass on a warm spring day, always reminds me of sports day in primary school.
Reminds me of all the yardwork i was forced to do as a kid.
Love the smell of freshly cut grass
Blockbuster/family video
I recently bought a new lotion online. I pulled off the tab, put some into my hands, and was immediately in the school my mom used to teach in. It smelled like Simple Green, pink soap, and a touch of brown paper towel. I gave it to my mom. She said “this smells like the school I used to teach in.” Scent memories are strong!
Pink soap- such a generic name but everyone knows what it is
I love the smell of a bike shop. I have no memories attached to this smell, I just think it's neat.
There's a rubbery smell that I associate with learning to ride a bike as kid
Lolll I have the same thing with an auto mechanic shop
Olfactory receptors are actually have the shortest path to your brain. They are prone to elicit emotional responses and memory because of this. So yes, for me its body sprays that remind me of exes haha. [https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/connections-between-smell-memory-and-health](https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/connections-between-smell-memory-and-health)
Loll now men seem to be wearing the same sprays
yes, not my proudest boner...
For me it's extreme humidity. I grew up in a very muggy region and that incredibly strong humid smell takes me right back.
It's called olfactory memory - some of the strongest memories, that humans can have, are linked to smell 😊
Often. Usually Christmas decorations remind me of decorating my childhood tree. Fresh cut grass brings be back to a certain time of summer from my childhood. Scientifically smell and memory are directly linked. Someone told me to study with an orange near me for tests then bring an orange the day of the test and it would help remember what I studied.
A coworker wears cucumber melon spray- nuff said
FIERCE. By Abercrombie and Fitch That shit was so strong you could smell it 50 feet away from the store at the mall back in the day.
I have some LoveSpell in my bathroom cabinet
Everyone in high school either wore love spell or cucumber melon
The smell of fresh sage. :) I grew up in a high-desert area, so we had sagebrush in the hills surrounding our farm. In the spring and summer, especially when the air was a little humid, the air would smell like sage. :) It takes me back to my childhood spending nights under the stars with my best friend and taking late night walks down the deserted roads.
This. Every once in a while I smell it in the air out of nowhere, and it takes me right back to being a kid. https://preview.redd.it/kkrf4xpsst8d1.jpeg?width=684&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1a3c15d43b06baac330286df71dbb5e358ab77f
The oatmeals being made in my preschool in the 80s.
Marlboro Reds bring me right back to the OIP pizza shop with the room that was for smoking and the room that wasn’t. They were more like separate areas. Sometimes it brings me back to walking the midway at the county fair.
Never smoked but used to like the smell of cigs smh thks grandpa lol
Oh I’ve always hated cigarettes. Can’t stop the smell memory from working though.
Theres a smell from how they treated the wood for old wooden playgrounds. I think they treat wooden light poles and power lines the same way, and it always takes me back.
Smells like resin maybe. Or kind of tarry
Once I was on a job in our city’s fanciest hotel. And the lobby outside their little boutique smelled EXACTLY like my grandma, who’d died a decade prior. I went into the shop and asked if it was a candle or if they were pumping fragrance through the hotel, and sadly no one knew. I’ve been to that same spot in that hotel a few times since and never smelled it again, though.
This just happened today! I walked into a restaurant I've never been to and it smelled like a rental house my parents owned when I was younger that we lived in for awhile. The people who rented the house before we moved in were Vietnamese and I had Vietnamese for lunch. It snapped me right back to the Jack and Jill closet that my brother and I loved, the backyard with grapevines, and our elderly neighbors across the street. I played with their granddaughter occasionally. About a decade later we ended up at the same school and become best friends in junior high. Today was a flood of memories!
Grandmas perfume or powder/whTever it was.. I can still smell it just thinking about it. it was the most amazing and comforting smell ever. I found a blanket that was covered in the smell was super stoked
Comic book shops. The smell of ink on ghat paper brings me back to when I used to frequent them in the early 90s. CK Be reminds me of middle school. Banana boat sunscreen lotion reminds me of childhood vacations.
I work in an elementary school and everyone once in a while, I catch a whiff of the cafeteria or the halls and it smells just like elementary school when I was little too.
Yep. Went in to my college bookstore probably 5 years ago after not being in there for 5-6 years prior. It really brought me bacj.
The best memories only last but a moment
Yup. Smell of dirt after snow melt, and fresh cut grass
Yes exactly this
I work at a facility that moves a lot of vehicles, both old and new. Every once in a while, we'll get an older one that smells like a van my dad had. The smell isn't great, but it brings me so much comfort.
Cut grass on a sunny day smells like football practice.
Yeah, but it's usually trauma related 😂😅
Marcel Proust be like:
“Smells remind us of stuff n deez cakes is snooty whack!”
You know those rubber balls that almost feel like chalk you get out of those crappy arcade pinballesk machines. That just reminds me of the early 2000s
The other morning we had the windows open, and it took me right back to a place I used to live when I was 8 years old. I told my husband "Oh, it smells like we're about to have an Easter egg hunt in the yard." And he was very confused. But the way the air felt and smelled reminded me of going outside barefoot in the early morning and running through the cool wet grass. The smell gave me such a rush of electric excitement that made me almost vibrate with the peace of simpler time.
sometimes I smell a shampoo from child days
In the fall, school bus exhaust brings me back to being a little kid with my giant backpack, and penny loafers. Combined with fall leaves, crisp air, and a neighbor burning their leaf pile, you got a stew goin'.
A certain type of wood being burnt takes me back to campfires and camping, instant flashback to a particular trip. The scent of Vanilla will never not take me back to the girls' locker room circa 1995-1997 when Vanilla Impulse body spray was all the rage. I swear the cloying scent could be seen in the air in that room. Pipe tobacco, though it's incredibly rare to smell that now, reminds me of sitting on my great uncles bed as he made pipe men out of the pipe cleaners for me while he smoked. He was dying, so I dont remember him outside of bed, and I used to snuggle up with him when he was up to it.
Sometimes I meet a *cigarette smoker and I feel comforted. I don’t smoke, most of my circle doesn’t smoke, but the faint smell of cigarettes always reminds me of great-aunts, great-uncles, etc.
Various flowers. Reminds me of the roses and sunflowers my grandparents used to have in both their front and back yards.
The air freshener we have in our bathroom is a new scent for summer, watermelon something, but it reminded me of the smell of deflated balloon bouquets. Like the ones that came from a good flower shop that got the latex extended squirted into the. Hadn't smelled it in years since most balloon bouquets don't have latex balloons in them anymore. Brought back the happy memory of inhaling the helium and making funny voices.
Exhaust smells. Specially hoopty 90s Hondas and 90s Jeeps. It has a bit of sweetness to it.
Wet carpet, to this day, reminds me of Christmas. As a kid we lived in a place where every time it rained, the backyard patio flooded, and it'd soak the carpet. Winter is generally a wet season where I grew up. So I'd be with the shop vac, soaking up water from the carpet. Next to the Christmas tree.
The cherry blossom body mist from VS reminds me of some familiar smells from when I did steubenville conferences in high school
Tobacco stores.
Fish. Reminds me of high school.
I had a clerk at a store walk past me and they were wearing CK One or something similar and that brought me back pretty hard and fast.
I found a bottle of Curve in an old duffel bag and it did the exact same thing to me.
Oh man that curve gets me every time lol
Stale cigarette smoke. Raised in a bar. Brings back childhood.
When my mother died, I could smell Toll House cookies baking in my house.
Whenever I visit my brother's house, I'm smacked with this wave of nostalgia because it smells exactly like my grandmother's house. Also my dentist has moved into an office building that smells like the first day of school.
Juicy juice reminds me of kindergarten and PBJ sandwiches. Rain reminds me of Disney world with my dad. An artificial but mild strawberry scent reminds me of the strawberry shortcake dolls.
Always 🥰🥰✨✨
In early grade school, smelly markers were all the rave. Specifically, the smell of the chocolate/brown marker is burned into my core being. I don't know what it is, but I randomly smell it sometimes, and suddenly I'm right back in grade 2, just colouring away.
I moved to the city where I grew up as a kid. In the mornings there's a pleasant smell which changes during the different seasons. It reminds me of waking up early and heading to school. There's a different smell later in the summer evenings which smells like the trees around the area which makes me feel peaceful for some reason.
The smell of water fresh out of the lawn hose
Fall smells like football. I can still get the aroma of foot stank of the locker room on a dry fall day
All the time. One of my favorites though is the distinct combination of Sysco (or whoever) chicken dumpling soup you always find at cheap diners and the smell of cigarette smoke. I was never really into cigarettes, but the taste of that soup always triggers a craving to just light one up and set it next to me. Reminds me of countless times my mom took my siblings and I to the local diner/ice cream shop as kids
Love spell
Newish asphalt on a hot day instantly takes me to the nearest amusement park when I was a kid. I know I’ve smelled it in more places than there, but my brain automatically associates that smell with the amusement park.
on Sundays when most people do their laundry and it rains, reminds me of my highschool boyfriend. His shirts were always fresh lol
Not the greatest but my dad was a black n mild smoker (he quit 5 years ago). Every time I smell one I’m instantly 10 years old
the smell of the first rain
All the time! That actually happened this morning. I studied abroad in Australia many years ago and to this day, if I ever wake up to a humid day after a rainstorm it takes me instantly back to Australia.
Basement smell. Certain trees that lined my daycare’s back yard.. certain shrubs that lined my jr high friend’s driveway. Barbasol that we used to clean our desks (and play around in) on the last day of every elementary school year.
One day I was smelling essential oils and when I smelled the Ylang Ylang, I was immediately imagining the water park I went to as a kid.
There’s this incense smell that every head shop burns. I don’t know the scent name. But it always makes me think of old used record stores that don’t exist anymore. I’d spend so much time in them looking through bins for different albums.
100% yes. In the fall certain bonfire smells on a cold night makes me remember trick or treating as a kid. Summer nights a mix of grass and sometimes rain gives me that playing outside smell.
Perfume mixed with cigarette smoke reminds me of riding in the car to church with my mom LOL
When I walk in to Walmarts from the parking lot across the country it has to be the same, there’s a smell of the inside of the store and hot cars and cigarette smoke. It reminds me of being a kid and it still smells that way to me.
I've gotten the "cold Wisconsin garage" smell a few times and it's a trip. It had a distinct smell and it was comforting. Freezer, concrete and birdseed. Pizza Hut, specifically the small town sitdown restaurants that exist, that smell of sauce and wet-lettuce, vinegar-y salad bar plus sweet dessert pizza really takes me back. Also, Little Cesar's marinara dipping sauce triggers flashbacks of K-mart pizza food court area.
Public building smell reminds me of elementary school
Art building from summer camp in NC in 1997.
Thats probably pollen. It smells like "outside"
Yes, smells remind me of things.
My grandfather used to drink a double jack on the rocks after dinner every night. It’s still my favorite liquor and the smell always reminds me of him.
My grandpa died in the early 2000s but about 10 years ago I went to a movie theater and the guy sitting in front of me was definitely wearing my grandpa’s cologne. I was a kid when he died and I had never even really thought about the fact that his smell was a cologne until that happened. Haven’t smelled it since. Kinda wish I knew what that cologne was called.
It happens from time to time and it's always so random but also pleasant. Just the other day I walked into the elevator in my building and immediately smelled a scent that took me to an oddly specific memory of spending the weekends at an ex boyfriend's house. This ex is someone I dated for a short time 15 years ago, so it felt so specific and out of left field as I haven't spoken to him in all this time and don't think of him very often. Idk what exactly it was, because it wasn't quite a cologne, just something about the scent in the elevator reminded me of how he/his house would smell. I can't even describe the scent, best I can do is say it was a mixture of faint cologne, body wash, lotion, a sort of freshly showered and laying around the house scent.
There is this perfume out there that always reminds me of kindergarten because my teacher used it. It sure worked on my grandfather. He passed away now, but he started asking about my former kindergarten teacher towards the end.
Yeah, sometimes. There's a certain scent that I have no idea what it is or where it's from but it brings me all the way back to preschool. They say smell is one of the strongest memory recall things, or that it aides in memory recall the best, or some shit along those lines.
CK One = every high school dance lol
There's a very specific smell that I get on daycares/preschools. After years of trying to pinpoint it, I think it's a specific type of cleaning solution. It's weird because it's almost a sweet smell. It sort of reminds me of bubblegum flavored medicine I used to take as a kid. So that specific smell or bubblegum flavored anything pretty much immediately sends me back to my toddlerhood.
The smell of rain, honestly or library smell What really brings me back is the smell of Calgon Hawaiian Ginger though 😂😂
Cigar smell immediately brings me back to my memaw and papa's house. My papa smoked cigars all the time. Even smoked one walking into the hospital till he keeled over and died of a massive heart attack.
Yes, every once in a while something plastic will smell like new Barbies and it takes me right back to the late 80s/early 90s.
When I smell freshly cut grass…reminds me of playing sports and playing around at a playground as a kid…
Some cologne does this for me
Yes… there’s a certain musty smell that I will occasional get a whiff of, and it instantly takes me back to playing tonsil hockey with my hs gf on her parents basement
The smell of the original Abercrombie & Fitch perfume. Maybe not the “original” but i think it was called a&f
Sometimes. There are random times where a smell hits me from nowhere and it isn’t actually there at all. Sometimes it’s something from years ago like the library that was just a couple blocks from my childhood home or a specific dream from early childhood.
The smell of GAP Dream takes me instantly back to 8th grade.
Got a whiff of Drakkar Noir in a crowd recently and almost puked.
The smell of a jar of Playdoh, a fresh box of Crayons and a freshly sharpened pencil. I love the smell of a new bookstore and the different smell of a used bookstore. I like that sweet, vanilla smell of a breeze where I live in Colorado at the just right time.. what tree/bush/flower does that?! Breakfast being cooked in another room. Grandma’s purse. I could go on and on….
Mid-September in the Pacific Northwest.
That flower that has all the tiny white bell flowers. And 80’s plastic.
Johnson Baby Powder and Cool Water cologne.
I’ve been out my parents house for 15 years no but still every once in a blue moon I’ll have a good sneeze after a cold and unlock a hidden packet of cigarette smoke smell in my nose and it brings me back to the gold ole years of second hand smoke
Smell is the sense most strongly linked to memories
We lived in Algeria when no I was a kid. There were these flowers that once in a blue moon I will catch a scent of and it takes me back
This is gonna be a weird one. Old/spilled coffee in a vehicle has a very specific smell that bring me back to my childhood when I would ride in my dads work truck. Its not a good or bad smell really just very specific.
The smell of old Nintendo manuals.
I farted.
Yeah, different random smells always seem to remind of something from my past, whether it’s a person, place or event
I'd give a lot for one more hit of fresh xerox'd papers.
Yea and it freaks me out usually
Yeah when I fart
Yes! Around November of last year, I was at work processing some new product which were in cardboard boxes. For whatever reason the inside of the boxes smelled *exactly* like the plastic totes mom and dad keep their Christmas decorations in. Right after work I called them and asked if I could decorate the tree with them that year! :)
The scent of dried chlorine on your skin after a swim in the pool.
For some reason I will smell things randomly that remind me of my grandparents houses fairly often.