2w ago

What's something you love the smell of?

148 comments

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.
  
  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
- Same here!
- Like walking past a Starbucks.
  
  Or the coffee isle in the grocery store

The smell of freshly cooked rice.

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 :)
- Bird sniffers unite!

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.
  
  I thought about that shortly after I posted my initial comment. I realize it's not for everyone, hope I didn't offend anyone.
- 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.

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.
- Do you like Scotch or Mezcal?
  
  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

Lilacs

Campfire, and the smell of woodsmoke on clothing the day after.

The smell in the air after a rain on a warm spring day.
The smell in the air of wood smoke on a freaking cold winter day.
- That first one is called petrichor

I love sweet food smells! Vanilla, cinnamon, candyfloss and things like that. My favourite smell of all time is cookies baking.
- Have you ever toasted sugar? I have recently powdered toasted vanilla sugar I made and it smells incredible (toast first, then vanilla, then powder in food processor)

Cedar. There's nothing like pulling a blanket out of a cedar chest and surrounding yourself in it.

Pine and fir needles.

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.

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

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.

Cheese toastie
- Well I didn't want to boast but I do smell lovely

Coffee

Corn chip puppy smell!

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.

The smell of fresh tea when the package is opened.
"Stinky tofu" when passing the street carts selling it.
Freshly-made lard-cooked french fries.
A "strong-scented" baijiu.
A good Indian restaurant, that moment you walk inside and breath.

Real leather, freshly cut wood, most fragrant flowers (especially Lillies, Jasmine, Sweet Peas and Roses), petrichor, garlic, freshly cut grass

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 ❤️

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

Matches (No I'm not a pyromaniac)
- Sounds like something a pyromaniac would say

Coffee. Fresh roasted coffee smells heavenly.

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 😀

Sunscreen, sun-soaked basil, and new electronics.
- Nothing beats the smell of a subwoofer on its first run.

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.

🍑
- @Peaches@lemm.ee they like you best!
  
  He he, I love peaches too, thus my lemmy name.

Cats. Their natural oils smell like fresh laundry!

2-stroke mopeds

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..?

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.

Coming into the house when it is very cold and snowy outside and smelling bread baking in the oven.

Allll of my partner. Mmmmm.

My sneezes (when I'm not sick)

A fresh bag of weed, especially ones that are high in limonene.

oil paint, cigarettes, and laphroaig
[but I had to quit most of those]

Stinky dogs.
They smell like friendship

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?

Cooking bell peppers on a frying pan. Add onions and it's even better.

My girlfriend's cooking

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.

Lots of nice smells, but I'll just list a stranger one I like. Dry hay.

148 comments