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A new book called The Scent of Desire argues that smells are subjective; some people love the smell of roses, for instance, and some people — like a woman interviewed in the book who first smelled roses at her mother’s funeral — hate them. But sometimes smelling something you hate isn’t as bad as smelling nothing at all, which the author argues can drive you crazy.
For example, the late singer from INXS, Michael Hutchence. He lost his sense of smell after a 1997 accident, and according to friends, it contributed to his deep depression, and perhaps even his suicide. Smell is the sense most closely associated with emotional memory — just think about how evocative certain scents can be — and the one most closely tied to mental health and happiness. In the book, a woman discusses the impact that losing her sense of smell had on her life: she said it affected everything from her ability to be a homemaker, to being intimate with husband, to her paranoia about her body.
Still worse, losing your sense of smell also affects your sense of taste: “While taste is only bitter, salty, sour, sweet and umami or savory, all flavors come from smell, so without smell you can’t taste the difference between an apple and a potato, or a glass of red wine and a cup of cold coffee.”
The author’s thesis seems to be that positive and negative associations with certain smells are locked into our brains from an early age and stick with us the rest of our lives, and to lose that sense of smell is to, in effect, lose a part of our memory. It’s the subtlest of the senses, but perhaps the most crucial in terms of our emotional connection to the world.
What smell brings back the strongest emotional memory for you?
Also, does anyone know someone who’s lost their sense of smell, and wouldn’t mind sharing a bit about their experience?
Comments (60)
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My most emotional memory from smell would be that of Marlboro red cigarettes, I only had one friend in college who smoked them and we were very close and he died in a car crash his senior year. Now anytime I smell them, I think of him.
However my favorite smell is that of approaching winter, the smell of snow and wood oven stoves, it is something that brings me back to childhood and a serious inner peace.
posted by gussie on 10-10-2007 at 7:53 am
The smell of fresh cut grass reminds me of lazy summer days back in the 70’s. Windows open, breeeze blowing through the curtains and hearing a lawnmower in the distance. Whenever I smell fresh cut grass I takes me back to my childhood.
posted by Brenda on 10-10-2007 at 8:09 am
Oh….too many to recount! Childhood smells that evoke the best memories would be Play-Doh, finger paints and that thick paste that smelled (and tasted!) a little bit minty. The smell of stale beer reminds me of some bad days during college. My favorite smell of all time though is that of a crackling campfire — good memories of some funs trips and adventures in our National Parks!
posted by Cyndi on 10-10-2007 at 8:11 am
Lilacs. I hate lilacs with a passion. They’re absolutely completely disgusting.
Why is this, you ask?
In college I got violently violently ill with the flu. Vomitting a lot, diarrhea problems, writing in agony. Violently ill. Lasted a few days. And, without going into too much detail, let’s just say that I went through an awful lot of trash bags since I couldn’t necessarily sprint down the hall, around the corner, through the doors, and down the other hall to get to the public bathroom in time.
So every time something disgusting would happen in the room, I’d spray this can of air freshener I had, which was – you guessed it. Lilacs. Smelled very strongly of them.
Ever since, lilacs very clearly evoke the memories of just how violently ill I was, plus all the other unpleasant smells I was trying to cover up. I now smell those intertwined with the lilacs.
Yuck.
posted by Jim T on 10-10-2007 at 8:16 am
I met someone several years ago who had no sense of smell. I told her I thought it would be horrible to not be able to smell, but it was no big deal to her. I can’t remember if she never had a sense of smell, or if she lost it when she was very young. Either way, I guess she was just used to it.
I don’t think I would be driven to suicide if I lost my sense of smell, but I would be sad every time I stood around a fire, walked through fall leaves, or sat down to dinner.
Cleaning the catbox would be much easier, though!
posted by Molly on 10-10-2007 at 8:25 am
Years ago, I worked with a woman who had been in a car accident and had lost her sense of smell and taste. She was the best tablemate at dinner though. Anything that was brown(chocolate)was traded for anything green (broccoli). I was ok with the trade off. :)
She ate solely by appearance and the brown colouring of the chocolate turned her off but the green was pretty and colourful. Although she was in her 30’s when she lost her senses, I always wondered how she forgot that chocolate was GOOD and broccoli not so much.
posted by bowtie on 10-10-2007 at 8:28 am
There was a girl I went to college with who fell out of her bunk bed, and damaged her olfactory nerve which killed her sense of smell.
I remember she said it was good and bad, the good being that she could eat all kinds of healthy foods that she had previously hated the taste of, but the bad being that you don’t enjoy chocolate as much, and you won’t know if your house is on fire, putting on perfume is difficult, etc.
posted by Scott on 10-10-2007 at 8:29 am
When I was in highschool a boyfriend bought me Chanel No.5 perfume. I put it on the next morning getting ready for school. When I walked past my mother she got very upset and told me to shower immediately. It turns out my grandfather had an affair with a woman who wore Chanel No.5… he would come home late smelling of the perfume. It’s how my grandmother found out about the affair and led to a lot of problems… now my sisters and I know not to wear it.
Sorry, that’s a “debbie downer” story. A smell I LOVE is the marsh at lowtide. It’s actually a pretty nasty scent but it was how I always knew I was close to home (the coast) on holidays from college. It still makes me happy now that I’m back at the coast full time.
posted by Lara on 10-10-2007 at 8:38 am
Most floral fragrances make me feel tired. Especially roses and gardenias. They have the strongest fragrance, and I associate them with LONG hours spent on my feet, bending over, lifting heavy buckets, and thorns and wires pricking my fingers.
Wet dog and vinyl reminds me of family road trips, in the AC-less station wagon, with our old hound dog drooling on my shoulder.
My favorite scent is a pine forest early in the morning. The combination of dew, wet earth, pine needles, and last night’s campfire. Combine that with the sleepy sounds of the forest, birds singing, dew dripping on the tent, and someone shuffling around the camp stove, making coffee and I’m in heaven.
posted by Maggie on 10-10-2007 at 8:41 am
the smell of fall is amazing and brings me back to the city i grew up in.
and there is also a weird musty smell that reminds me of kindergarten.
posted by Susan on 10-10-2007 at 8:42 am
My favorite scent is the smell of the ground unthawing during spring. I’ve always loved summer, so I knew summer was fast approaching when I could smell the earth.
posted by Kate on 10-10-2007 at 9:04 am
Diesel fuel fumes. Early in high school we were on a bus trip and had mechanical trouble at a truck stop. We were there for hours on end. Being 14 or 15, surrounded by friends, music and food it was no problem. About five years later I realized that the smells from the delay – primarily diesel fumes – bring back lots of good feelings.
posted by Jim on 10-10-2007 at 9:08 am
I love the smell of rain in the fall. I guess it’s because I live in Oregon, but the cool misty smell of a fall rain storm reminds me of my childhood.
Funny that a previous comment mentioned hating the smell of lilacs. I’m the opposite. I love liliacs. I moved a great deal as a kid, and I quickly noticed a pattern with various rented houses: If there was a lilac bush outside, life would somehow be happier. Houses without lilacs would lead to misery. This has been the case almost my whole life. I specifically look for lilacs when I’m house-hunting.
Other smells:
carnations: smells like death and hospitals
Shalimar: smells like my mom. When I miss her, I put on a sweater she left at my house. When I hug her when she’s wearing it, I feel at peace and comfortable.
burning marshmallows: camping, and happy childhood summers
marijuana: fear and bad childhood memories (long story)
posted by Jenny on 10-10-2007 at 9:12 am
I have a very underdeveloped sense of smell. My husband is constantly complaining that the litterbox stinks or that he can smell dinner burning, but I just can’t do those things. I actually have to put effort into being able to smell something, good or bad. I’m great in long car rides, because I will never know if you cut one or not. (hehe). My favorite smell? I don’t really have one, maybe my perfume, Addict.
This article though speaks volumes to me. I want to read the book.
In addition to my underdeveloped sense of smell, I also have an underdeveloped memory. I can remember facts & numbers really well, but situational memories are difficult if not impossible for me to hold on to.
posted by tara on 10-10-2007 at 9:13 am
One of my favorite smells is the smell of crayola color crayons. they remind me of my grandmonther’s basement, where she kept all the toys and games. though the basement itself was a little creepy, it was where my cousins and i would go when the adults were being dull during the holidays.
posted by jzimm on 10-10-2007 at 9:20 am
New car smell reminds me of Florida. I spent two months living in Jacksonville for work and while I was there I drove a new rental car everyday. Now whenever I get into a new car the smell makes me think of Florida and the time I spent there. Thankfully, all good memories :-)
posted by Janis on 10-10-2007 at 9:20 am
When I was in College I was going on my first date in a LONG time. My roommates took pity on the poor computer nerd and were trying to help me out.
One told me things to ask her about if we got into conversation, your hair is pretty, I like your perfume, etc.
As it got closer to time another one let me borrow his cologne, since I normally didn’t wear any. Anyway the date is going along fine, and we sit down to eat and I smell a WONDERFUL fragrance, remembering my roommate’s advice I compliment her on her perfume. As it turns out she wasn’t wearing any and I was smelling my roommate’s cologne.
Must not have been too bad of an impression, we ended up getting married.
posted by Witty Nickname on 10-10-2007 at 9:22 am
I actually like the scent of manure when I´m going through the countryside. It reminds me of holidays spent at farms and good times of running around carefree.
There´s a scent which reminds me of my grandmother´s house: she had a bar of soap with pins stuck in it on top of the toilet tank, beside the doll covering the toilet paper. The scent of that bar of soap, which I smelled on and off for years, immediately reminds me of that house.
posted by medea on 10-10-2007 at 9:25 am
I remember the smell of the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with. We had some issues and seperated for awhile and I would long for the way that he smelled in the morning, it brings me a smile. I love him.
posted by Dana on 10-10-2007 at 9:25 am
In college, I had two housemates who had little or no sense of smell — I guess they were just born that way. (They were very aware of the deficit, and one overdid it with cologne quite a bit.) They seemed to get along okay, except one kept setting the house on fire by forgetting things in the oven at night (several times, I woke to the smell of smoke, then woke them and we put out the fire together), and the other occasionally ate food that smelled to me like it had “turned.”
My most emotionally charged smell memory is the smell of my grandmother’s library. She had several rooms in the upstairs of her house that were filled with books from the 20’s-60’s, and there was a pleasant musty smell in those rooms as a result (the smell reminds of lazy summers spent hanging around in West Virginia and reading great books). There was a similar smell on the top floor of Strozier, the library at Florida State — so I spent a good bit of time doing my homework there.
posted by Higgins on 10-10-2007 at 9:30 am
The smell of down pillows and down duvets reminds me of sleep overs at my dad’s when we were little.
And for anyone who ever worked in the corn fields, there is a distinct smell of wet corn in the morning. It brings back horrible memories of getting soaking wet with dew, and then detassling the plants for hours on end in the blistering heat.
Lastly, who doesn’t love the smell of Kraft Dinner cooking on the stove??? YUM!
posted by K8 on 10-10-2007 at 9:38 am
The smell of bananas really, really grosses me out. Instant gag reflex. I don’t have a clever little story about why, I simply abhor bananas.
One of my favorite smells is coffee, which is funny because I don’t actually drink coffee, but my husband and father are both addicts… so there you go.
posted by natlynn on 10-10-2007 at 9:40 am
Pipe tobacco! My Grandpa smoked a pipe, and it smelled heavenly – like vanilla and flowers, very sweet and warm, more like incense than tobacco. I adored Grandpa and would follow him around like an itchy butt. Considering the tough life he had, he was a quiet, gentle guy who loved jokes and enjoyed his grandkids immensely, and the times I spent on the porch visiting with him while he had his pipe are some of the absolute best from my childhood.
On a fall evening, when the air was damp, fire places were lit, and you could smell the trees, hanging out with Grandpa on the porch while he had his pipe was a rich symphony that I remember, but haven’t experienced since I was a kid. I actually have dreams where I remember those smells.
posted by Rusty on 10-10-2007 at 9:41 am
Skunk. When I was a kid riding around with my dad in his truck, he’d make a huge deal about it if we came across the smell of a skunk (gagging, acting like he was going to wreck, etc.). Skunk doesn’t smell bad to me; I catch myself smiling when I smell it.
posted by Leslie on 10-10-2007 at 9:47 am
My Dad has been losing his sense of smell for years and is now at the point where he can smell almost nothing. Strangely though he claims his sense of taste has not been overly affected. May be its just wishful thinking on his part but it doesn’t seem to bother him much. He does get a little jealous at times when he’s cooking something really good and everyone else in the house keeps saying how good it smells!
posted by Lisa on 10-10-2007 at 9:52 am
Not STRONG emotionally, but have you ever noticed that all libraries, most churches and all school cafeterias smell exactly alike (at least in America, I guess).
Unrelated, smelling something in a dream is a lot of fun….
posted by Jim on 10-10-2007 at 10:40 am
Here’s a good one for you…ZipLock brand sandwich bags, it has to be that brand, bring back memories of kindergarten. I carried my lunch to school in a metal Holly Hobby lunch box, a bologna sandwich in a ZipLock bag.
posted by Shella on 10-10-2007 at 10:40 am
I grew up in Arlington, Texas, where the original Six Flags Over Texas amusement park is located. Each year, before the park opened for the season, they used to re-top all the walkways with a layer of fresh tar. This being Texas, the tar would soften during the summer months. To this day, the smell of hot tar causes me to think (almost involuntarily) of the park.
posted by Karl on 10-10-2007 at 10:49 am
I love talking about how smells can trigger things, it’s always fascinating to hear people’s stories. Probably the worst smell that I can think of is the laundry detergent that my ex boyfriend used to use. I have no idea what brand name it is, but every time I smell someone wearing it I switch into panic mode. No fun. Dog poop stinks pretty bad, too.
My favorite smells are numerous. The smell of cooking berries reminds me of making jam with my mom every summer, wood burning fire smell reminds me of camping and going for walks in the evening around Christmas time and admiring people’s decorations, cow poop reminds me of home, and that just-rained smell always makes me want to snuggle in a warm bed with a big mug of Earl Grey tea.
posted by Lizzy on 10-10-2007 at 10:49 am
the smell of that hand sanitizer gel, purell or something, makes my heart race in panic. It smells like hospitals, and reminds me of pain, IV’s, drugs and misery. I hate HATE that stuff. can’t use it.
posted by jb on 10-10-2007 at 10:55 am
I can relate to the liking the smell of marshes at low tide. But I really love the smell of the salt air when the wind is blowing in off the ocean. Any time I’m near the ocean I think of home.
Slightly off topic (or maybe not) – the only aura I get before my migraines tends to involve hallucinating smells. Usually something similar to cigarette smoke.
I actually hate the smell of a lot of flowers and perfumes because when strong, they will trigger my migraines.
posted by Karen on 10-10-2007 at 11:01 am
Someone sucker punched my father as he was walking down the street with my mother, and when he hit his head on the pavement he permanently lost almost all of his sense of smell. For the last 25 years he’s been dumping tons of pepper on almost everything. When I was five, he made me lunch, and I refused to drink my milk, even though I’d asked for it. I told him it tasted funny, but he said it was fine, and wouldn’t let me leave the table until I drank it. I refused, and sat there until my mother got home and tried it, and told my dad it had gone very sour.
Now that I think about it, that might be why he never drinks milk…
posted by gibson8tor on 10-10-2007 at 11:05 am
There’s one particular type of perfume a coworker of my mother’s would wear–it was so strong that every baked good she made tasted like it. Every so often I meet someone who wears it and it makes me gag.
I love the smells of most foods except cooked broccoli–I went to a daycare that fed us really overcooked broccoli, and that did it for me.
I don’t mind the smell of skunks–reminds me of garlic–or dead animals. Not to say that I love them, but they don’t really bother me.
I am prone to really bad sinus infections, so most of the winter everything smells bad. I think that makes me eat less over the winter, because last year I didn’t have a sinus infection, and I gained about 15 lbs. I also seem to suffer from SAD, but maybe it’s more to do with the whole world smelling stinky than a lack of light?
posted by frumpiefox on 10-10-2007 at 11:31 am
The smell of decomposing pine needles & open fire- Camp.
The smell of the Grand Hotel original lobby, which is mirrored by the smell of The Burrow at Hendrix College
The smell of an over-abundance of fresh flowers- funeral.
Almost makes me projectile vomit.
The smell of after a fall rain- smells like riding my bike to elementary school.
The smell of pink Johnson’s baby lotion- the nurseries of my children.
The smell of puppies. Yes, they do have a distictive smell-
probably don’t want to know exactly of what it consists …
The smell of firecrackers after popping. Childhood holidays.
The smell of Christmas trees and cinammon and cloves. Happiness.
The smell of gardenias~ & Jungle Gardenia perfume. Ninth Grade English class.
The smell of The Fair (is that just grease??) – and my Dad working the west gate as a National Guardsman all those years.
and
My all-time favorite border-line addiction smell:
Bleach.
Working summers at St. James pool & rec center.
posted by Nancy Nicholas on 10-10-2007 at 11:36 am
Pro-Link chain lube.Mmmmmm.
Seriously, beer, woodsmoke, salt marsh, roasting red peppers, beef short ribs braising in the oven…
I love the smell of lillies, but they do remind me of funerals.
posted by fixedgear on 10-10-2007 at 11:43 am
Many years ago, my then-5-year-old daughter was on my bed and had her face buried in my pillow. She looked up and said, “Mom, this pillow smells just like you.”
Pondering for a moment, she continued: “Yeah, I used to think that was the best smell in the world. Then I found out what GOOD stuff smells like!”
posted by Redddy on 10-10-2007 at 12:08 pm
The smell of tomatoes growing on the vine is the most evocative for me. When I was little, we went to visit my grandfather in another state once a year, at Labor Day. He had a huge garden with lots of tomato plants, the first I had ever seen actually growing. I thought that was just the smell of his yard, but later I realized it was the smell of the tomato plants. To this day, if I am near tomato vines growing, that smell brings me instantly back to Grandpa’s garden on a cool, dewy morning in early September with the bluest sky I’ve ever known.
posted by Ginny on 10-10-2007 at 12:20 pm
Favorite smell is baby animals like puppies or kittens. Most people complain that they smell like Fritos or cheese but I love the smell and try to rub my nose in that downy fur to capture it!
My most hated smell is the smell of Chinatown, NYC in the summer at highnoon. Garbage juices, rotting garbage and fish all cooking in the summer heat. Yum!
posted by Sweet Pea on 10-10-2007 at 12:24 pm
My father lost his smell as a boy. It has affected his sense of taste. He’s not sure if the milk has gone bad since he can’t really taste “sour”. He depends on the date stamped on the container.
He lives in fear of there being a gas leak in the house and since he can’t smell, he won’t know to evacuate. He is also frightened of fires (can’t smell smoke).
Since he has no memory of being able to smell, he doesn’t know what he’s missing, so it doesn’t bother him on a day to day basis.
posted by KJ on 10-10-2007 at 12:38 pm
In 1966 my highschool sweetheart and I graduated and then he was drafted and shipped to Vietnam. We wrote each other so often that I would wait each day for the mailman hoping to get a letter from my sweetie. Sadly, 9 months later his mother was notified that her son had been killed in action. About a week later I received the last letter he’d written me before he was killed. His favorite aftershave was English Leather and apparently before he mailed it he’d sprinkled the inside of the envelope with some of that aftershave because as soon as I opened it, out he came(so to speak)It was quite an emotional experience, both happy and sad at the same time.
posted by Melinda on 10-10-2007 at 12:39 pm
I love the smell of thrifts stores and vinyl shops. They’re really similar, and both remind me of how the best days are those when you can spend time picking around a thrift shop or vinyl store. And you always find good things! I hate the smell of the Axe deodorant, my ex used to wear it and I don’t want to be reminded. Also, beer had the most disgusting aroma I’ve ever had the displeasure of smelling.
posted by Kitty on 10-10-2007 at 1:52 pm
Thrift* stores
beer has*
…I’m off today.
posted by Kitty on 10-10-2007 at 1:54 pm
Old Spice – reminds me of my late grandpa and brings a tear to my eye
Car grease and stock car exhaust – reminds me of my childhood going to the stock car races and sitting in the wrecker with my grandpa
One of my most favorite smells that would probably really weird people out is the smell of puppy breath while they’re still just on mom’s milk. My parents were dog breeders and I was the “nanny” to the litters for many years spending my time after school doing homework in the whelping box while to pups crawled all over me. I miss that so much.
posted by Elaine on 10-10-2007 at 2:02 pm
For several years I worked at a chemical plant that produced flavors and fragrance. The plant made a wide selection of perfume base fragrances and the main flavoring for many packaged foods. Every morning the air around the factory would be filled with some aroma that could set your mouth watering or get the gage reflex going. I looked forward to arrival to the area near work as the aroma could travel several miles on the wind. You would hear truckers on the CB radio telling each other that “I smell bacon cooking, where can I get some?” (That was may personal favorite.) Other aromas included mashed potatoes, malted milk balls, cotton candy, liver (most hated) and even strawberries. The food flavorings always overcame the fragrances for the perfume area of the plant. Walking through the area you could detect roses, lilacs, sandalwood and other perfume base scents. I always thought that the families surrounding the factory never bought any air fresheners.
posted by Owen on 10-10-2007 at 4:25 pm
i had a friendt hat had absolutely no sense of smell.
he never smelled bad, but he also didn’t wear cologne thank god.
he said it had something to do with the fact his mother did drugs while she was pregnant with him.
the fun thing is he would eat absolutely ANYTHING since he couldn’t taste it.
i remember more than one occasion he would eat dog buiscuits or somethign in that vein just for the shock value.
he must have been able to taste SOMETHING, because he clearly had favorite foods, but i’m not sure how that would work not having a sense of smell.
maybe he just liked the texture of certain foods more…
posted by Sue on 10-10-2007 at 4:29 pm
My father lost most of his sense of smell during the Korean War. He put black pepper hot sauce on everything he ate and needed help picking out perfume for my Mom. Other than that nothing extraordinary.
posted by stefyblueyes on 10-10-2007 at 7:31 pm
Those who have lost their sense of smell might want to consider a capsaicin nasal spray.
It seems that several people using the nasal spray “Sinus Buster,” which is capsaicin-based (the chemical that makes hot peppers hot), reported that they have regained their sense of smell, even when it had been lost for decades.
posted by Soni on 10-10-2007 at 10:12 pm
My mom HATES the smell of lavender. The story behind it is that while on her honeymoon in the south of France she and my dad were driving their little rental car down some country road and they passed a field of lavender. My mom got my dad to stop and she gathered lavender up in her arms and stuck it in the trunk. Well, the whole car smelled like lavender for the rest of the trip. The only problem? She was pregnant with me at the time (my parents got married in April, had their wedding reception in May, and their honeymoon in August; I was born in March of the next year) and so was suffering from some morning sickness at the time. So she has forever associated the smell of lavender with the feeling of morning sickness. I, however, LOVE the smell.
posted by greenstrawberries on 10-10-2007 at 10:18 pm
Favorite smells: The Goodwill thrift store- really, almost any thrift store. Wassail, that delectable drink made especially for the holidays. Old Spice Deoderant- my first love wore that and I’ve been a sucker for it ever since. I love the smell of pumpkin patches and the fall leaves in October! But my most special smell memory would be the swimming pool. There’s just something inexplicable about the chlorine that I have loved all my life!
posted by A daily musician on 10-10-2007 at 10:36 pm
Plumerias remind me of my hometown of Kailua in Hawaii. The moment I smelled it comming off of a plane when I went back brought me right home. And I’ve always loved the smell of the earth after a spring rain.
posted by heather on 10-11-2007 at 1:15 am
I put my nose and tongue against my grandmother’s old metal screen door when I was four, and I remember thinking the smell and taste had something to do with death. That might have been connected with how upset everyone was about JFK’s assassination. And once when I was five I was climbing on the high fence behind my grandmother’s garage in hot summer and I lost my balance and fell flat on my back on a stack of dust-dry planks –it knocked the wind out of me; I was sure I was going to die, that this is what dying is like. Since then, when I’m working in an attic or under a house and I smell very dry old gray redwood it stops my breath for a moment, then that goes away and I’m fine for the rest of the job. And I remember hot asphalt and shoe rubber from the playground when I got sick at school in first grade and just lay down where I was; I can smell that now by just thinking about it. On the plus side, there’s the smell of the freshly-laundered white linen blouse of a girl I liked in high school. I’ll be forty-nine in a month, and the smell of freshly washed clothes is still a sexy, happy smell to me. I hate perfume and deodorant and powdery makeup smells and always have, especially in the theater.
posted by Marco McClean on 10-11-2007 at 5:59 am
Vanilla makes me calm and cozy. Reminds me of baking which relaxes me.
Men’s cologne makes me feel creepy. Unfortunately, usually any creepy guys I encountered were wearing too much.
Baby smells: powder, lotion, pampers, makes me feel creepy too. I dont’ care for babies. Kinda has the same effect that clowns have on some people.
:uB
posted by rodenial on 10-11-2007 at 8:48 am
No question whatsoever – for me it’s the smell of one of those cheap plastic Halloween pumpkin buckets full of (or recently emptied of) candy. That artificial, sticky sweet fragrance can make me feel absolutely awesome and happy and just about any time of day any time of the year. Even more so if somewhere in there is the scent of candy corn. Sheer nirvana.
I have vivid recollections of sitting on the front porch with my friends, sticking my face in the steadily emptying bucket and just feeling all blissed out. Can you tell that I have some fantastic childhood Halloween memories?
posted by Mizdeliverance on 10-11-2007 at 10:02 am
My husband had a head injury as a teenager and the resulting surgeries made him lose his sense of smell. He likes his food spicy. He’s very self conscious of body and breath odors. He likes to tease our children when they make some comment about how something smells good, by saying sadly, “I don’t have a sense of smell.” I always want popcorn at the movies and he doesn’t, which we attribute to the fact he can’t smell it.
posted by Snue on 10-11-2007 at 10:19 am
Hoppe’s 9 (a gun cleaner) will always remind me of my dad. He would clean his gun in what we called the “hunting room” at night. I would go in and read him stories like Encyclopedia Brown and we would solve the mysteries together.
posted by Alexandra on 10-11-2007 at 10:48 am
“My Grandpa smoked a pipe, and it smelled heavenly – like vanilla and flowers, very sweet and warm, more like incense than tobacco.”
Rusty, I’ve been trying to describe the smell of pipe tobacco for ages. Thats exactly what it smells like to me! Thank you.
posted by Meghan on 10-11-2007 at 5:30 pm
The smell of a pipe (the tobacco kind) immediately makes me think of my grandfather. The smell of fall is a favorite – something coming from the leaves I think but it’s just in the air. I also recognize a smell as “Florida”. I can’t describe it but sometimes I will walk outside and think “it smells like Florida”.
My grandmother lost her sense of smell due to a bought of scarlet fever as a toddler. I never asked her about it specifically, but I remember that she put orange juice on her cereal, because she was lactose intolerant so couldn’t use milk and didn’t mind the grossness of the combination because she couldn’t really taste it anyway.
posted by Sara on 10-11-2007 at 8:22 pm
Smells usually go the opposite way with me: a smell can (obviously) evoke a memory, but more than often for me it’s a memory that evokes a smell. So I can’t really describe any smells tied strongly to memories, because to me the only way to say them would be that something “smells like December, 2006,” or “smells like going to Changing Hands bookstore with Keera”. Those smells could be anything from lavender to sweat but that’s just not how my mind identifies them.
posted by Ashley on 10-11-2007 at 11:39 pm
I used to have a friend who lost her sense of smell at the age of 8 (she was the victim of a hit-and-run accident while on her bicycle). She chose a lot of her foods based on texture; for example would eat crunchy cereal mixed into frozen yogurt. It’s strange though because she swore she hated the taste of salad dressing and would instead put ketchup on her salad….
posted by xcali-ber on 10-16-2007 at 5:32 pm
I lost my sense of smell about 12 years ago after having a bike accident. Of all the senses I could’ve lost, I’m glad it was that one (doc said I was lucky to be alive!). The thing that the doctors can’t figure out is how I can still taste things – I can taste the difference between an apple and a potato for example. I hope sometime that science will find a way to fix it because I do miss my sense of smell (I don’t know what my wife or my daughter smell like – handy when changing nappies mind you!). Occasionally (every 6 months or so), I get my sense of smell back for a couple of seconds, I don’t know if it’s a remembered smell or it’s genuinely returning. The smell is always in context…
posted by Mark on 11-22-2007 at 7:22 am