It's hard to describe I suppose. First the smell of rain hitting dry stone and dirt, and how that smell slowly swells and then fades as they become waterlogged... Then the heat rises as the thunderstorm comes, and the air itself smells warm and wet.
I don't think I have ever spoken to someone who hasn't experienced the smell of rain on dry soil. Not trying to be rude, or pry too deep, but....uhmmm....how? How have you never smelt that before? It's so far outside my own personal experience, I just don't really understand it.
I have an O3 air purifier, not that I ever run it when I'm going to be in the same room. But getting a whiff on the way to airing it out the room after a session, yeah, I think I do pick up that smell also in very active thunderstorms.
Chemically it's the smell of beet red. Most people describe it vastly differently because the retro nasal smell makes it feel like something else. Pretty interesting if you ask me.
A combination of the smells from my grandfather's shed: sawdust, machine oil and petrol from the lawn mower, freshly cut grass, leather, his pipe tabacco, and just a hint of whisky from the bottle he used to keep in there. He had a couple of old, leather, wing-back chairs in there and sometimes at the weekend after mowing the lawn we'd just sit and talk in his shed for a bit while he smoked his pipe and had a wee dram.
Sadly long gone (he died in the late 80s) but I get hints of it occasionally. Sometimes I'll smell maybe the lawnmower smells in my own shed and my brain will fill in the rest and I'll feel small and safe and warm and comfortable just for a moment or two.
My chicken after she's been dust bathing, or when it rains.
The dust bathing brings in an earthy note to her natural birdy scent. She just smells like a little nature spirit might, if such things were real.
When it rains, she's usually under cover (though sometimes she gets out into it), but she's picks to the petrichor aroma of rain and soil. She'll carry that scent all evening usually, so when she comes inside and is nestled up next to me, there's the normal bird smell, but also that rich aroma that a gentle rain brings, that usually fades quickly.
Mind you, I also love her normal smell, that almost dusty book, nose tickling smell of bird, colored with the mild earthiness and slight tang that's all chicken.
Luckily, she doesn't mind being sniffed occasionally :)
Unburned rolling tobacco in the pack, fresh cut evergreen, a just-opened pack of post-it notes, petrol, the oily/greasy smell of a machine shop, charcoal barbecue.
I’ve got an intolerance to most animal fats, which means I’ve never been able to digest pork. My dad’s got the same thing, and while his case is less severe, he doesn’t eat pork either, so we never had it in the house.
The smell of pork generally and specifically that of bacon are extremely unpleasant for me. I can tolerate it for a while, but it wears on me about as much as high pitched background noise.
Lol mines a bit different. My grandparents aren’t Jewish but they celebrate basically every Jewish holiday (Passover, feast of tabernacles, days of unleavened bread etc) and don’t eat pork or unclean fish and instilled that into me as a kid even though my mom wanted to break away from it (they didn’t celebrate Christmas or Halloween or anything but my mom wanted me to experience that) but it’s the one thing that stuck and as I grew up i just ended up not wanting to eat it and eventually it just grossed me out
Depending on where you are*, it’s a hassle to avoid pork, but it’s honestly not a bad thing for your health, plus pigs are smart. It sounds like there might be other factors involved, but at least the pork thing sounds reasonable to me, lol. Plus Purim is super fun to celebrate.
*I grew up in the US avoiding pork and thought it was annoying. I then moved to Germany and realized the US is very accommodating in comparison
Lol even in prison they’re accommodating out here due to so many people converting to Islam while locked up. A bunch of the meals in the processing facility i was at which is where you get poked and prodded for diseases, mental health issues and determined where you’re gonna end up for the long term were pork based but you just had to say “meat free!” and you’d get a pork free tray. I was pretty surprised by that
I woke up early yesterday and the one and only reason I got out of bed instead of going back to sleep is because someone was cooking bacon and the smell made its way up to my room.
Weird one, but I have pet birds. They smell AMAZING. Just stick your nose right up to their feathers and huff. They kinda smell a bit like corn chips, or laundry dried outside in the sun, dusty and earthy and warm.
Baking bread. The smell right after a summer shower. Books. Diesel exhaust on a cold day. Don't ask on that last one, it's weird I know, but I love it.
The many smells of forests, seaweed when it washes up on the beach, new steam deck vent and video rental stores, I guess I'll never smell the last one again though. I know there are candles that are made to mimic them but they are too expensive.
The way libraries used to smell before they became homeless shelters. Not hating on anyone who needs a warm place to be. Just sucks it falls to the libraries to be that place.
My husband collects action figures. There are ones that don't have much of a smell. And then there are ones that 'bout knock us over with an offputting chemically smell, probably from the type of plastic or paint or both.
Pizza cooking in the oven. Fresh laundry. Slight electrical warm smell of a heater (not burning). Petrichor mixed with city smells. Smell of asphalt in the sun (takes me back to childhood and drawing with chalk with a childhood friend).
Imminent snow, petrichor, the damp forest on a warm afternoon, sawdust/cut wood, ozone during/after thunderstorm, after a fireworks show (burned black powder).
I like the smell of jergins shampoo from like 30 years ago. My mom, who died when I was 23, used it when I was growing up, and I haven’t smelled it in literally decades, but I’d know it if I smelled it again, because it’s impossible to mistake for anything else, but you try really hard to figure out what the smell is. Pretty sure it died in the early 2000s (apparently it’s still available but I have no hope it smells the same, because I haven’t had a whiff in so long.. last time was on a bus around 2002)
It had a very unique… tangy? smell that wasn’t floral or fruity or musky or anything. It was just its own very specific smell. Probably all man made chemicals. But it contains volumes of memories.
Interestingly, I still don’t like her perfume (dune from like 1990-2004). I have 2 bottles of it, and I find it very unappealing. It smells like her, sure, but I don’t like it. I sniff the bottle every now and then, for memories. But they are adult memories. The jergins is childhood memories.
If anyone has a really old bottle of jergins floating around, I’d pay money for it..
No. I appreciate the thought but I feel like most of the people working those places have never smelled the specific and very particular scent I’m looking for, and throwing shit at the wall to see what’s close isn’t a solution because my brain will trick me but it won’t work the way I hope.
It’s one of those lost memories, I think, like when you want the same game experience but aren’t the same person so super Mario 1 is just really hard instead of being fun..?
I got a brief flash of a Ren and Stimpy close-up of a nostril sucking in mothballs, from reading this comment.
But jokes aside, I can imagine that smell becoming a core memory down the road and will hit with instant nostalgia whenever you smell something similar.
I remember the smell of my Grandmother's house every time I hear the song Teardrop by Massive Attack. I'm 9 years old, and I'm watching MTV, sitting on the living room carpet.
Whenever I smell someone else smoking weed outdoors it reminds me of being at a concert or music festival so I legitimately enjoy catching whiffs of it in the wild.
Rain, and then a thunderstorm.
I've never been able to smell them, what's the smell like?
It's hard to describe I suppose. First the smell of rain hitting dry stone and dirt, and how that smell slowly swells and then fades as they become waterlogged... Then the heat rises as the thunderstorm comes, and the air itself smells warm and wet.
That's a really nice description thanks
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Petrichor! Not just a great smell.... also my favourite word!
It's a beautiful word, but for someone unfamiliar with the smell I wasn't sure it was a good word to use.
I don't think I have ever spoken to someone who hasn't experienced the smell of rain on dry soil. Not trying to be rude, or pry too deep, but....uhmmm....how? How have you never smelt that before? It's so far outside my own personal experience, I just don't really understand it.
I meant someone unfamiliar with the word itself. Not trying to make people break out a dictionary.
That’s a great way to describe it. For me there’s also the faint smell of electricity in a thunderstorm, and it’s oddly soothing.
I have an O
3air purifier, not that I ever run it when I'm going to be in the same room. But getting a whiff on the way to airing it out the room after a session, yeah, I think I do pick up that smell also in very active thunderstorms.Chemically it's the smell of beet red. Most people describe it vastly differently because the retro nasal smell makes it feel like something else. Pretty interesting if you ask me.
It's called petrichor - also one of my favourite words.
A combination of the smells from my grandfather's shed: sawdust, machine oil and petrol from the lawn mower, freshly cut grass, leather, his pipe tabacco, and just a hint of whisky from the bottle he used to keep in there. He had a couple of old, leather, wing-back chairs in there and sometimes at the weekend after mowing the lawn we'd just sit and talk in his shed for a bit while he smoked his pipe and had a wee dram.
Sadly long gone (he died in the late 80s) but I get hints of it occasionally. Sometimes I'll smell maybe the lawnmower smells in my own shed and my brain will fill in the rest and I'll feel small and safe and warm and comfortable just for a moment or two.
The smell of minced garlic and onion as they're cooking.
I've heard that some restaurants do this the first thing in the morning just to attract customers.
If my pipe dream of a restaurant/pizzeria/spice shop ever comes alive, I'll be doing this for sure. Because damn, it's a great idea!
Cut grass, gas/petrol, books.. lots of smells really. Some weirder than others :3
Since it's the time for planting tomatoes where I live, I'll also point them out as smelling nice
I hate the taste of coffee but the smell is heavenly
Like walking past a Starbucks.
Or the coffee isle in the grocery store
Same here!
My chicken after she's been dust bathing, or when it rains.
The dust bathing brings in an earthy note to her natural birdy scent. She just smells like a little nature spirit might, if such things were real.
When it rains, she's usually under cover (though sometimes she gets out into it), but she's picks to the petrichor aroma of rain and soil. She'll carry that scent all evening usually, so when she comes inside and is nestled up next to me, there's the normal bird smell, but also that rich aroma that a gentle rain brings, that usually fades quickly.
Mind you, I also love her normal smell, that almost dusty book, nose tickling smell of bird, colored with the mild earthiness and slight tang that's all chicken.
Luckily, she doesn't mind being sniffed occasionally :)
She really is :)
Bird sniffers unite!
The smell of freshly cooked rice.
Unburned rolling tobacco in the pack, fresh cut evergreen, a just-opened pack of post-it notes, petrol, the oily/greasy smell of a machine shop, charcoal barbecue.
I certainly do sir.
Freshly baked bread.
Oh yes that is literally always good
Smelling freshly baked bread is the "seeing a water bottle cold enough to be sweating on a hot day while thirsty" of being hungry
No one is going to say bacon?
I'm surprised it took all day for someone to say that.
I don’t eat pork and the smell of bacon is nauseating to me personally
I’ve got an intolerance to most animal fats, which means I’ve never been able to digest pork. My dad’s got the same thing, and while his case is less severe, he doesn’t eat pork either, so we never had it in the house.
The smell of pork generally and specifically that of bacon are extremely unpleasant for me. I can tolerate it for a while, but it wears on me about as much as high pitched background noise.
Lol mines a bit different. My grandparents aren’t Jewish but they celebrate basically every Jewish holiday (Passover, feast of tabernacles, days of unleavened bread etc) and don’t eat pork or unclean fish and instilled that into me as a kid even though my mom wanted to break away from it (they didn’t celebrate Christmas or Halloween or anything but my mom wanted me to experience that) but it’s the one thing that stuck and as I grew up i just ended up not wanting to eat it and eventually it just grossed me out
Depending on where you are*, it’s a hassle to avoid pork, but it’s honestly not a bad thing for your health, plus pigs are smart. It sounds like there might be other factors involved, but at least the pork thing sounds reasonable to me, lol. Plus Purim is super fun to celebrate.
*I grew up in the US avoiding pork and thought it was annoying. I then moved to Germany and realized the US is very accommodating in comparison
Lol even in prison they’re accommodating out here due to so many people converting to Islam while locked up. A bunch of the meals in the processing facility i was at which is where you get poked and prodded for diseases, mental health issues and determined where you’re gonna end up for the long term were pork based but you just had to say “meat free!” and you’d get a pork free tray. I was pretty surprised by that
I thought about that shortly after I posted my initial comment. I realize it's not for everyone, hope I didn't offend anyone.
Lol don’t worry about it! I totally get most people looooove that smell haha it’s just not for me
I woke up early yesterday and the one and only reason I got out of bed instead of going back to sleep is because someone was cooking bacon and the smell made its way up to my room.
Lilacs
Campfire, and the smell of woodsmoke on clothing the day after.
I love sweet food smells! Vanilla, cinnamon, candyfloss and things like that. My favourite smell of all time is cookies baking.
That first one is called petrichor
Weird one, but I have pet birds. They smell AMAZING. Just stick your nose right up to their feathers and huff. They kinda smell a bit like corn chips, or laundry dried outside in the sun, dusty and earthy and warm.
I so feel that :)
Our birds are chickens, so they pick up the extra smells of grass and soil as well, but there's still that "birdiness" too, and I love it
Pine and fir needles.
Cedar. There's nothing like pulling a blanket out of a cedar chest and surrounding yourself in it.
Baking bread. The smell right after a summer shower. Books. Diesel exhaust on a cold day. Don't ask on that last one, it's weird I know, but I love it.
The many smells of forests, seaweed when it washes up on the beach, new steam deck vent and video rental stores, I guess I'll never smell the last one again though. I know there are candles that are made to mimic them but they are too expensive.
The smell a candle makes when it’s put out.
Cheap old books, when the paper turns brittle and yellow or even orange.
The way libraries used to smell before they became homeless shelters. Not hating on anyone who needs a warm place to be. Just sucks it falls to the libraries to be that place.
Coffee
Real leather, freshly cut wood, most fragrant flowers (especially Lillies, Jasmine, Sweet Peas and Roses), petrichor, garlic, freshly cut grass
Not smelled it since the 80s, but: New Starwars Figures
My husband collects action figures. There are ones that don't have much of a smell. And then there are ones that 'bout knock us over with an offputting chemically smell, probably from the type of plastic or paint or both.
Salty air, leather, books, a wet or dry forest, my cat's fur, fresh bread, my homemade vanilla, coconut scented anything, woodsmoke, fresh snow, & my boo ❤️
Corn chip puppy smell!
Matches (No I'm not a pyromaniac)
Sounds like something a pyromaniac would say
Pizza cooking in the oven. Fresh laundry. Slight electrical warm smell of a heater (not burning). Petrichor mixed with city smells. Smell of asphalt in the sun (takes me back to childhood and drawing with chalk with a childhood friend).
That's a really nice memory 😀
Coffee. Fresh roasted coffee smells heavenly.
Cheese toastie
Well I didn't want to boast but I do smell lovely
Imminent snow, petrichor, the damp forest on a warm afternoon, sawdust/cut wood, ozone during/after thunderstorm, after a fireworks show (burned black powder).
Coffee and vanilla.
There are literally no flaws with either of those smells
Cats. Their natural oils smell like fresh laundry!
Mitti Attar. It's a Indian scent that smells of wet moss, rain on hot sand, a damp forest. Difficult to describe but very alluring.
I'd love to travel to India and smell this.
Sunscreen, sun-soaked basil, and new electronics.
Nothing beats the smell of a subwoofer on its first run.
I like the smell of jergins shampoo from like 30 years ago. My mom, who died when I was 23, used it when I was growing up, and I haven’t smelled it in literally decades, but I’d know it if I smelled it again, because it’s impossible to mistake for anything else, but you try really hard to figure out what the smell is. Pretty sure it died in the early 2000s (apparently it’s still available but I have no hope it smells the same, because I haven’t had a whiff in so long.. last time was on a bus around 2002)
It had a very unique… tangy? smell that wasn’t floral or fruity or musky or anything. It was just its own very specific smell. Probably all man made chemicals. But it contains volumes of memories.
Interestingly, I still don’t like her perfume (dune from like 1990-2004). I have 2 bottles of it, and I find it very unappealing. It smells like her, sure, but I don’t like it. I sniff the bottle every now and then, for memories. But they are adult memories. The jergins is childhood memories.
If anyone has a really old bottle of jergins floating around, I’d pay money for it..
This is a really nice one. Have you tried hitting a big perfume store? Staff might be able to find something similar.
No. I appreciate the thought but I feel like most of the people working those places have never smelled the specific and very particular scent I’m looking for, and throwing shit at the wall to see what’s close isn’t a solution because my brain will trick me but it won’t work the way I hope.
It’s one of those lost memories, I think, like when you want the same game experience but aren’t the same person so super Mario 1 is just really hard instead of being fun..?
Yep I see your point its never going to be quite right.
🍑
@[email protected] they like you best!
He he, I love peaches too, thus my lemmy name.
😁
Creosote on a hot summer day.
Reminds me of the amusement park when I was little. There were a lot of railroad ties used as retaining walls there.
2-stroke mopeds
A fresh bag of weed, especially ones that are high in limonene.
Bit of a weird one, but... freshly peeled parsnips
I could take them or leave them when it comes to eating, but they smell great. Maybe it's a memory from childhood or something!
oil paint, cigarettes, and laphroaig
[but I had to quit most of those]
The first time you fire up a brand new toaster creates this incredible smell that I've only experienced like 3 times in my life.
the Teflon residue burning off?
My sneezes (when I'm not sick)
Summer rain
Petrichor?
Learned a new word today, thanks. Yes.
Coming into the house when it is very cold and snowy outside and smelling bread baking in the oven.
Ocean pine forest on warm summer days when walking to the sea side/beach.
Fresh bread just out of the oven
That crisp smell of cold fall days, just shy of frost.
Allll of my partner. Mmmmm.
Stinky dogs.
They smell like friendship
Cooking bell peppers on a frying pan. Add onions and it's even better.
Lots of nice smells, but I'll just list a stranger one I like. Dry hay.
My girlfriend's cooking
Horse feed. Sweet feed to be exact.
There are these yellow flowers that grow on vines around here. They smell excellent.
I used to taste honeysuckles as a kid.
core memory unlocked
Sun bathed skin, forests(both the humid ones and the dry herby ones), baked bread, lily of the valley flowers, and many other flowers.
Freshly harvested cannabis is my favorite smell, far and away
Grass, lily and petrichor.
Bonus points if all combined :)
Diesel fuel is a pretty awesome smell 🔥
diesel exhaust
The beach.
I'm called Fresh Cut Grass.
Fresh out of the oven bread Coffee Pipe tobacco Cigar shops
New packs of cards when the shrinkwrap is removed.
My grandmother's closet - old wood, old clothes, and mothballs
I got a brief flash of a Ren and Stimpy close-up of a nostril sucking in mothballs, from reading this comment.
But jokes aside, I can imagine that smell becoming a core memory down the road and will hit with instant nostalgia whenever you smell something similar.
I remember the smell of my Grandmother's house every time I hear the song Teardrop by Massive Attack. I'm 9 years old, and I'm watching MTV, sitting on the living room carpet.
My dachshund's feet. Seriously. They smell something like popcorn sometimes.
Chlorine on my skin after going to the pool.
vinegar, just can’t get enough of it
Napalm in the morning.
Bromine. It’s what they treat the water with on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, and the smell puts my mind on vacation
Seaweed
That smell that tells you it's Spring.
Fresh bread.
Gasoline.
Bleach.
That head shop incense smell.
The smell of detergent or fabric softener from a nearby house doing laundry.
Whatever that syrup is they use for canned peaches and fruit salad cups.
I'm surprised no one put crayons on here yet (I don't really care either way but it seems like something that would go on this thread).
The air on a crisp Halloween dusk back in 1988.
roses
Freshly cut Ytong blocks. Ink of ballpoint pens.
Firewood drying in the sun appeals to me, but it's generally a quite mild smell. If there's a breeze, it probably is undetectable.
Pot/weed. I understand why non-partakers dont care for it but I gotta get a sniff whenever opening a new bag
Whenever I smell someone else smoking weed outdoors it reminds me of being at a concert or music festival so I legitimately enjoy catching whiffs of it in the wild.
sweaty partner
Marijuana. And by association, dead skunk (it smells like strong weed/strong weed smells like dead skunk 🤷🏻♂️)
Light BO. A day after sweating at work, great. If you haven't bathed in a week; 🤮
Whatever the Rock is cooking.
Dogs. A place where dogs have been living has such a comforting smell to it. Also their paws smell so nice
Corn chip feet
Stockmar crayons.
Chlorine and florine
Brand new tires