What aromas trigger memories for you?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
When I was a kid, on Sundays, I'd wake up to the smell of percolating coffee. Back in those days, drip type coffee making was in the future, everybody used a "percolator", which sent up a cloud of coffee aroma. Whenever I get a strong coffee aroma, I think of waking up as a kid.
What aromas trigger memories for you?
 

fuzzybuddy said:
When I was a kid, on Sundays, I'd wake up to the smell of percolating coffee. Back in those days, drip type coffee making was in the future, everybody used a "percolator", which sent up a cloud of coffee aroma. Whenever I get a strong coffee aroma, I think of waking up as a kid.
What aromas trigger memories for you?
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Hot tar.. when I was very small we moved into a new housing estate, before it was even finished, so there was a constant smell of Hot tar in the air...
 
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JBR said:
A just-sharpened pencil, pine needles, laundry just out of the drier, freshly sawn cedar lumber, masa harina (especially when heated).
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I was once in a luxury house in eastern Toronto, on an Ambulance call. All of the closets in the whole house had aromatic cedar linings in them. What a lovely smell that was. The home owner was a Scottish master joiner and he had installed all of the wood trim in the house , himself. It was a 1920's era Craftsman four square design, with the typical wide windows, multiple fire places, and large rooms.

My own "memory smells " are Hawes paste floor wax, lemon oil furniture polish, and Sunlight laundry bar soap. And the smell of cloves and mustard sauce on a big Sunday ham roast. Later on as a teen ager, it was the distinctive aroma of Castrol "R" racing motor oil, and the alcohol fuel that the super modified oval track race cars burned on Saturday night at the local speedway.

Later as an adult, it was the smell of women's talcum powder, or a nice subtle perfume. Freshly ironed white shirts, and well polished black Oxford shoes, gleaming from the application of the Kiwi shoe polish. The smell after a heavy down pour of rain. Freshly cut grass, lilacs in the spring.
 
CinnamonSugar said:
A shoe repair shop
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Even better, a harness maker's shop. The RCMP horse depot training school in Ottawa has a large room which is where they make the harness and saddles for the RCMP's Musical Ride demonstration team. 32 all black horses, with their riders in the red serge dress uniforms, stetson hats, Strathcona boots, and brown leather belt and holster, riding to music in formations. The Musical Ride tours right across Canada, from coast to coast, every year.

https://rcmp.ca/en/corporate-information/musical-ride
 
Irises. Especially white irises.

When my daughter was about 6, I took her to an Apple Festival. They sell iris bulbs there, and she asked for "a white one".

So I bought her several white ones. She planted them around a tree at our cabin and she talked to them every day, and watered them every 2 or 3 days, and pulled weeds from around them...just generally pampered them.

But e-v-ery got-dam year, just before my little girl's irises were about to bust out with the white blooms, the deer would come and eat them. So I'd rush to a local shop and buy several already bloomed ones - white! - then rush back home and secretly pull up all her raggedy eaten ones and plant those in their place.

I think to this day, my daughter thinks she was blessed with a green thumb for white irises.
 
London Dock pipe tobacco, my Dad smoked it.

Beeswax i once walked into HS gym class after Holiday break and stopped in my tracks, because i was overwhelmed with images of my paternal grandma's house, i felt like i was standing in her entry hall with all its gorgeous dark wood. When i told my Mom about it she asked if the floor seemed freshly waxed. When i said yes, she told me they must have used same stuff G'ma Nell did.

Sandalwood and Amberwood scents. From my wild oats days but still enjoy them just for themselves whether as incense, candles or solid perfume. Gardenias and Roses too. Used to go this little floral shop in Waikiki after work on Fridays if roommate and i planned to go clubbing. They'd have various ones real cheap. I'd put a moist cotton ball wrapped in foil around the stem and pin it in the cleavage of my dress. People would think it was fake blossom till they got close. Most couldn't figure out how i kept them so fresh in the heat.
 
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jet said:
the smell of a new born baby,snuggled in your arms
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I've tried to explain that smell, but it's hard to find words that describe it well. Maybe mothers have an easier time of it, idk.

My baby sons smelled kind of like a combination of oil and like a very fervent soil, but very pleasantly. My daughter smelled exactly like a sweet apple. She also smelled fleshy...the only word I can think of that fits.

And that's without any kind of product....like, it wasn't the baby shampoo or whatever, it's just how they smelled.
 
We loved it when our father came home with a freshly cut pine tree for Christmas. The smell of a bunch of beautiful red roses, Black Boy, I think they were called, in fact any rose. Baby powder. Freshly baked Scones. Coffee just brewed. I can also remember the smell of Perkins Paste it smelt like Marzipan, and last of all the smell of correction fluid (the pink one) we used on a Gestetner printer at work, smelt like ether. Could get quite
high if you did it too much.
 
Mothballs. Grandma's house always smelled like mothballs when closets were opened and Grandma's house was the greatest place to be.

Cherry Blend pipe tobacco. It meant Daddy was home and I loved my daddy.

Johnsons Paste Wax. After the floors were waxed, we got to "skate" in our socks through the rooms.

New shoe leather. New shoes!

The fishy/salty smell of tidal ponds when we'd visit my Virginia grandparents. We'd drive to the beach for the day and when you'd start smelling them, you knew you were almost there! We'd always argue over who smelled them first. It was considered an honor.

Vicks Vaporub. Relief was on its way!
 

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