I love lists. And I love learning about you guys. I'll share mine if you share yours! These lists are inspired by Listography Journal: Your Life in Lists. If you're a list lover and you don't own it yet, go get it. Now.
1. Cilantro
It's fresh, it's grassy, it makes me feel healthier just smelling it. (I should buy this, right?)
2. Laundromats
The smell of heat, and clean, and cotton. With notes of hot metal. They smell safe to me.
3. Lake
This is what home smells like. When I was in Nepal last year, I spent a lot of time in Birtamod, a landlocked border town totally lacking in lakes. One day a fishmonger stopped by our house, carrying a yoke with buckets on each end, filled with water and freshwater fish. The wave of homesickness that hit me when I smelled those fish and that water was almost physical.
4. Coffee
3. Lake
This is what home smells like. When I was in Nepal last year, I spent a lot of time in Birtamod, a landlocked border town totally lacking in lakes. One day a fishmonger stopped by our house, carrying a yoke with buckets on each end, filled with water and freshwater fish. The wave of homesickness that hit me when I smelled those fish and that water was almost physical.
4. Coffee
This is what morning and productivity and independent adulthood smells like. I didn't grow up in a family that drank coffee and I didn't own a coffee maker till I was 25 and living in Taiwan. Whenever I brew coffee and drink it, I feel like a Grown Up.
5. Wet dirt
Because it means spring and gardens and all sorts of wholesome things.
Tell me your favorite smells (and what they mean to you!) in the comments!
photo for sale here.
5. Wet dirt
Because it means spring and gardens and all sorts of wholesome things.
Tell me your favorite smells (and what they mean to you!) in the comments!
photo for sale here.
I love the smell of rain falling on a hot road in summer.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love the smell of smoke, because it reminds of being at the snow (because I'm an Australian meaning that a) fires are rare everywhere else, and b) 'the snow' is a place you can go to, rather than just something that falls all over the place).
A great list. I was thinking of smells this morning that I love as I sharpened a new pencile. Love that smell, and rain in a forrest, and eucalypts burning and freshly showered men. And like you, coffee and fresh laundry.
ReplyDeleteOh Peta I so agree with rain on the hot road in summer, it is sort of fresh and alive whilst being cozy as well, it's kind of magic.
ReplyDeleteIn the same aussie summer vein I love the smell the bush gets when its super dry, the eucalyptus has almost an acrid quality to it but it just feels like home. I smell it and in an instant it captures all my summers.
Books, especially old ones, flicking the pages and breathing in the scent is pure comfort, it is where I feel safe.
Geraniums. They, along with lavender, remind me of my nan and her garden. She heard a story that in the olden days the important ladies would line the garden paths with geraniums so when that their skirts would brush past them and release the scent, giving gentlemen callers the impression that she naturally smelled like a delicate appealing flower. My nan decided told me to be a lady you have to treat yourself like a lady so she placed geraniums in her garden in places you would naturally brush past them. Their scent makes me feel like royalty.
i don't smoke or drink coffee myself, but my parents and grandmother did when i was growing up so those smells are "childhood" to me.
ReplyDeletealso, basements (that old stone scent), particularly if there are bicycles there (rubber). i always thought that if i were to compose my own scent it would be a combination of a bicycle basement and a blueberry muffin!
Oh, I love all your favorite smells. I think my list would look like this.
ReplyDelete1. Freshly baked bread/toast. This is what home smells like to me. (My mom baked a lot of bread when I was growing up.)
2. Garlic. Guaranteed to make me say "Oh, it smells so good in here!" when someone is using it to cook.
3. Old books (like Arlina). Dusty, worn, definitely comforting.
4. Sun block. But only for that first week or so of summer, when it's new again and signals making it through another winter. By July, usually, I hardly notice it.
5. Lilacs. Just because!
YES YES YES to the smell of coffee. The weird thing is, I don't actually like drinking coffee (unless it's in the form of a flavored Starbucks latte, but that doesn't really count). But I LOVE the smell of coffee...it's so comforting! Also, the smell of a campfire is one of my favorites...have yet to find a candle scented like that, though :P
ReplyDeletetangerines: i have a visceral happy moment years ago where i was on a beach adventure with my mom in a little southern island town, something was blooming and i leaned in at this little store and smelled tangerine soap. it embodied that event, that happiness, the simplicity of my life then. everytime i eat citrus of any kind i save the peels and hide them in coat and purse pockets so that i may smell them again at a later date.
ReplyDeletenewspaper. i'm a writer (an obviously verbose one at that). there is something calming about the smell of paper and ink. my dad used to leave out the comics for me when i was little and visiting him in the summer. he would read the entertainment section to find something for us to do that day while dunking chocolate chip cookies in his coffee. i'd eat my cereal and read the comics. i always associate that smell with calm mornings where anything could happen by the afternoon.
saltwater. i am a southern girl. the drives from my landlocked town rife with blooming fowers and citrus into to the coast for fresh seafood and decompression time...that moment when you see the emerald green line of the ocean appear between the pine trees and smell the saltwater...it's magical.
fresh earth. gardening, my grandmothers, playing in the yard with them as a child building faerie houses out of tomato cages. that fabulous rich earth scent is intoxicating.
puppy breath. sure it's a little stinky; but mostly it's sweet and smells like milk. they can't tell your nose from their mama's teet and you get covered in little sweet milk-scented puppy kisses. dear god, it's the most relaxing and innocent thing.
Favorite Smells:
ReplyDeleteFreshly Baked Bread, warm from the oven, because it smells like hearth and home and family and comfort)
A pot of homemade tomato sauce bubbling on the stove because my family is Italian, so see above :)
Woodsmoke, because it smells like safety and coziness and agelessness
Lake Water, because it smells like RELAX
Ocean Water, because it smells like adventure and eternity and possibility
Summer Rain, because it smells like cleansing and renewal
Freshly turned/tilled dirt, because it smells like new beginnings and the Land
Fresh Laundry , especially if it’s been line-dried outside in the Sun :), because it smells like warm weather and cleanliness and HOME
Freshly-Showered Man (RRRWAWWR ;)
Suntan Lotion, because it smells like warm and summer and vacation and beach and long days outside
Books, because they smell like history and familiarity and knowledge
Coffee, because it smells like Morning and a Fresh Start (I don’t really drink coffee, I’m more of tea person, but I love the smell :)
The smell of a Summer Night, because it smells like Magic :)
I could go on and on from here, but that’s plenty for now :)
shaving cream!
ReplyDeleteI love the smell of basil, Body Shop's cranberry body butter (and the strawberry one smells great, too), cherry bakewells and garlic bread.
ReplyDeleteI love:
ReplyDeleteLake smell! Cool, clear, clean, tinged with pine and sand and fish. Spending summers at my parents' cabin.
Lavender! Reminds me of my grandma's house and smells so sophisticated to me.
Dog paws! They're a mix of Fritos, vacuum dust, and caramel corn.
Books! Dusty, old, leatherbound, new, paperback, I'm not choosy.
Hawaiian Tropic (coconut). Summer!
Foods: garlic, cilantro, oranges, lemons/limes/grapefruit, Mom's spaghetti sauce.
Flowers! Peonies, Asiatic lilies, lilacs, hyacinth, geranium
Bed sheets dried in the sun on a clothesline.
Coffee is one of my favorites, too, even though I don't drink it. It smells like the beginning of a new day.
ReplyDeleteCigarette smoke reminds me of my mom. I'm not sure if she'd be happy about that, but she's smoked for much longer than I've even been alive, so whenever I smell smoke I think of her.
I love the smell of ice cream shops. Usually it's the places that make their own waffle cones. There's no sentimental value for this smell, it's just amazing ;)
Gardenias! When I was little and would visit my Grandparents in Florida every winter, there was a man in their neighborhood who had a gardenia bush out front with a little bucket for nickels because it was 5 cents a sniff. Smelling the flower always reminds me of being a carefree little kid when thrills cost a few cents.
ReplyDelete-Janice
glass-halffull.org
oh YES! i love a nice, warm scent of a laundromat. the smell of a boyfriend's neck (must be the pheromones or something?!), anything with pumpkin baked into it, and lavender!
ReplyDeleteTomato vines! They smell so spicy and delicious, and they always remind me of my grandparents' garden
ReplyDeleteThe smell of smoke from fireplaces remind me of cozy Christmases in my hometown.
Old books and libraries smell delicious. Gah.
I don't know what exact smell it is, but the smell of the California forest is amazing. I grew up here in Cali, so it reminds me of being a kid. I wish I knew which tree/plant gave the woods their particular smell!
The smell of jasmine flowers makes me think of warm nights here in LA. They grow all over the place! I wish I could find a perfume that exactly replicates the smell of real jasmine.
Awesome lists! I love the wet ground smell, coffee and cilantro as well. I also like the smell right when it starts to rain and it's been warm out and concrete gets that weird smell. I also like the smell of horse poop. I used to think that was weird until I heard a lot of people like it. Also, my fiances deodorant.
ReplyDeleteI've always had a thing for the smell of creosote and petrol (which probably makes me totally weird). And not together else "bang!" explosive!!
ReplyDeleteSarah
http://acatlikecuriosity.blogspot.co.uk/
neroli/jasmine/rose blend...whoa
ReplyDeleteroses after the rain has just stopped...
coconut oil...
the ocean...
the smell in a yoga studio...
pumpkin/cinnamon...
real vanilla...
the smell of pineapples coming up from the earth, sitting in the sun...
ganja, in the raw...
the smell of the rainforest.
Rain on asphalt in the summer.
ReplyDeleteCold air with a hint of campfire smoke in fall and winter.
Chocolate and jasmine tea year round.
The library because it smells like adventure!
ReplyDeleteCinnamon and nutmeg because they remind me of fall (my fav time of year)
Newborn babies because they smell so fresh
The smell just before or after a rain.
ReplyDelete"hot cat." When my cat's been lying in the sun. It's probably really just cat sweat and gross, but I like it.
New shoes. Doesn't matter what kind.
Raspberries.
Pine needles.
lists! <3
ReplyDeleteOrange blossom - there is a bush of this just blooming round the corner from me = bliss!
loaf of bread in the oven - my mum was always baking
stores at work which house the old books
the coconut after sun cream - reminds me of holidays when I was little
I just have to say that recently I spent quite a bit of time browsing the Demeter Fragrance website, and I came across this...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.demeterfragrance.com/704251/products/New-Zealand.html
It made me think of you and your home away from home!
(So you wrote the perfect post for me to comment with this without sounding super weird!)
-Cedel hairspray. My grandmother has worn this hairspray since she was sixteen, and the smell of it always makes me think of her.
ReplyDelete- The smell of my boyfriend. Particularly the musky, minty-smoky smell that hits my nostrils when I nuzzle my face in this collar bone and sniff.
- Summer rain, because it reminds me of walking home from school in the weeks leading up to school holidays.
-Playdoh.
Freshly cut grass
ReplyDeleteFreshly baled hay
Pine forests
Lemon blossoms
Vanilla
Freshly-brewed coffee
Leather (particularly horse tack)
Horses have an amazing smell, just in the crease, behind their cheekbone, where their head and neck join. It gives me goosebumps :crazy:
1. Feijoas - I don't like eating them but I love the way they smell.
ReplyDelete2. The smell of a lamb roast cooking.
3. My baby's head after she's had a bath.
Coffee
ReplyDeleteLemon
Basil
Rain on hot asphalt (this is probably number one)
I agree with wet dirt and I'll add the smell of earl grey tea, jasmine plants and my boyfriend's cologne :)
ReplyDeleteI have partial anosmia - I can perceive very few smells, so I've never really made that kind of sense memory. It's never really bothered me (I didn't even know that I was essentially missing a sense until I was about 12), but I do wish I could smell flowers or the ocean.
ReplyDelete1. Hot glue guns, reminds me of Christmas.
ReplyDelete2. Estee Lauder lipstick and face powder, smells like my mother's face.
3. Greenery / forests, I live in the Pacific Northwest, this is what home smells like.
4. Chinese food, my boyfriend lives above his parents' restaurant, my dog and I enjoy the smell on his clothes.
5. Theatre fog machines, end of the year dance recitals are a fun time.
6. Basil. My family's Italian, enough said?
1. Pink Sand (Yankee Candle), reminds me of my best friend who I miss dearly
ReplyDelete2. coffee, always make me feel warm and fuzzy inside (:
3. my grandpa's farm, I think back to when I was a little girl and would ride horses on his farm and play in the creek and didn't care what was going to happen the next day
4. rain, smells clean and natural
5. fresh mowed lawn, I think to when I mow the yard and the feeling of satisfaction when I'm done and see a nice green yard ::)
6. lavender
7. clean sheets, when I was a kid and my mom would fix the bed and right before she would put the clean sheets on the bed I would try and get under the sheet before it hit the bed and she would tickle me silly!
1. Wood fire
ReplyDelete2. Lavender
3. Figs
4. Peaches
Believe it or not - Fried Chicken. We'd visit Texas and grandparents in the summer and Grandma Inez always made a huge batch of fried chicken for us on our first day or so there. When I smell that greasy, chicken-y delicious-y smell I am instantly transported.
ReplyDeletePetrichor ( /ˈpɛtrɨkər/) is the scent of rain on dry earth.
ReplyDelete