Scents that whisk you away...

[alorotom]

Sat in the docs waiting to get a mole checked and a young lady walks in wearing the same perfume/scent that me ex-wife used to wear when we first met, back in 2000ish when we used to go clubbing most nights ... I was instantly cast back to a haze of nightclubs, ferry corsten, Pete tong, Sasha and Paul Oakenfold!

Blimey what a flashback! Crazy how something so simple can work and effect you!

[Robbo 27]

Guerlain Mitsouku, a favourite perfume of my ex.

The smell of the sugar beet works in York, mixed with Novemeber mists. This meant that Christmas was coming.

[GiveItSomeWellie]

Opened my old race bag which contained an old race suit, race boots and various other bits that have been sitting in the loft for nearly 15 years. The aroma of 2 stroke oil, rubber and the smell of the suit itself took me straight back to suiting up in the back of the motorhome, and all the memories associated with racing. Good times.

[sunnygym]

Pine trees, reminds me of the summer holidays camping in Barcelona at a campsite called the albatross. Good times !! Sadly not there anymore as it’s been all knocked down to make way for hotels.

[ApOrbital]

Horsest reminds me of my ex.

[MikeT66]

Apparently our sense of smell is the closest to the memory part of the brain, which is why memories are easily triggered.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/brain-babb...

High octane fuel, wherever it is reminds of my first time at the Goodwood Revival, 7.30am, a very cool September morning - and the first cars being warmed up in preparation for the day.

Locomotive oil - takes me straight back to playing in a scrap yard for old trains when I was about six years old.

[KP328]

Hope the mole was nothing serious OP.

A couple days ago someone was mowing a lawn and the smell of freshly cut grass took me back to when i worked on a Golf Course.

[Pieman68]

Ink. The smell of a new book or a newspaper takes me back to my childhood and is thoroughly comforting

Dad was a typesetter and mum a binder in the printing industry so fairly obvious link

[Dr Doofenshmirtz]

The smell of pine trees always whisks me away to a warm summers evening in a European beach town.
Bonfire smoke always takes me back to one particular Scout camp and a small group of us sitting around a fire cooking beans in the can. Happy days.

[J4CKO]

[quote=MikeT66]Apparently our sense of smell is the closest to the memory part of the brain, which is why memories are easily triggered.

/quote]


Yeah, I read about that and it made total sense, stuff you see or hear seems to involve a bit more int he way of having to try and remember, but you smell something evocative and the memory just appears.

Feu Orange air freshener, being in my dads Capri as a kid in the seventies.

Tarmac, playing at my friends house as a kid, summer with windows open and some men patching the road, the smell of tarmac wafting through on the breeze.

Fish and Chips, going to my grandparents on a Friday night

Pipe smoke, my grandad

Japanese car interiors, my 350Z smelt very similar to when next door bought a brand new Silvia 1.8 Turbo auto in 1986 and my aunties Nissan Cherry

We got a bar of soap at christmas that was some spicey concoction and it took me back to my first day at school as we had a similar bar and I used it when I had a shower before going, not the usual Imperial Leather or Shield.

Diesel, reminds me of my dad coming home from work as a kid

Uncatalysed car exhausts are very evocative

[Trophy Husband]

The smell of proper muffins cooking takes me back to the kitchen of my pen pals house in River Falls, Wisconsin (I'm from North Wales).

I went there for a month when I was 8.

When I smell them I can immediately envision the kitchen of the house.

Strangely, unless I smell them, I cannot remember what the kitchen looks like. I've just tried.

[KrazyIvan]

I can't walk past a fish mongers without thinking of Emma Scofield in 6th form...

[boyse7en]

KrazyIvan said:

I can't walk past a fish mongers without thinking of Emma Scofield in 6th form...

Did she work there?

[toon10]

An ex from college days who I was mad about used to wear a cheap white musk perfume. I'm sure it was a Boots special or something but I whenever I smell it I'm taken back to driving through Northumberland country lanes in my old Suzuki, stopping off in lay by's for a quick fumble and then blasting out old Indie tunes. It triggers me more than any expensive perfume. In fact I recall a few years back smelling the same scent in the Metro Centre and then realising some frumpy middle aged woman was the source of the smell. Gutted.

[Steamer]

Robbo 27 said:

The smell of the sugar beet works in York, mixed with Novemeber mists. This meant that Christmas was coming.

That’s a good one!

Exactly the same around Kidderminster..

... always in air when Christmas shopping trips started

[BigMon]

Pears soap takes me back. It was my Grandma's soap of choice all through my childhood.

[cobra kid]

Two quite vivid ones;

White Musk - reminds me of my first proper girlfriend. Happy memories.

Bizarrely the smell of my arms - reminds me of the smell of my dad when he cuddled me as a child.

[alorotom]

KP328 said:

Hope the mole was nothing serious OP.

Thanks, referral to a specialist for piece of mind but my GP doesnt think its serious or anything to worry about

back o/t I vaguely recall hearing the links to memory before but its fascinating

Swarfega and (a very very faint) Carbon Tetrachloride remind me of my dad, he has been lucky with the latter as its a massively volatile carcinogen and he used to use it so liverally for all sorts of stuff!

[Riley Blue]

A freshly ploughed field; always takes me back to rural Lincolnshire in the '50s.

[putonghua73]

The eau de toilette that I have in my work bag at the moment (am out later): Ralph Lauren - 'Safari', original bottle from 1996! I still have a little left. Unfortunately, due to various requirements - legal and otherwise - to reformulate scents, buying the same bottle now would result in a completely different scent.

I also have 1/3 of a bottle of Calvin Klein - 'Obsession' from 1998, as well as 1/3 of a bottle of Issey Miyake from the same period. The latter's floral scent has definitely diminished with time.