What smell hits right to your soul and takes you somewhere else?

[FknOmniShambles]

I know the title probably sounds like I'm on drugs or something! 😂
I've had a truly terrible 13 hours at work, stressed to the max, upsetting all round. I'm sitting on the sofa and just opened the window a crack to get some fresh air, and the smell of a wood burner is creeping in.
I cannot explain it but that smell just calms my very soul. When I breathe that smell in I'm literally outdoors in the middle of nowhere, possibly where I grew up, possibly some imagined fantasy world. I am completely free. When I die, I want to be somewhere breathing that scent!
Does anyone else have a smell that has that effect on them?
Once again, I must stress, I am not. On. Drugs. 😂😂 Just been a very trying day!

The wall of heat smell when you step off a plane somewhere hot.

Kneeslikethese · Yesterday 21:36

Dettol. Takes me back to my lovely auntie who was the best person I knew.

What I mean is the smell of dettol reminds me of my lovely auntie who used it to clean, her house was always spotless. It's a good memory.

The smell of our original fake Christmas tree. It smelt like my childhood christmases and every year when we’d get it out of the loft to put up, I’d just sniff it over and over again.
Unfortunately we have a new one now and it doesn’t smell the same.

The smell of old wood that is hot from the sun.
My gran had an old, small kitchen table that sat on her back porch, and it had a very specific smell when the sun shone on it. Straight back to 1976.

Sun tan lotion!

Tomato plants - remind me of my grandparents' greenhouse.

Old gloss paint - probably filled with lead but it takes me straight back to my old dancing school, which I loved when I was a kid. It's a funny institutional smell but I seek it out when I can - usually in our local library.

A smell of fir trees brings me right back to sunny days at my aunts walking to swim in their friends pool.

The smell of a greenhouse, warm, earthy soil smell, tomato plants and geraniums…takes me right back to my Papa’s greenhouse as a child.

Gucci Rush..the perfume I was wearing when I met now DH..brings back all the excitement of first dates and partying hard.

When I smell the Autumn smell I’m transported back to when I briefly lived in Dublin..no idea why as I’ve experienced Autumn in lots of different places but that’s what I immediately think of.

Swimming pool smell 😊

Elnett hairspray takes me back to my friend's bedroom - 8.15am every school day waiting for her dad to give us a lift, listening to "You spin me round" on 12" 😂

I'm so sorry 😞 xx

Taking the lid off a brand new tin of Roses or quality street in Christmases past. Not sure the small plastic tubs with rubbish wrappers have the same effect now.

Tomato plant scent always reminds me of my granddad's greenhouse.

Pipe/cigar smoke ditto granddad

Stuffing mix reminds me of family roast dinner in the 80s

Dried mixed herbs reminds me of the school cookery rooms at secondary.

Log burners. My neighbour has theirs lit now and I can just stand there inhaling for a while.

Years ago after fireworks night,the next morning would smell all smoky.

My mother’s perfume. I didn’t meet her until I was a teenager and though I didn’t remember her, I remembered her perfume. It doesn’t teleport me back as such because I can’t remember being so small, but it invokes feelings of safety, comfort and belonging in me.

I've got three!
Smelling cigars instantly has me looking for my Dad, even though he's been dead 17 years
Being outside and smelling log/coal burners takes me to my grandparents tiny village in Wales
Joop aftershave takes me back to being aboit 16 to 19 when I was going out to the local nightclub and a lot of the lads (i snogged/shagged) were wearing joop

Estée Lauder Youth Dew takes me back to the 70s watching my Mum applying makeup up for a dinner dance on a Saturday night. As a treat she'd put a little dab on my wrist.

DH's dressing gown smells of everything that is home.

Clinique Aromatics Elixir is my Winter perfume and is chilly mornings, warm jumpers and hot coffee.

Warming pine resin takes me back to the Christmas term at school because we had a real pine spruce in our classroom with lit candles.

Dusty books remind me of every old bookshop I've ever been in and is the essence of calm and contentment.

The waft of boiling sprouts coming from houses. My granda used to take us to the deserted park most Sunday mornings and this was the smell from across the street.
He learned me to tell the time and told make believe stories about a witch, sewed the tail back on my teddy bear and had a drawer full of nuts, bolts, washers and string which would keep us occupied for hours making necklaces.

'Condor' tobacco - look up old adverts if interested, takes me right back to the 70's 😔

Young lambs after they have dried off. Sheep in general. Drying hay.

My Mum's perfume 🥺

Salty seaweed smell takes me back to our lovely family holidays when I was a child.

This is such a lovely thread.

A mixture of smoke and paraffin reminds me of walking to work the morning after Lewes Bonfire. They clear all the burnt out torches and rubbish so you wouldn't know anything had happened the night before, except for that hungover smokey smell. It takes me back to being a teenager and enjoying the Bonfires of Sussex.

Creosote takes me back to being pregnant with my son, the smell of creosote was one of my cravings and I could often be found standing by my neighbours fence sniffing.

Shoe polish. My dad had a little study and would polish his shoes in there, and the polish smell lingered for ages. I absolutely love it and every time I smell it I think of him.

Horses. Horse sweat, horse manure, straw. ( one of my favourite smells to this day) Straight back to the insane excitement of my first riding lesson aged 11.

Pine forests in the rain, walking on the wet needles . Holding my Dad's hand as we walked together through the pines in the garden of a holiday cottage when I was about six.

I am sure I will be able to think of lots more!

Smell is the most evocative of all the senses in my opinion.

Smells not associated with a particular memory:

That distinctive smell when a match is blown out
The smell of approaching autumn ( usually detectable end of August). It has a name but have forgotten what it is.