Interesting Smells

Leo

Well-known member
always loved the smell of gasoline (or petrol, as you might say), would always go with my dad to the gas station just to hang my head out the car window and get a whiff.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
Me too.

I think my parents were a little shocked when I confessed (naively) to my love of glue and petrol odours.
 

muser

Well-known member
moss phlox, smells exactly like ganja. As a kid there was an old peoples home that always stank of chronic, I thought either they were being surscribed it or there was someone growing it in there on the sly. Untill a friend worked out it was coming from a plant growing opposit.

After quitting (then cutting down) cigarettes, I have realised all the smell experiences I have forgotten/been missing out on, was getting all sorts of nostalgia, definitiely one of the underrated senses.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
always loved the smell of gasoline (or petrol, as you might say), would always go with my dad to the gas station just to hang my head out the car window and get a whiff.

glad i'm not the only one... even better: car exhaust. always liked since i was a kid... :slanted:
 

rewch

Well-known member
hmmm... driving along in texas (i am a foreigner) i could not place a smell until i said to my wife (excessively stupidly on my part): it's weird but someone is smoking ganja in the car we've just overtaken because i can smell it...

her response: err... no, you're a cretin, that's the smell of a skunk...

(large, very electric light bulb, illuminated)

me, four hours later: so, there's a skunk in the next door garden...

wife: no... that's the neighbours smoking ganja...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Ha, I had no idea 'skunk' (as in weed) was so accurately named.

Edit: I'd heard of skunks, of course, just didn't know they actually smelled anything like the drug...just assumed it was called that because it has a very pungent smell.

One I remember from middle school: acrylic plastic being cut on a band saw smells like 'prawn cocktail'-flavour crisps (i.e. nothing at all like actual prawn cocktail).
 
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Lichen

Well-known member
Betraying my upbringing a bit here, but as a kid I always mistook the smell of cooking aubergines/egg plant for frying chips.

Imagine my disappointment...
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Betraying my upbringing a bit here, but as a kid I always mistook the smell of cooking aubergines/egg plant for frying chips.

Imagine my disappointment...

i love the word aubergine.
almost as much as eating it!
but i didn't like it as a kid either.
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
Personally always dug:

-honeysuckle
-change in atmospheric pressure (or whatever the fuck it is) before a storm hits
-wet dirt
-the oxygen in a forest (usually combined with dirt road)
-actually quite like the smell of scorched hair/fingernails - but really only in tiny doses, its kinda like civet i s'pose...
-smell of tobacco (not smoked)
-pine trees

I don't like the smell of coffee roasting at all, and I cannot abide the smell of 'lynx' or similar spray-on deoderants. (most deodorants smell hideous actually)

As far as notes go, I love:
-cedar
-leather
-musk
-jasmine
-oak moss
-licorice/anise
-narcissus
-gardenia (also love these too IRL)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
When I started work in this office (last day today!) I almost fell in love with this woman who works here because of how amazing her hair smelled. But after a while it stopped, so it must just have been a particular hair spray or leave-in conditioner she was using - bit disappointing. It fucking worked, though! Scent is a big part of attraction, I think, much bigger than a lot of people suppose. I love the smell of my girlfriend's hair. *mammals*
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
Warm asphalt and as the alternative perfumer says "bacon is divine".

If you didn't see the excellent recent three part BBC4 series "Perfume"
it seems like all three episodes are available on YouTube. There's the alternative NY-perfumer, the old English couple trying to bring Victorian perfume (the rich Middle East seems to like it), a master perfumer who lives in the woods in zen-serenity with his assistant, the brash upstarts (Calvin Klein) and a look at how different parts of the world experience smell.

And there's a no-nonsense American old pro perfume consultant travelling around the world checking out smells/cultures. I quite like documentaries like these, giving us a peek into a world unknown to most of us.

Try the first two (or six) minutes of this for starters and then watch the whole thing from the first episode if you like it.

 
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