Smell + Memory
Whenever I smell a damp room - you know, that musty smell that you get in old buildings - I'm transported back to being ten years old and in the Brownies. I only lasted a few weeks because I was taller than the Brown Owl and they hadn't a uniform that would have been decent for me to wear so I left.

What odd smells fire up memories for you?
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 18:29, 10 replies, latest was 17 years ago)

Scotch tape
which you lot refer to as sellotape has a distinctive scent that I always associate with wrapping Christmas presents.

I once brought some dirt from my parents' place home with me. One sniff of it instantly took me back to mornings sitting by the lake watching the mist.

The smell of fresh tar brings me back to my grandparents' house on the Chesapeake Bay, where they used tar to preserve the docks and breakwalls.

And the smell of cigarette smoke mingled with seafood and cheese reminds me of JMG's mum.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 24 Feb 2009, 18:53, Reply)

Coal smoke.
I was brought up in a smokeless zone and the smell of coal smoke will always be associated with my holidays spent in Snowdonia at my grandparents place.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 18:58, Reply)

I was going to say something disgusting ....
and then I remembered that's Bert's job so.....


It has to be the smell of fried eggs and moth balls that reminds me of my nana's house. She had moth balls everwhere. I never actually saw a moth the whole time I spent at her house and we would always have fried eggs on homemade barmcakes every Sunday morning.
( girlinthehole, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 18:58, Reply)

There's a particular sweet meaty smell
that instantly transports me back to when I was very little and we ate Uncle Bob.
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 19:02, Reply)

I'd have to say the smell of curry.
It reminds me of when I was a child and my mum always used to make curries, vindaloos, naan breads, samsosas, pilau rice, etc.

I was sick to flipping death of the stuff! I longed for the days, when she'd make fish fingers, or spaghetti.

But, it does remind me of home....
(The Stig, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 19:03, Reply)

Pheremones
They turn me on, and remind me of all the other women who had similar pheremones.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 19:27, Reply)

Spakka,
Have you been sniffing the vick rub again?

;)
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 19:45, Reply)

Onions and garlic
always conjours up memories of when mum used to make the beginnings of spag bol for tea when I was little, and then I'd eat like three bowls of it.

And then she'd come home from her food tech course to let us have a lolly she made herself.
(Poppet some assembly required., Tue 24 Feb 2009, 22:21, Reply)

Napalm in the morning
smells like victory

*gets coat*
(knackerz is skinning up, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 23:44, Reply)

2 stroke
My Dad always used to take me to the Speedway when I was a kid. The smell of 2 stroke always takes me back to when I was five.

A few years ago I went to a few races, and I was five years old again.

Marvellous. Except I fell over, scraped my knee and had to be given an ice cream to shut the fuck up.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Wed 25 Feb 2009, 0:40, Reply)