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Are the most memory triggering sense for me. Mrs nobeerinthefridge runs a brownie group, and is paranoid about paperwork and the kids data etc...
So, I'm outside tonight burning a ream of papers, and all of a sudden I'm back 33 years to cubs on the Isle of arran.
Those were the days.
What's your memory smell?.
Death.
Every time I smell rotting flesh I'm immediately taken back 16 years to boxing day and the discovery of an elderly woman who had been wrapped in viscoene sheeting by the man that killed her 5 months earlier.
rain on dry ground. [/end thread]
rain on dry ground. [/end thread]
Thread's not over until you use the correct word - Petrichor.
[/Now you can end the thread]
Napalm in the morning...
...Oh wait I am getting my threads mixed up.
Iron Sky.
Hot metal.
In my youth I did my apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer, and used angle grinders quite a bit.
So that smell of burning metal.
I get it sometimes when a lorry brakes hard and I can smell the hot metal.
What about the smell of methedrine, Mary?
So that smell of burning metal.
Angle grinder abrasive wheels smell being used, the metal doesn't.
As for brakes it is the pads material that smells which is sort of similar to clutch lining for those that can`t drive properly
35 years in engineering has taught me this.
rain on dry ground. [/end thread]
Thread's not over until you use the correct word - Petrichor.[/Now you can end the thread]
its got a name!?
this makes me so happy.
Eddie, it's a bit of a neologism, but one with solid etymological roots. A delicious word to use.
For me, it's up there with the word "museum". Which means, "Let us think". Which is brilliant.
Every time I smell rotting flesh
Not a phrase I've seen on here before.....
What about the smell of methedrine, Mary?
I believe Lucretia smelt it first.
... like teen spirit.
Virkon S
That was the Ministry approved disinfectant used during the post cull clean up following the Foot & Mouth cull back in 2001. A horrible time and a horrible smell. Will live with me for the rest of my life 🙁
Wax crayons take me back to infant school.
Nice one briggers, thats like the About the Author section of every Pratchett I ever read.
Hmmm.
Actually I did have this recently-a loo rimblock with a perfume I hadn't smelt in, ooh, 20 years? Sounda bizarre, but I was taken back to the house of the woman who looked after me as a little kid. Nutz 😀
Castrol R. Just a whiff of it and I'm 4 years old, stood with my dad at Deer Leep at Oulton Park watching the Gulf GT40's roaring past
Petrol lawnmowers remind me of the smell of the cheap petrol on cold mornings that you see sold at the side of the road when travelling in some countries.
its got a name!?this makes me so happy.
I was working on a fit out in a big city library a while back. One of my crew had given up smoking and was enjoying getting subtleties of smell and taste back. In a conversation 'Petrichor' came up and that lead to further chat about things that we didn't know had names. This led to the question:
"Heres a thing that I've never known the word for - you know when a man and a lady are sharing a bath right? And the man farts and the woman has to try and bite the bubbles.... the word for that."
A library probably isn't the most appropriate for the amount of laughter that caused. 😆
Right, I'll be the first to say gt85.
I don't need to explain the fantastic, experience-defining smell. Fitting your newly upgraded second hand XT rear mech, making your first attempt at servicing elastomer forks and trying to eliminate that bloody creak in the chain set, somewhere, whilst listening to your Mum shout that dinner was ready.
Gt85 fixed everything and frankly, defined the best years of my life.
Petrol.... Smells like the future
Ether.
Oh wait, forget it
I built some stuff out of pieces of Iroco that had been salvaged from a school. I think they'd been the benches in the gym changing rooms. The first job to prep the wood was scraping about 40 running meters of chewing gum blobs off the underside of the planks and as each piece pinged off I was reminded of different rooms in my own school - the school had been expanded in stages over 40 odd years and each room must have had a faint whiff of the dominant chewing gum brand / flavour of their day.
Cutting up old furniture - especially chests of drawers gives off all sorts of emotive smells too - detergents and toiletries from different eras- just for a few seconds after you've cut them.
I was working on a fit out in a big city library a while back. One of my crew had given up smoking and was enjoying getting subtleties of smell and taste back. In a conversation 'Petrichor' came up and that lead to further chat about things that we didn't know had names. This led to the question:"Heres a thing that I've never known the word for - you know when a man and a lady are sharing a bath right? And the man farts and the woman has to try and bite the bubbles.... the word for that."
A library probably isn't the most appropriate for the amount of laughter that caused.
That wins teh interwebz for tonight! Brilliant!
Disinfectant- reminds me of our family home back in the early 80s. Our new dog used to shit on the carpet in various hidden places. Mum would clean it up and soak the carpet in that old disinfectant stuff.
The grass and petrol smell in the garage after the mower goes back on a Sunday. Back to being 10 again.
I was having this very conversation about memories and smells with no3 child the other day. I'd picked him up from school and as he sat down - I asked him why he'd only just eaten his lunch.
He looked at me a little surprised - I said you've only just eaten a peanut butter sandwich. I had to explain my odd reaction to him
They develop a funny smell when they've been in a lunch box. And it's a smell that makes me upset so quickly - it's bizarre.
The smell takes me right back to being very small when my mum left and I was sent to a preschool (that I was too small for), I can remember not speaking to anyone being quite confused and more than anything the smell of peanut butter sandwiches in my lunch box every day.
My kids rarely have peanut butter especially in their lunchboxes - so I haven't smelt that smell for a while. Shocked me how it still all came flooding back
2 stroke oil, always make me think of Bellevue manchester in the 70s
Polyester resin / thinners / filler especially wafting through the air near the river and mixed with salt air.
Reminds me of tinkering with boats and sailing in my teens.
Years ago - think like late 70s / early 80s - there was a craze for scratch 'n' sniff cards. There was a tie-in with some sciency TV show or other, where you'd to scratch the card at the appropriate point as part of the 'experiment.' Might've been Tomorrow's World or something similar.
There was one which confused me, apparently supposed to be "detergent," it smelt vaguely soapy but like no soap my prepubescent nose had ever encountered.
Fast forward to earlier this year, walking across the car park at work. Its an area of varying smells as it's on an industrial park. There's a place that must make soft drinks or sweets of something, every now and then you get a waft of Vimto; sometimes there's less pleasant aromas depending which way the wind's blowing. And suddenly, there it was, that "detergent" smell from the scratch 'n' sniff card, second time in my life I'd smelt it. It stopped me dead in my tracks, and I'm like 8 or 9 again with the Radio Times in my mum's living room, Michael Rodd or Fred Harris or someone on the telly.
Funny things, smells.
Rotting seaweed, the salty, sandy smell when there is loads of kelp on the beach after a storm.
Takes me straight back to being 5 and getting out of the car at the coast at the beginning of the school holidays. Love it.
1. Plywood being cut with a table saw. My dad was always building.
2. A two-stroke lawnmower engine. It smells exactly like the old 70hp Mercury engine on my uncle's motorboat on West Hawk Lake.
3. And of course, freshly mowed grass.
Years ago - think like late 70s / early 80s - there was a craze for scratch 'n' sniff cards. There was a tie-in with some sciency TV show or other, where you'd to scratch the card at the appropriate point as part of the 'experiment.' Might've been Tomorrow's World or something similar.
I'm one of the *whatever* percentage of people who can't smell scratch and sniff cards. They all just smell the same to me and nothing like anything else - just a unique sweet and acrid aroma. Visiting the Yorvik Viking Centre as a teenager where they've tried to recreate all the sights sounds and smells of viking life I learned that the 8th to 11th centuries in Britain smelled like scratch and sniff cards.
Tents.Hawthorn. Wild Garlic. Petrichor (cheers CFH) 🙂
Rain on a summer evening, there is no finer smell in the world IMO.
Bonfires take me back to my childhood home where Dad would burn garden stuff, paper and who knows what else.
GT85 is obviously like catnip for cyclists.
Brand new tyres, they smell like bike shops, specifically Halesowen Cycles where I spent far too much time and money in the early 90's.
Old, smokey pubs, even the stale smell that's left following the smoking ban. My Dad played semi-pro football so Saturday afternoon were spent watching from the terraces then in the social club afterwards. The smell always takes me straight back.
Woodsmoke is very evocative: it takes me back to a VentureScouts weekend in a tumbledown shack at the foot of the Sugar Loaf near Abergavenny, and then 10 years later to the very chocolate-box village I lived in, in the Cotswolds (a whole lifetime ago).
Better than that is the smell of hot sun on skin. Always reminds me of my first girlfriend - and always will.
But no. 1 has to be simple suntan lotion - when I was 19 I worked a season as a canoeing instructor on the Ardeche in France, and the smell of suntan lotion always, always takes me straight back, no matter how incongruous the circumstances.
Vosene shampoo always reminds me of being a kid, fresh tarmac too.
the smell of a privet hedge in flower reminds me of my mum taking me to school (it was a very rare occurrence due to the fact she worked).
Tresor perfume, reminds me on an ex when we first started going out we wrote letters to each other (now that's showing my age!!) And she always sprayed the writing paper with it so when I opened it I just smelt of her perfume I still get it now and again in shopping centers when a woman walks past and I get a sniff I always look just to see if it's her lol
Rain in a forest after a dry period.
Heather on the mountain.
Wild jasmine on a river bank.
A barbecue at the end of a summers day.
Coffee in the morning.
Cow/Sheep shit;
Reminds me of the hours spent working as a young man on an old friends farm. He has now died and the farm is gone but when I'm out cycling I occasionally smell THAT smell and I'm back in his Farmyard with him doing all those amazing, lovely things we used to get up to 😀
I LOVE that feeling.....
Sericol Screen printing ink.
Going into my mums work when I was little, 4 ish..
We still use it occasionally, love the smell.
I am not a solvent abuser..
The woods at night time - a very specific smell which has always brought out my wild side. I have been known to cut short the daytime dog walk so we'll both have enough energy to walk through the benighted woods.
2 stroke. Not smelled often these days but reminds me of my RD350 YPVS. And being a total knob on it.
Tar. Road repairers stuff. Not a lot of it about these days but takes me way back. Nothing specific, just does.
Soles of new slippers. Weird, granted, but reminds me of hot water bottles as a kid. Look a bit strange sniffing them in Tesco mind.
Most have been done:
Freshly cut grass - lived near a massive field, reminds me of young summer evenings.
Hot tar - there was (and still is) a tarmac yard down my parent's lane, Saturday morning would be their delivery day for the weekend work where it normally went to the work site in the week.
GT85 - the smell of the cyclist.
Castrol R - my dad was involved with vintage racing so this was the smell of a lot of weekends in my youth.
Burning electric motors - Scalextric cars do wear out eventually.
Fresh pancakes - Friday was pancake day at nan's house after school.
welshfarmer - now I have a name for that smell, was awful visiting friend's farms and getting the whiff of it.
The two stroke/meths mix they put in Speedway bikes.
Fresh hops being brewed on a cold morning.
Hot 2 stroke fumes, mmmmm 500cc GP bikes
That damp firework smell the morning after bonfire night, takes me back to being a kid "helping" Dad in the garden in November.
Festivals: almost too many olfactory assaults to mention, but the definitive one for me is the smell of those stalls selling hot candied nuts, mixed with a whiff of amyl nitrate.
You don't seem to get it now, but the smell of a new pair of batting gloves. With leather palms, and usually a bit of tissue paper between them to stop them sticking together, they were dusted with some kind of powder as well. I don't know what the definitive smell was, or whether it was a combination of the leather, kapok stuffing and powder, but it had a definite smell. It was also the smell of Blakes Sports in Reading which was the only proper cricket shop in Reading when i was growing up.
I smelt it again fairly recently but i haven't a clue where. But it takes you straight back.
Castrol A545, takes me straight back to my 89 Stan Stephens tuned RM250.
I like the smell of October
Makes me drunk as **** and high on mushrooms and acid, being taught to cook chicken fried rice in a Belizian woman's kitchen with Hallowe'en and bonfire night shenanigans and scrumpy looming giddy and primitive into my periphery
As someone has said, cow shit. Takes me back to teenage years working on a dairy farm on weekends and holidays. They were my second family.
It's closed now 🙁
+1 for rain on a summer evening, preferably at the end of June when everything is still green and lush and the faint smell of the tail end of Spring is still in the air.
Oh and Lace by Yardley. Twenty six years and four months later I'm taken back to the arms of my first g/f during that endlessly hot summer of blue skies, adventure and all night parties.
plastecine...reminds me of primary school
The combination of GT85 & new tyres - my first Saturday job, spannering in the LBS when I was 14.
Putting a shot of Jack Daniels in my coffee - my room at Uni as a fresher.
Uncatalysed petrol exhaust fumes - any of the family cars we had when growing up, but mainly my Dad's Scimitar when he used to pick me up from school on a Friday afternoon.
2 stroke + the pop pop sound of a Lambretta.
Happy days
The smell of Calamine Lotion takes me back to having Chicken Pox. The smell of it gives me the dry boak to this day.
Interesting how many people remember natural smells and how few remember perfumes; I guess that's because you can't smell the old classics any more as the EU has outlawed many of the more interesting ingredients for supposed safety reasons. Brut doesn't smell much like Brut any more, sadly, since certain key synthetic musks were banned.
And the man farts and the woman has to try and bite the bubbles...
Errr...Pac-Manning?
Linseed Oil . Those summers when we were all 8 - 9 that lasted 3 months and the sun came out everyday and time seemed to stand still, the amount of fun that could be fitted into one single day was pretty monumental. Cricket was sometimes on the agenda if there were enough of us around.
Cold Tar Soap. See above
Izal Toilet paper . See above but 200 miles away at my grandparents
Stormhaven scout tents. Ours were proofed and always had a distinct smell of damp canvas and chemicals. Unique .
boiling crabs takes me back to a caravan in France when I was 6
the EU has outlawed many of the more interesting ingredients for supposed safety reasons
Is that actually true?
Freshly opened cans of Tenants lager... zooms back in time
Wintergreen/deep heat : rugby glory days
Our flatcoat retriever: past shooting days
Anstruther harbour: .......
Anstruther harbour: .......
......Coach parties of pensioners? 🙂
Hot bike engine/oil smell, takes me back to 13 years old and I had bought a Royal Enfield super meteor from a ted who lived in Ewell. it had that hot oil smell when it got hot.
The smell of a real Christmas tree in the house immediately takes me back to my family home as a child.
I'm going to add two here:
The Sea, this has a certain evocative "tang" to me. It's hard to explain but easy to recognise. There is a freshness to the spray that pops off the bow, and a sort of humid warm ambiance that exits the stern.. hard to describe I know.
And.
Low water estuaries, the sulfur tang, the damp atmosphere and the salt all equate to one of the most memorable smells in the whole world. Once I smell it, I know I'm at home.
Peat fires.
zing: back in smalltown Ireland, c. 1987. 🙂
Oh, and two things that remind me of my childhood - Tea Roses immediately take me back to being a kid in my grandad's garden. And creosote on a sunny day - whoosh, sensory overload and time travel 🙂
Art shops - pencils and oil paint and lots of unbleached paper - heaven
[i]the EU has outlawed many of the more interesting ingredients for supposed safety reasons[/i]Is that actually true?
Yes. I work in the industry and we now have no fewer than five chemistry graduates doing nothing other than safety compliance, including calculating the maximum permitted dosages of all the 3000 raw materials in our formulations when used in leave-on or wash-off products. With all the sub-formulations used it can sometimes take the computer several minutes to work out all the levels. Many great raw materials like nitro musks and polycyclic musks have fallen by the wayside and are no longer allowed, which is why perfumes are becoming more and more samey.
Warm maram grass on the edge of sand dunes. Brings back my very happy yearly holidays in North Norfolk as a young kid. An associated sound was that of skylarks whilst sitting warm in the sun in the shelter of the dunes.
Castrol R in a slightly different context to the above, at Old Warden watching and smelling the rotary engined aeroplanes as a 10 year old.
Stockholm tar from old sailing vessels I visited as a kid
How many people experienced a vivid olfactory hallucination at the suggestion of a smell?
The strongest I had was when reading 'plasticine'... Still lingering now, thanks 🙂
Castrol R in a slightly different context to the above, at Old Warden watching and smelling the rotary engined aeroplanes as a 10 year old.
Old Warden still smells like that to me at times - because my brother lives there with a rather large collection of vws and assorted other motorbikes . . . I'm not sure everyone else in the village appreciates his collection!