Is there a smell from your childhood...

[Audrey]

that sends you back in time when you catch a whiff?

 

I was walking through the school hallways and caught scent of something that reminded me of the pond my parents brought my sister and I to swim. It smelled like sunscreen and sand.

 

What scent brings on nostalgia for (from??) your childhood?

 

I am very scent oriented, so there are many that bring memories flooding back.  I can often smell who is in the room with me even if I can't see him/her/it. 

 

The smell of gardenia, though, it particularly emotional for me, and will make me tear up.  All around the house in which I mostly grew up, my mother planted gardenia bushes.  They were huge and gorgeous and heady and rich.  It's a rare scent for me now as I live where no gardenias could ever grow, but I did catch a whiff of someone's perfume recently that was very gardenia-laden.  I almost lost it right there in the middle of a conference meeting.  I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to collect myself

[Jackie]

Pipe tobacco. I'm actually quite anti-smoking, but my dad used to smoke a pipe in the evenings. He died when I was five years old and the rare times I get a whiff of someone smoking a pipe it just brings me back.

[HappyLady]

The smell of a charcoal grill makes me think of my childhood because all summer long that's how my parents cooked.  And maple syrup makes me think of my grandmother because whenever I spent the night at her house she put it in my cereal.

[Guest]

Yes, and I LOVE when that happens!

[Slartibartfast]

Dirt, tomato vines, carnations, petunias, pimento cheese, snowball bushes

 

I love the smell of gardenias, there was this silly cheap gardenia perfume that we had as kids but now I still love the smell of gardenias. I like to buy bath things with gardenia in them, it is probably my favorite floral next to carnation. (and I don't tend to like florals) I have a gardenia bush and I just adore it.

 

Sage, juniper, moss growing on rocks, red clay

 

 

 

 

[KungFuPanda]

Lilacs, pine trees, and sawdust. I grew up in the woods and Dad was a carpenter.

[OnTheBrink]

Dove soap reminds me of my grandmother. Her bathroom always smelled of Dove. Old Spice and Juicy Fruit gum remind me of my grandpa. Vinyl toys. I grew up in the late 60's-early 70's and Barbie toys and other things made of vinyl had a distinct odor. I loved it!

 

Love's Baby Soft, Wind Song and Heaven Scent take me back to high school. My mother did wear Emaraude. Do they even still make it?

[Heather in Neverland]

Lilacs. :)

 

We had lilac bushes all over our yard and the smell reminds me of summers in my childhood.

[myfunnybunch]

Sweet peas remind me of visiting my grandmother when I was a little girl.

 

I plant them by my fence every year, just like she did at her house.

 

ETA: Once my sister and I were shopping, and an elderly woman walked by, trailing some kind of perfume. No idea what it is, still, but my sister and I turned to each other and said, "Grandma A!"

 

Cat

[fairfarmhand]

It could have been mothballs. That is what my mother's mother's house smelled like. My paternal grandmother's house smelled like Cashmere Bouquet soap.

 

Tons of smells are connected to my memories. Smells of cut grass, the ocean, cooking smells, limburger cheese in my German friend Bonnie's house, the smell of our canvas camping tent, the smell of Barbie doll hair, lol.

no, not mothballs. Just a sweet smell.

 

Tobacco.  Pipe tobacco.  My grandpa and my Dad were tobacco farmers.  There was nothing like a crisp, fall day on the farm with the smell of the tobacco drying in the barn.  Smelling that always takes me back to the feeling of just being surrounded by love at my Grandparent's house.  They both died long ago and sadly, no one really farms tobacco in that area anymore so it is something I won't be able to experience fully again.  

 

Come to my area in August/September. Our county is one of the top tobacco producers in TN.

My Strawberry Shortcake doll. <3

I still have mine! I love the smell!

[texasmama]

Mothballs remind me of my grandparents.  Mothballs = love in my book.

[Serenade]

There's a certain smell that reminds me of my grandfather's bakery in Germany.  I have smelled it at our local German bakery, but not at regular bakeries.  I have occasionally smelled it in other places, but it is a very rare smell!  It must be a combination of certain types of ingredients.

 

I don't remember much from my Grandfather's bakery, because I only saw him two or three times before he died.  I remember that smell, and I remember being stung by a wasp.  For some reason, there were always lots of wasps in the bakery.  This would have been in the 1960s...

[shukriyya]

Lily of the valley! That is a scent that sings of summer and faeries and bare feet and the expansiveness of childhood.

[Parrothead]

Coppertone.  I spent a lot of time at the beach.

[Farrar]

WD-40 and chewing tobacco - my paternal grandfather's repair shop.

 

Buttermilk and bleach makes me always think of my paternal grandmother.

 

My maternal grandmother's perfume.

 

There's a smell of magnolias mixed with urban heat and mildew - sort of a lush, rotting city smell that I catch a whiff of every once in awhile in the summer that reminds me very nostalgically of my maternal grandparents' neighborhood in New Orleans.

 

You know, there aren't any smells I can think of from my parents or my childhood home that really stand out.  It's interesting that a lot of people mentioned their grandparents.

[pdalley]

Wood smoke takes me back to my grandparent's house. When I smell it I can hear the screen door slamming as yet another one came through the door. They had 13 kids - my Dad was one - and their house was always full to bursting with people and love. 

 

I love the smell of gardenias too. There are many smells that take me back but wood smoke is the strongest.

[SharonM]

Bananas.  This is my start of school memory. My parents raised almost all our food. My mom never had money to buy  fruit like bananas and oranges when we had stored apples and the like at home. My grandmother always bought my brothers and I bananas for the first day of school. To this day when I peel a banana the smell takes me back.

 

Barn smell. Love it, we always had a barn full of animals, Loved the smell and the place. 

 

Cigar/Cigarette smell. My grandfather smoked. I always loved the way he smelled. But not other smokers.

[lynn]

Lily of the valley! That is a scent that sings of summer and faeries and bare feet and the expansiveness of childhood.

 

I forgot about the Lily of the Valley we had a field of them in the spring.  Loved picking handfuls for my mom.

[Hypatia.]

The smell after a candle is extinguished always makes me think of Christmas.  When I was very young (4 and under, perhaps) we would have Christmas Eve dinner at my great-aunt's house with extended family and after dinner, when the candles on the table were put out, we would all move into the living room to open gifts.  To this day I'm always reminded of that when I catch a whiff of an extinguished candle.

 

The slight smell of burning oak when being cut by a saw.

 

My father made custom furniture and cabinets.  The smell of burnt oak always make me think of him in the workshop, the shrill sound of the rip saw, and the vibration from the wood going through.  I spent many, many hours watching him work as I grew up and it reminds me of happy times. 

 

Oh yes, this reminds me of my grandfather!  I would hang out in the garage with him when he did wood-working and I know this smell, just reading your post I could smell it again.

 

The smell of tomato vines reminds me of early mornings picking vegetables from my grandmother's garden.

[DawnM]

LOTS of smells.....

 

Fresh ground corn (from the mill at the bottom of the hill from our house near the falls)

corn husks, smells like the marketplace where we bought our vegetables

charcoal

Passion Fruit, we had a tree in our back yard growing up that I climbed daily 

 

That is the start of my list.

[Rebel Yell]

The smell of a cigarette lit by a paper match. Wish I could remember the brand of cigarette.

 

My dad had a very best friend, Ritchie, who came and sat with him while he was on his home dialysis machine. My parents didn;t like smoking, but ARitchie was allowed to smoke IN OUR HOUSE! I still remember this faithful friend...  so sad both men are long gone now.