I smell my childhood

Instant coffee with irish cream creamer (reminds me of the General Goods canned one)

The wood soap smell of church pews

Juicy fruit gum

Tomato-something cooking in the kitchen: Swiss steak, spaghetti sauce, chili, etc.)

Creosote pilings of the pier

Food smells. Like when I came into the house and thought I smelled spaghetti and meat sauce and found out it was really pot roast. Eww.

The smell of those dill pickles they used to have in a big barrel in the supermarket. The smell of black pepper. The smell of the insides of my cupboards in the basement smell like my grandparents house, it’s so comforting I like to get supplies out of there. It’s a woody scent.

Chrlorine, my grandmas perfume and lavender

My mom used cloth cunt rags and would fling her dirty ones in the bathroom sink. It was so disgusting

My Proustian moment is grade school cafeteria. I always took a bagged lunch I but can still smell it. Did not matter what they served, it always smelled the same.

We lived in San Diego when I was in 5th and 6th grade (Navy brat). I had a jasmine bush outside my bedroom window. If I left the window open at night, the room would fill with the scent of jasmine. Smelling it now instantly transports me back there.

Like the OP, Coppertone will also take me back to my youth (even though it's not quite the same smell anymore).

Definitely original Coppertone

The smell of plastic like inflatable beach rafts and tubes, Colorforms, my cheap sunglasses I'd get every year

Gasoline - reminds me of filling the tanks for our boat

My Nana's house on the weekend. Even if it was 98 degrees in the summer she'd be cooking up a storm and the kitchen windows would be all steamed up.

Sourdough starter (for bread), the scent of fresh cut wood in my Dad's workshop (he makes furniture and art), the sage brush in the evening when the heat is cooling off, heavy scent of chicken manure on the hottest days, all the good dinner smells when my parents would finally get around to cooking each night.

Brut aftershave on a man with a hairy chest and open shirt. Coppertone and Sea and Ski lotion and the bronzed men rubbing it all over themselves and each other = sex on the beach. Those smells defined my puberty.

Vicks Vapo-Rub

Pine-scented Christmas candles

Flash powder from firecrackers

Plastic fumes from pool floaties and such

Pussy from the bathroom

I learned how to use commas when I was a child.

R13 so did I. I typed it out like a list hitting return between each item but this is what you get

When I was little, the home of my best friend smelled like a combination of her mother's gardenia perfume and her father's pipe tobacco. I still think it's the most wonderful thing I've ever smelled.

Billy

Mimosa Flowers

My dad's Aqua Velva (mom wore Chloe but that didn't make much of an impression)

My grandfather's fried chicken

My other grandfather's baked chicken

My grandfather’s hideous shit odor after he used the bathroom

The smell of 'caps' that were in play guns we had when I was a kid.

Walking to church on a Sunday morning, with my altar boy cassock over my arm because I always served at an early Mass. The smells that came wafting out of all the open windows, because so many nonnas were up early making gravy(tomato sauce) for when the family came to dinner.

It was my 'job' to help my own nonna make gnocchi, I got to line them all up as she hand-rolled each one. The warm(almost yeast-y) smell of the warm mashed potatoes mixed with flour is still firmly embedded in my brain.

The smell of Summer rain hitting hot asphalt after an extended dry spell. No grass on the mean streets of South Philly unfortunately, so I don't know if the technical name for it, petrichor, applies.

Being at the A&P with my mom and loving the smell of coffee beans being ground. I can still see all those red, yellow and black bags(mom always bought the red one)

Going into the many stores that sold imported Italian products and marveling at all the different aromas, some of which were rather unpleasant. Open barrels of pickled this and vinegar that. Cheeses and salami(some funky and some pleasant) hanging above my head, swinging every time the shop door opened.

Definitely Sea&Ski lotion, and the cool, mineral-y smell of Noxzema for when we'd get a sunburn.

My mom changed armloads of clothes every season and stored them in specific bags hanging in the cellar. When she'd zip open those bags the overpowering smell of mothballs came right up the steps and smacked you in the face.

Horseshit. There were a lot of mounted police when I was a kid(a stable was only 2 blocks away) and Abbott's Dairies delivered with a horse and wagon(so did the Javelle water man) Every third block or so had a stone watering trough for the horses. Some of the old-timers would go out and scoop up those 'roadapples' to use as fertilizer for their tomatoes and peppers and eggplants.

Vicks Vapo-Rub (nod to R11)

Mothballs (thankfully, one doesn't smell those that often nowadays)

Anas Anas and Shalimar perfume.

The smell of a pipe.

Clorox.

That specific smell that a high school locker room has.

Noxzema cleansing cream. When I was small, my mom would wash her face with it before coming in to tuck me in. She would kiss me and I'd smell the remnants on her skin.

Heavy clouds of weed for most of the evening between 6pm-10pm. My Dad grew his own and sold to a high end "candy shop" in Newport Beach. 2 nightly joints enjoyed my parents along with my Mom's long-ass brown More cigs.

Yum LOL

Pine cones. Pineapple. Pine box.

My bf’s crotch n ass when I was 11

Chanel #5, cigarettes, hairspray and the plastic purse my mom used to make me dig through to find her zippo lighter.

Pine trees and barbecues--summer trips to the Sierra Nevadas every year were the only happy times in my childhood. The rest smelled like mental illness and teen sprit.

*spirit* Still can't get anything right.

Smelling a new box of crayons takes me back immediately.

Play doh, the plastic from toys

Cookies.

Cooter n' cray! Love y'all, want some money?

Lestoil

R21 I liked the smell of Anais Anais, or however the hell it's spelled. My mom wore it. The locker room smell gave me the barfies.

R19 Noxema was a good call. Now I want some. I also can smell the asphalt after rain.

The smell of our Motorhome. I did not like it.

The smell of bees certain stinky bushes always covered in bees.

The overall smell of our house. Everybody's smells merging.

Concession stands

Hot lunch, especially elementary school hot lunch. It reminds me of my very unhappy childhood. As an adult, I had to go to an elementary school for some random reason many years ago. The smell of hot lunch hit me hard, and made me feel lonely and sad for the rest of the day, even though I was with friends. It was surprising (and yet so obvious-it’s science) that a smell could affect me like that.

Cigarettes smoked in a closed car with the heat on. Never smell it anymore, but as a young adult, it would take me back to being a kid. Ugh.

I smell my farts

Mr. Bubble bath soap.

[quote] Hot lunch, especially elementary school hot lunch. It reminds me of my very unhappy childhood. As an adult, I had to go to an elementary school for some random reason many years ago. The smell of hot lunch hit me hard, and made me feel lonely and sad for the rest of the day, even though I was with friends. It was surprising (and yet so obvious-it’s science) that a smell could affect me like that.

I ate hot lunches on and off but it's the smell of PB&J and Pringles, packed by my mother, that remind me of my most unhappy school years. I didn't like either food (using the term loosely) and there was nothing else to eat for the entire school day.

Cod Liver Oil. It tasted even worse.

Double Bubble gum

Hot sun on the redwood trees

Fog. It smells gray and damp.

Grandpa's cigar. He let me smoke one once. I didn't like it.

Grandpa's 7&7, which he let me sip and I liked.

Elementary school.

Eucalyptus sap on your shoes

Mom's White Shoulders perfume. Loved it.

Grandma's fox fur stole, Mom's ratty beaver coat.

Dad's workshop. Oil, metal filings, solder, and grease

Mama’s mussy of a hot summer day

R40 should have sprinkled arm & hammer baking soda on it

It’s hard to explain, but distinctive. The smell that emanated from dad’s 8mm projector as those small porn films were warmed by the projector bulb. I played them frequently in my suburban bedroom walk-in closet with the door closed. The smell was intense and I’ve associated it with erotica. I think I was about 11- pre-pubes.

Ass.

R42 nasty

Big Daddy’s chaw.

I grew up in the city but the smells I remember most were from our backyard, and they were fresh basil and clover. Both scents bring me right back to that yard every time.

[quote] You should have sprinkled arm & hammer baking soda on it, r40

Doesn’t that make it writhe, like a slug in salt???

lol

My man is sports minded and I am too. I’m the submissive.

Is that the beginning of a personals ad?

r39 - are you a Bay Area kid?

Stale Beer, sweat and failure.

R51 I am and I also remember the smell of redwoods

Fried dough at the carnival

Rubber cement

The overpower scent of Old Spice at church

The antiseptic smell of the pediatrician’s office. Doctors offices don’t ever have that clean smell anymore

I still live here (SF). Planted two Redwoods in my backyard for privacy in 1993. They're 35-40' tall now (oops...) and smell great when the fog is thick and drizzly. There's a grove of Eucalyptus behind my house that smell great on a hot Indian Summer day. Grew up in the East Bay, and coming over to the Coast always meant the scent of Redwood, Eucalyptus, and clammy, damp, ocean detritus.

My grandma’s Youth Dew: church on Sunday and nights out like birthdays and anniversaries.

Our family business sold tires among other things so that new-tire smell takes me back.

This is a great thread but it’s making me a bit melancholy.

R54 I try to recreate that smell of the doctor's office. Actually, it was the dentist's office I most recall. I liked that smell. Lots of alcohol

Hexol cleaning solution—for that hospital smell at home!

Beautiful thread, OP. Thanks for starting this. Some of these posts are pure poetry.

For me, sunshine on scrub pines + summer sweet blossoms + Coppertone = late summer on Cape Cod = best days of childhood.

I'd forgotten about Sea&Ski!

Great thread idea,, OP. A few smells that take me back to early elementary school. Paste (the kind we had before they let us use Elmers glue), the powdered hand soap in the bathroom and honeysuckle. Childhood summer evenings were cut grass, charcoal grills and that foamy OFF.

Lilacs.

Reading this thread has made me realize that I was wrong to think that the smells I associated with Christmas brought back my childhood the most.

Nope. It's the smell of summer lilacs in all their poignant, melancholy, brief glory.

R61 me too. I can get misty when I think of Waltman's line:

"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed"

Gets me every time

Rain on hot concrete.

Dried blood and rotting flesh.

The combination of spun cotton candy, pizza shops, and other places mixed with the scent of the cool sea breeze from nights walking the Jersey boardwalk

I want a cotton candy machine, for a day at least.

My childhood was in the late 90s, so the eldergays and slightly younger than might find these relatively standard smells.

Freshly popped popcorn from a department store like Target or Walmart Smell of wonderfully seasoned beef cooking from a Casino steakhouse. Elizabeth Arden's Red Door, which my mother and grandmother adored. It smells lovely, I agree, but I think it's kind of a frau scent today. A good dark roux for gumbo or creole-style stews. Any kind of woodburning fireplace smell reminds me of childhood vacations in the Smokies, back in the 2000s. And my parents' woodburning fireplace before we changed it to gas logs.

The wood in the attic was that old heated wood scent that you get in a very old house. I hadn't smelled that since childhood, but when my partner and I were house shopping, the one house we chose was partly because the attic has the same smell. It really took me back and it still does.

First and foremost the smell of chlorine since my summers were spent largely swimmming in our above ground pool. Prell shampoo and Irish Spring soap. My father’s Old Spice. Crayons and paste. . Mimoegraphed handouts in school.

r57 You are right re: the dentist's office. That very distinctive odor was Eugenol(oil of cloves) I guess dentists don't use it anymore?

Meth and crack

nothing brings me back like burning leaves

When I was 11 and entering puberty my mother bought me Speed Stick before I went to the school dance. I felt so grown up. But years later my mother cursed that she could tell I was starting to smell like a teen boy and the deodorant helped. Good thing I had it on during the dance.

I sometimes still buy that and it takes me back to that dance and all the girls I danced with... Before I discovered I was gay at least!

It’s interesting, the visceral reaction that smells evoke.

On second reading, this thread has made me sad. A lot of these smells don’t exist any longer, for good or bad.

The good memories are so longing. The smell of a lost family member, a long gone friend, a food not cooked and a place not visited any longer.

Years ago I realized the line of Aveda’s Chakra fragrances emulated childhood-one smelled distinctly of Lincoln Logs, another exactly like Play Dough, and a third mimicked Johnson & Johnson Shampoo. They were too close to be accidental.

The truth is International Flavor & Fragrance develops synthetic fragrances- that are often interchangeable, and used commonly in many wildly different products. The luxury Kerastase shampoo smells exactly like Arm & Hammer’s carpet fresh powder.

Movie theater popcorn, new puppy smell, shoe polish, the foul odor of grandma’s home perms

Just reading everyone else’s memories reminds me of smells from long ago.

Here’s another- patchouli oil from when I was in high school

Herbal Essence shampoo

Peanut butter - we used to have PB&J sandwiches for lunch in elementary school

Hai Karate and Old Spice - my brother (RIP) wore HK; Dad wore OS. I can't remember how many years these were the Christmas gifts they received since I didn't have a job and others bought them and put my name on the gift tag.

Lysol in the brown bottle - My Mom didn't believe floors and bathrooms were clean unless she used it. For some odd reason, I bought a bottle when I moved into this condo 23+ years ago. I think I used it twice. We also used to bathe in it in the Summer. One capful per tub full of water. Mom believed it would kill any germs we might have from unseen scrapes and scratches. We spent 90% of our summers outside.

Clothing hung outside on line to dry - It was an amazing smell, especially on clean sheets.

Not sure about this last one but it DEFINITELY stunk up the house. I think the dish was called Chicken Fricasse or chicken something. I don't know what she was doing to the chicken but it definitely really stunk. It was delicious, though.

Candy bars and packaged candies in shops and gas stations. I recall that the smells blended into something generically candy, but also that you could detect "notes" of Zagnut, Clark's Bars, Reese's Cups...

Petunias. Geraniums. Marigolds. I liked the at once repulsive/attractive, medicinal smell.

Roses. Peonies. Spirea, Lilacs. Intoxicating or sickening, I could never predict the reaction.

Rain. Growing up in the countryside there were specific smells: the petrichor, definitely, but also the smell of rain on certain plants or crops, the initial smell of a rain stirring up dust from a long dry period, rain on oak leaves different from rain on maple leaves or on pines, rain absorbing into ancient and sun-baked wood o outbuildings, releasing a hint of their earlier purposes.

Crayons, peanut butter, and industrial cleanser in the elementary school

My grandmother's Aliage perfume and strawberry Crystal Light (both of which she kept in the fridge)

Vanilla 3-wick candles, which were all the rage one Christmas in the late 90s

Those brown NuVinyl seats on the school bus

Purple/grape-flavored Bubble Tape

R51. Yes, plus summers in Santa Cruz.

Freshly mowed grass. It would give me allergy fits but I loved the smell.

Chocolate cookies baking - yes, I was a cookie smeller!

The smell of the handsome next door neighbor's aftershave.

Blackberries that grew wild along the road - we'd pick them every summer.

Visiting my grandmother and waking up to the smell of waffles cooking while laying in bed and listening to morning doves cooing. Our mom only made full breakfasts when we had company, so this was a real treat. (In case you've never heard morning doves cooing, please listen to the attached.)

Was just thinking about this topic browsing the Judds thread. Half of my family lived in Tennessee during the 80s and 90s in the Judds heyday and I was remembering the scents and feel of that era. Food on stove mixed with scented cleaner. Old Spice. Mary Kay makeup. That side of the family are musicians so acoustic guitars were strummed on a sprawling wrap-around porch. Earthy smells of the farm and gardens wafting through. Life comes and goes so fast.

My mother's giant jar of Dippity-Do.

Prell shampoo.

Mercurochrome, used to cuts and scrapes from crashing my bike, a banana seated Schwinn knockoff from Montgomery Ward.

Dentyne gum.

The smell of gasoline, as we waited in the car for the gas station attendant to fill our station wagon, and the Windex (or whatever generic window cleaner) he used to clean our windshield.

Lincoln Logs. We couldn't afford those, so I had to wait to go to my cousin's house to play with them.

My father's pommade. He used it every morning in our tiny bathroom, before we'd all get in the car in our pajamas before my mother drove him to work downtown.

My mother's Mum deodorant.

The smell of chemicals used in photo developing take me back to the summer of being nineteen and enrolled in a photography class. I loved being in the darkroom watching the images appear in those trays.

R86 I love the image of all of you piling into the car in pajamas to take your dad to work. Life was so simple then.

R85 your last line is so poignant and agree. We want so badly to grow up but now I'd like to turn back time and see my dad again and others. I imagine old friends on our doorstep/porch just knocking but we've been gone forever.

R89 I teared up after writing that comment. Remember the laughter? The easiness of it all?? When you are young you have no idea while going through it how bittersweet and distant it becomes. Mary!, but I would give anything to see everyone in the same room again.

R90, yes I do. That cacoon of family is a comfort I've yet to find as an adult. I can see why people want to believe in an afterlife and a return to everybody in that room once again. This old jaded queen teared up too.

R89 OP

Well smell you

What a wonderful post, R19!

Our family doctor had his own pharmacy. It had this odd chemical/medicine smell that permeated the building. For some reason I think it was Vitamin B. Maybe I asked him.

I would have too.

Breast milk

R90

MARY!

MARY!

but a loving, understanding

MARY!

Prell Shampoo is a good call. I still use it. Whenever I see it in a shelf, I pick up a bottle. The smell of it when it lathers takes me back. Noxzema Skin Cream Witch Hazel Cinnamon PopTarts in the toaster Aqua Velva After Shave Palmolive Soap Clearasil Burning leaves the Fall Chalk Brylcream ( a little dab'll do ya) Locker rooms Bactine

re [R97] Sorry for the single spacing.

I remember the smell of the little dive where my dad would go for beer and mom and I would get Cokes and some pizza. The pizza was basically a salt lick with some red sauce and pepperoni LOL.

The spring smell of the "cum" trees. We've had threads on it here as to what tree it is (argued almost as passionately as Hellmans vs Dukes) but it's one of the one that flowers early, in April, and it truly smelled like a freshly blown load.

Roadhouse whiskey on Ralph’s breath

Funny how we don’t seem to remember the stench of dirty diapers, sour milk left in bottles too long, and jars of baby food or soggy Cheerios. I wonder what age our brains start to connect with good memories.

Some mothers cleaned, trash.

comma clean 🧼?

The smell of books, especially old ones. I really miss that. I also remember sneaking my mother's Calgon into my baths on occasion and smelling like a tropical paradise. My dad cooking up a pot of soup or meatloaf. My dad's work smell at the end of the day. My mom's vaseline intensive care body lotion. Coppertone. The smell of our linen closet. Ivory soap.

Johnny McGinley in the 1st floor boy's bathroom in St Bridget's school in East Falls. He smelled like a man

He was 14 yrs. old....

Grandmothers old english lavender soap. I still buy it occasionally to remember.

I rarely smell nostalgic smells now when I go anywhere. Since I'm still wearing my mask, all I smell is fragments of whatever the place smells like. I miss experiencing that.

Camay soap

Sandalwood burning

4711 Eau de Cologne

Musty (yet, oddly comforting) smell of old books and LPs

Car exhaust, from waiting behind the ice cream truck with the other kids. I very rarely smell exhaust that bad now with my state's emission standards.

Sea&Ski

Ha! r82, I went to UCSC -- mostly because of the Redwoods.

Gardenias in the evening outside The Mum's bedroom window.

Go Banana Slugs!

White Shoulders, mom's favorite.

Freshly mowed grass and that carries through to today.

R82 I grew up in Aptos and Santa Cruz....what a lovely place it is!

My uncle's scrotum

r105 where did you smell him, exactly?

citrus, strawberries, the santa ana winds, the ocean air....

crab miso stew and leftover catch at the harbour. . .

hot corn and cheese on cold sunday mornings...

semen and skunky weed.

A coffee can full of broken crayons that granny kept.

Ice from the freezer ice maker that always had a weird smell even when freshly made.

r86 I remember the joke phrase about Mum Deodorant: Mum is a centuries-old word meaning to keep silent. Using Mum(I clearly remember the iconic white porcelain jar with the shiny red metal lid) was admitting you needed it so people would say "Mum's the word, keep it under your arms"(instead of the very well-known admonition for someone to maintain secrecy: "Keep it under your hat."

Another vote for lilacs- there was a stand of three lilac trees-purple, then white, then purple again— outside my bedroom window.

The pavement after a rain squall on a hot day

My dad’s cherry-flavored pipe tobacco

The chlorine-and-danger smell of the huge high school swimming pool that was our daily escape (aka “Open Swim”)

Everyone in my family always farted in my face but I loved it.

Skin bleaching and oil sheen.

the Margolyes fart comments were semi-funny the first time, but now, after the same, insipid shit in pretty much every thread, can't you give them a rest? FFS.

The smell of leaves burning in a pit in the back yard, when it was still ok to burn leaves.

The smell of my grandfather's cigars, and pipe.

The smell of new paint and freshly varnished floors on the first day of school, regardless of the grade or the building...always the same, ALWAYS depressing.

Scott's Emulsion, which was poured down our throats no matter what the ailment was...it cured everything.

We had a pool in our basement, and twice a year, they'd do a chemical shock, after which the whole house smelled of Chlorine, to the point that your eyes and sinuses would burn for two or three days.

The smell of tears on my pillow.

R125, I also was forced to drink Scott’s Emolusion; any idea what it’s made of? I even had to swallow cod liver oil. Just torture.

You can still buy the stuff, but they add flavors now...it seems to be mostly frothed-up cod liver oil. Ughhhhhh

Burnt birthday candles.

Sunscreen

A certain type of soap

Chamomile tea that my mom would pour on our hair (cold) to lighten it in the sun.

Santa Claus farting in my face always takes me back to childhood paradise.

My GREAT grandmother's perfume: JOY

Play-Doh

Bubble gum

Purple mimeograph ink

Chalkboard erasers

Tinker Toys as you pull them out of the cardboard "can"

Baby oil and baby powder

Sea Breeze astringent

Waking up to coffee brewing a la Mr. Coffee

The smell of the shithouse in Calcutta during July and August with those awful flies buzzing always buzzing around the piles of flop! Oh my mind! Help me recover!

The most memorable smells of my childhood were library books and video rentals, which have a very similar smell. It's a mix of old paper and plastic. My elementary school sort of smelled like this as well. I went back in to see someone who worked there a few years ago and, the moment I walked in, the smell hit me and I wanted to cry. It was really overwhelming.

I also think about this horrible generic Lysol my grandparents used to keep in the bathroom in case someone took a really smelly shit. It barely covered the smell and always made it worse by mixing in its own awful scent. It wasn't scented like a flower or Christmas tree or something pleasant. It smelt like plain old chemicals.

Jack, Scotch, Bourbon, Cognac

New York Subway trains

Was the other scent cinnamon or clove R57? They were both very present in tooth polishing compound and would linger.

Old books.

School handouts and tests created using spirit duplicators.

Hai Karate aftershave.

Honeysuckle bushes.

Movie theaters.

Comet.

Canadian Club and Canada Dry ginger ale.

My aunt's lasagne.

Boy balls. It hit me after opening the zipper of my best friend. Age 13. I was hooked.

My uncle's ball sack.

The nuts roasting in the candy department of Sears.

Use Lume

[quote]The overpower scent of Old Spice at church

r54, thank you for mentioning that. The moment I read it, a wave of nostalgia came over me. Oh, Mary! But that is exactly like what our church smelled like.