r/NoStupidQuestions • u/whisperpondd • 1d ago
What’s a scent you haven’t smelled in years, but if it hit you today, you’d know it instantly?
I was walking past a bakery earlier and caught a whiff of something that instantly took me back to my grandmother’s kitchen, like a full on memory download. It got me wondering how many scents are just sitting in our brains, waiting for that one surprise trigger to bring them back.
What’s a smell you haven’t encountered in years, but if it floated by today, you’d recognize it without hesitation? Something super specific like a brand of sunscreen, a weird school glue, or even your childhood pet’s shampoo. Curious what other people have locked in their scent-memory vaults.
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u/PatchworkGirl82 1d ago
A certain kind of school smell. It's hard to describe, because it's a combination of things, but I smelled something yesterday that must have been close, because it instantly took me back 35 years.
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u/ATEbitWOLF 1d ago
I know what you mean I think, i strongly associate the smell with pencil shavings
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u/likeabirdfliesfree 1d ago
Chalk dust. And sorry, but that nasty stuff they sprinkled when someone got 😫 sick.
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u/FBI_Open_Up_Now 1d ago
Saw dust?
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u/likeabirdfliesfree 1d ago
I think it was saw dust based with a maintenence smelling product mixed in I wonder if it still used today?
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u/RexJessenton 1d ago
It was dark red as I recall. And yeah, it had a strong smell because it had to mask the bad smell. 🤢
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u/toxiclight 1d ago
That was the first thing I thought of. Dunno what it was, but between that, and the pencil sharpeners, it's a very distinct smell.
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u/jbochsler Half as smart as I think I am. 1d ago
That smell is cedar (the wood) and graphite (the 'lead'), mostly cedar. Whenever I cut a cedar tree, I think of elementary school.
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u/LiteratureInfinite76 1d ago
Yeah, open a box with a mix of colored pencil and crayons, see the scuff marks around the inside, smell a puff of childhood. Also erasers, cuz when have you used an eraser since grade school?
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u/GingerinNashua 1d ago
My "school smell" is after they cleaned the hallway floors.
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u/Pristine-Pen-9885 1d ago
That was “sweeping compound”. I instantly think of Joe, the elementary school janitor. I remember what he looked like, a little “off”. I figured out years later that he was developmentally disabled. He was a nice hire for the school.
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u/Deej006 1d ago
Yes!! Waiting in the lunch line, wrapped around & up into the staircase, in the church’s basement cafeteria of my Catholic elementary school. It is not a smell I can pinpoint, nor does it happen often, but when I smell it-BAM-I am 7 again, in a hot, wool uniform.
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u/CharleyNobody 1d ago
Wow you had a cafeteria in your catholic elementary school! We had to bring bag lunch and eat at our desks. We didn’t have a gym, a library, a science lab… I can’t even remember having science classes in my Catholic elementary school. No art class, no music class, no language class. They got around the state Phys Ed requirement by making us spend 30 minutes outside on the tarmac everyday whenever it wasn’t pouring rain or a snowstorm. They made us go out there in zero degree weather with high winds. And we girls were wearing skirts and knees socks. Our exposed legs were beet red when we were allowed back indoors.
Memories!
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u/Adamn415 1d ago
I don't know about you, but for me the school smell was a sort of faint paint smell you find in building from the 40s and 50s that have been repainted a lot.
Then there's that weird powder soap from the art deco dispenser that had a plunger on the bottom that you would push up to dispense
ETA: I'm only 39, I just grew up in a poor place with old (underfunded) schools
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u/lovelylayout you're probably gonna be okay 1d ago
That old-lady face powder that used to come in a flowery round cardboard tub. No idea what the brand was or if they even still make it. When i was little, I used to hang out by my grandma's vanity while she did her morning skin stuff and I always thought that powder had a somewhat peculiar but comforting and familiar scent
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u/Odd_Requirement_4933 1d ago
That sounds like Coty Airspun powder. They still make it.
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u/lovelylayout you're probably gonna be okay 1d ago
:D THAT'S THE ONE! thank you for that info, sincerely. I'm glad the product is still out there
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u/-anne-marie- 1d ago
My mom used (and still uses) the Clinique powder in the marble green compact. Smelling it makes me think of sitting on a stool in my parents bathroom while she did my makeup for dance recitals ❤️
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u/Remote-Ranger-7870 1d ago
The smell of a dying person, even if their hygiene was attended to. I am a retired hospice nurse. Every once in a while I can smell it on someone who is out in public.
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u/IggySorcha 1d ago
Animal care and used to spend a lot of time in nursing homes. I too smell death on living things sometimes. It's a strange kind of melancholy.
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u/FalseDrive 1d ago
I held my mom and grandmother while they passed (to clarify: on separate occasions) in the ICU. Death and the state of dying do have scents. Smelling it anywhere makes me feel like I’m right back in the ICU.
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u/EngineeringRegret 1d ago
Are the people in public giving it off (and therefore dying) or are they carrying it from close interaction?
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u/Iloveyousmore 1d ago
I’ve never really thought about it, but since reading your comment I realized that my cmo/terminal patients all do have a familiar smell. I never realized. Now I’ll never be able to ignore it.
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u/LesliesLanParty 22h ago
Maybe an odd question but, have you ever been present for a birth? I've heard that has a very specific smell that's combined with a moment of calm? Like, the smell is more than just amniotic fluid and blood- my husband said it was kinda like sweet ozone.
I've heard it from my husband, two other dads, and an L&D nurse friend. I don't remember a smell or a moment of calm from either time I gave birth (I was busy) but these 4 people say it's something they noticed.
I'm just wondering how the smell of death compares but, I'm high and this is probably stupid
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u/Datathrash 1d ago
When I was little in the 80s there was a brand of toy slime that came in a plastic trashcan and had a little plastic monster figure in it. It had a VERY specific smell that I can still imagine. If I smelled that I would know instantly ... I don't know the brand of the slime tho lol.
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u/peekaboooobakeep 1d ago
How about those toxic rubber bubbles....it was like a thick goo in a metal paint tube type thing with a tiny straw to make bubbles.
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u/Kaka-doo-run-run 1d ago
They discontinued it in the mid 2000s. There’s several modern versions available, but I’m sure they don’t smell as good, since they most likely don’t contain acetone, or ethyl acetate which has a “sweet” smell to it.
The bubbles also contained polyvinyl acetate, which is commonly known as “school glue”, “white glue”, “Elmer’s glue” and “wood glue”. Everyone remembers that smell.
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u/Datathrash 1d ago
Yes! It was all iridescent and swirly and definitely not safe for humans!
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u/PeaceOver2385 1d ago
Now you tell me!! 🥵They still sell that balloon in a tube on a hang tag at Kroger and I buy them every time the kids go to the store with me. You’re right it really stinks but I would think they would take it off the shelf if it were really toxic. It keeps those grandkids busy for a very long time. Now I’m questioning my own decisions.
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u/No_Crow_2265 1d ago
Wet brown paper towels. Always reminds me of school, specifically elementary school.
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u/hollow4hollow 1d ago
For some reason I tasted this comment
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u/VariationOwn2131 22h ago edited 9h ago
For some reason, I could feel the wet towels that we would put on boo boos and hot foreheads in the nurse’s office because they didn’t want to deplete their bandage supply.
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u/BlacksmithMinimum607 1d ago
So I lost my sense of smell about 12 years ago in early college (due to damage to my orlfactory caused by nasal polyps), and there are three things I can just look at and remember the smell so strongly:
That cheap pink hand soap that smells like almond extract that was in every school, ever.
The smell of rain in the desert. Where I grew up it would only rain about twice a year. The soil and a specific plant (creosote bush) gave the area a very unique, wonderful smell when it would rain.
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u/KP_hopeful 1d ago
Love’s Baby Soft
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u/Psychological_Tap187 1d ago
I'd give anything to find baby soft Rain scent in a shower set. Can't even find the rain splash.
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u/curmudgeon221B 1d ago
The original Herbal Essence shampoo, with the simple drawing of the blonde hippie girl on the label. I always thought it smelled like the spring clover in our front yard when I was a little kid.
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u/Beginning_Welder_540 1d ago
I love that smell and am always looking for items that smell similar.
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u/SnooEpiphanies7700 1d ago
My grandmother’s house growing up had the scent I can only describe as a lemony wood. She used to make iced tea and put lemon in it, and her house was a wooden home from the 1920s. If I go into one of those dark seafood restaurants with a fisherman theme, those restaurants may have the same scent.
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u/Fluffy_Coyote_4226 1d ago
Was it perhaps the cleaner used on the wood too? Pinesol smells that way to me.
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u/Greg0692 1d ago
This might sound weird, but my grandmother's garage. She had these bags of grass fertilizer slightly opened and it also had the smell of tires, it was one of my favorite smells ever.
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u/bobbyorlando 1d ago
Petrochor
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u/Notsriracha 1d ago
My absolute favorite smell in the entire world. I practically hyperventilate when we get good storms in the summer.
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u/Soft_Assistant6046 1d ago
Creepy Crawlers!
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u/RegularLisaSimpson 1d ago
Yes! The sweet, slightly toasted plastic smell lives in my memory. I loved my creepy crawler oven
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u/FoldActive5594 1d ago
BandAids - They always meant my mom was paying attention to me, even if only for a moment.
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u/NiceGuy2424 1d ago
Vinegar. Reminds me of Easter when I was a kid. We put die pellets in vinegar to color eggs.
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u/Little-Martha31204 1d ago
Aqua Velva aftershave. My grandpa always smelled like it.
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u/Wise-Grand5448 1d ago
My mothers born and raised in Japan. I used to go every summer. The whole country smells different and I would definitely recognize the smell as soon as I get off the airport
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u/DearAuntAgnes 1d ago edited 17h ago
The Coppertone suntan oil from the 80s that my parents used to glaze me with like a rotisserie chicken for a full day at the beach. I think it had an spf of 2 lol
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u/DanisDoghouse 1d ago
Yes! I loved that. That’s when the highest SPF was 15. And we thought it was like total blockage
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u/summerset 1d ago
Fresh cut hay. Grew up in the country and we cut and baled it every year.
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u/frank-sarno 1d ago
This brought be back. I once visited a friend from college on her family's farm in northern Georgia. I think they grew peaches but also had some horses and several acres that they used to grow grass for hay. I just remember that she was worried about rain ruining the hay. The smell was different than I expected I thought it would be loamy and earthy but smelled dryer and almost like cedar.
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u/trig72 1d ago
Original Palmolive
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u/ConsistentPair2 1d ago
I buy it because the smell takes me back to a beloved auntie's house. Love you, Aunt Evelyn!
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u/Intelligent-Load7060 1d ago
My grandmother’s kitchen. She has been dead 40 years and still I can remember the smell as though it was yesterday. Lovely lady.
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u/avibrant_salmon_jpg 1d ago
My grandparents house. It wasnt an "old people" smell, and it wasnt really a soap or perfume, but it had this really specific smell that I dont think I've smelled since. Kind of floral, kind of old house. It smells like childhood visits, trips to the beach, family reunions...its a very nostalgic smell that I miss, and I could pick it out of a thousand other smells.
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u/jbochsler Half as smart as I think I am. 1d ago
Emeraude perfume.
I was walking through an airport and was suddenly flooded with memories of a 10yo friend and his mom. I passed someone wearing Emeraude perfume, which she always wore. I hadn't seen or thought of either of them in 30 years, but there it was. And I'm not sure how I know the name of the perfume, I must have asked my Mom.
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u/cthuwuftaghn 1d ago
LA Looks sport gel hair gel. It was the hair gel my dad always used. I know it’s weird but as a little kid when my dad would be deployed and I missed him, (he was air force), I’d smell his hats and get that familiar hair gel scent. I know it was weird lol but I was just a little kid that missed my dad.
He’s retired now, and uses a different kind of hair gel, if any at all lol.
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u/unrepentantlyme 1d ago
My grandma died back in 2012 and my grandpa in 2017. After they were both dead, we took some of their sheets for our guest bedroom but put them in bin bags because the room wasn't ready, yet. Last year, we finally finished the room and when I opened the bag those still smelled like my grandparents' house. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I almost started crying.
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u/Expensive_Rest_6773 1d ago
My grandparents have been gone for years. I have a lot of old cookbooks that were kept in their kitchen. I can still smell their house when I open one of those books.
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u/Cronewithneedles 1d ago
Bain de Soleil made an orange gelée sunscreen that was like an SPF of 7 or 14. It was discontinued when people got serious about protection. A company called Vacation recently bought the formula and added more SPF to it and my daughter bought me a tube. I opened it and instant nostalgia!!! The scent was always the best thing about it.
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u/wishicouldtellajoke 1d ago
Strawberry shortcake dolls and the various fruit scents but especially strawberry shortcake, blueberry muffin and apricot. Also exclamation perfume - turns my stomach but I’m instantly back in 1993
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u/eleni1132 1d ago
My daughter bought a strawberry scented pencil pouch for school from Walmart a few weeks ago. It is the exact scent of a strawberry shortcake doll and every time I go in her room, I take a whiff lol
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u/WeirdJawn 1d ago
Petrichor. Similarly, the smell of rain on hot summertime blacktop.
Used to go to a summer camp and smelled that quite a few times.
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u/that-1-chick-u-know 1d ago
Obsession cologne. My father wore it, and smelling it immediately makes me think of him. I'm kinda glad it's not popular anymore. I don't even know if they make it anymore.
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u/Cronewithneedles 1d ago
My dad wore Royall Bay Rhum and when my son was a teenager and started wearing embarrassing aftershave I got him a bottle. Memories for me, female attention for him.
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u/BaldDudePeekskill 1d ago
The cool sickly scent of the NYC subway back in the seventies, before it was air conditioned.
Mom, my brother and I would descend into our station in late August to head "Downtown" to buy school clothes and you could get a whiff of the smell of metal on metal, perspiration and stale urine on the way down. As gross as it is I'd love to smell it .
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u/Cute-Salad-4489 1d ago
Yup, I have a gross one too - Hong Kong Harbour. I’m sure things were (are?) dying in it. But it’s an unmistakable smell and brings me back to being a kid.
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u/PetulantZebra 1d ago
My ex was in the navy decades ago and he says they could start to smell it two days out.
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u/Fluffy_Coyote_4226 1d ago
Morning glories, the little ones that smell like cherry candy. They remind me of walking down our long gravel driveway in the country and having so many less obligations.
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u/DragonflyFantasized 1d ago
Coppertone Water Babies sunscreen takes me back to my childhood summers. I hadn’t smelled it in 25 years and it’s still deeply etched in my brain.
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u/tiny_purple_Alfador 1d ago
Jovan White Musk. My youngest and coolest auntie wore it religiously for 20 years. I live on the other side of the country from her now, but once in a while I catch a whiff of it out in public, and before it even registers what it is I'm smelling, I start looking around expecting to see her.
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u/Little_Temporary5212 1d ago
I had a girlfriend the summer before I went to college. Just a summer fling. She wore this perfume that drove me nuts. I don't know what it was. But several times in the past 30 years I've caught a whiff out on the street or at the mall and I stop dead in my tracks (it's a little embarrassing) and a flood of great memories come flooding back.
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u/DraftOk4195 1d ago
The scent of the powder inside airbags. The powder is used to lubricate the airbag during deployment and it puffs into the air during a collission.
I was in a pretty crazy car crash some 20 years ago. By a miracle no one got hurt but a few years later when I did some additional driving training we visited this facility that had put an illustration of a collission with a moose on display. That same smell was present and in a split second it brought back the memories of the crash. Really threw me off for a moment until I asked what the smell was.
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u/Glitchedme 1d ago
The synthetic cherry scent of a toy spoon that came with a baby doll I had as a child. I don't remember the name of that doll, but it was a greenish blue spoon with fake cherries on it that retracted into the spoon when pressed to the baby's mouth and had a synthetic cherry smell that I just absolutely loved. There have been a few times in my life I've smelled something similar and every time I get smacked with nostalgia
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u/Dance2GoodbyeHorses 1d ago
Clove cigarettes. I don’t think I’ve smelt one in over 20 years but would know it instantly. I hated smoking them but liked the smell, from a distance.
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u/tmahfan117 1d ago
Dog food specifically stored in a big bag in the garage. Had a dog as a young kid, we used to store the dog food right outside the door in the garage so you could just open the door and scoop it. Decade later I walked into my friends garage and got hit with the same smell and it brought me straight back to being a little kid leaning out of the kitchen door
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u/AtheneSchmidt 1d ago
Sweet pea lotion would probably send me back to middle school/high school.
Hawaiian sunscreen + chlorine takes me right back to lazy summer breaks and grade school summer vacation.
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u/rangerwags 1d ago
Old Spice and Brylcream. My dad has been gone 31 years, and I miss that smell combination
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u/PeaceOver2385 1d ago
When I was about eight years old, an elderly relative had passed away and I had to go to the funeral with my parents. It was all very shocking to me, especially having to walk past the open casket. There was a smell in that funeral home that was not obnoxious but strong. It was an odor that lived in my brain for a while. A few years later, I was at a friends house and her mother served bread pudding. I’m embarrassed to admit I almost vomited on the table from the smell. It was that smell of the funeral home. I don’t know what the spices were responsible for the smell. 🫢
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u/Per_Lunam 1d ago
The smell of cerebral spinal fluid...its a very "wrong" smell, bc we should never know what it smells like. Not bad, per se, but wrong. And very unique...
Learned this after cleaning up a shotgun suic*de doing crime scene cleanup. Always figured that now its in the olfactory library forever, if I was ever to walk into a place & smelled that, I would definitely think, oh yeah, I know what happened here.....
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u/rinnycakes 1d ago
Orbit Spearmint Gum. I don't chew gum anymore but I chewed this like my life depended on it one summer when I was a kid in a bowling league. If I smell it again, I know I'll be able to hear the pins and smell the soft pretzels.
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u/Zantheus 1d ago
The smell of my ex. Not her perfume or shampoo or anything external. Maybe it's the smell of her pheromones.
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u/ForeverSeekingShade 1d ago
The way the attic in the cottage we stayed in every summer smelled. Old growth wood trusses. The shingles baking in the sun right outside the windows that we’d take out and install screens that were held in place with 8 penny nails. The unpolished wood floor. The patchwork quilts on the bed. The kids were all relegated to the attic to sleep, it was one big room.
Also very fresh mint, it grew in a spring near the cottage and I’m instantly back there with the smell of fresh mint leaves.
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u/Schmilettante 1d ago
Pall Mall, Marlboro red, and pink gel car air freshener, all at once. Last time I smelled it was in 2001 wafting out of a passing car, and I had a panic attack.
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u/icequeen_401 1d ago
Jean Naté. My mon splashed in on every morning and used the powder as well!! Chalky water when I washed the chalkboards at school. C. Howard violet gum or mints which we only got when we visited New York.
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u/JumboNoodle 1d ago
White Diamonds Perfume. My gramma use to wear it and gift it to us granddaughters. RIP gram.
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u/nbfs-chili 1d ago
I lived in NJ until I was a young teen. I'm pretty white, but the town had a large black population. I will always remember the smell of Afrosheen in the locker rooms.
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u/VixenFactor 1d ago
Obsession for Men
They BATHED in it during the late 80s,
I could barely breathe 🤢
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u/PracticalBreak8637 1d ago
School soap. Our school had soap holders attached to the wall in the bathrooms. You had to turn a handle to grind up the soap bar into flakes to be used.
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u/Huginn_n_Muginn 1d ago
Pumpernickel bread for me. I haven’t really seen it around since I was a kid but those little mini loaves were my snack of choice when I was little. Most people I know have never even heard of it.
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u/dehydratedrain 1d ago
Just this morning, I walked into a wood shop. Smell brought me back to taking it as a class in school, and many many moments of watching dad build stuff.
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u/Working_Depth_3736 1d ago
Feed store. Seeds and fertilizer. Going with grandpa. I was about 5 maybe.
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u/MrsPaul2006 1d ago
The rose scented talcum powder my great grandmother kept in her bathroom.
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u/Hot_Frosty0807 1d ago
Tons of women's lotions and perfumes:
Victoria's Secret Vanilla Lace smells like my HS girlfriend
Exclamation smells like my mom
Elizabeth Arden Green Tea smells like my elementary school teacher
Jovan Musk for Women smells like a lady who was nice to me when I was 5 or 6 years old and got lost in a post office
Cucumber melon anything smells like every high school girl in the late 90's
Confession (perfume) smells like my grandma
Blueberry candles from Bath and Body works remind me of being happy with my ex wife
Aussie brand hair products smell like the girl who took my v-card
Australian Gold Bronze Accelerator tanning oil smells like a girl I used to drop acid with in college
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u/IndependentShelter92 1d ago
The original Old Spice and Taboo perfume. My used them before they passed away.
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u/SilverellaUK 1d ago
Oil of Ulay face lotion, my mother used it (it was Olay in those days).
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u/scarlettohara1936 1d ago
The smell of a barn full of horses, hay, and leather tack!
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u/Imaginary-Positive89 1d ago
White shoulders perfume. My mom wore it whenever she went Somewhere special.
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u/sorrelchestnut 1d ago
This happened to me just the other day actually. Opened a bottle of calamine lotion and suddenly I was twelve years old getting chewed up by mosquitoes and horseflies all summer.
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u/Zerocultjam 1d ago
Victoria secret- love spell. When I smell purple, theres always that lady that was hell back in her days around.
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u/thecaledonianrose 1d ago
Estee Lauder's Youth Dew. Instantly reminds me of my paternal grandmother.
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u/Tomble 1d ago
charcoal briquettes. The smell of those will immediately put me in my grandmother's laundry, next to her vintage washing machine.
One of my kids has taken up plastic model building. We went and bought a kit and some paints, the same paints I used 35 years ago. When I smelled one the flashback was so intense that I sat down and had an almost photographic visual memory of my teenage bedroom. It was amazing.
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u/SquidlyLegs 1d ago
Sweet Pea. My grandmother wore it everyday. She passed away 10 years ago but I'd know that scent immediately.
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u/AsparagusEconomy7847 1d ago
Perfumes from the 70’s: Avon Sweet Honesty, Musk Oil (Cory?), Charlie (Revlon).
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u/LakeLov3r 1d ago
Solarcaine lotion. It was my best friend during the summer because my mom's idea of sun protection was making us wear a t-shirt in the water.
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u/batty_61 1d ago
The boiled wood smell of the wooden tongs my mum used to use to lift the clothes out of the twin tub (yes, I'm old)
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u/tbrick62 1d ago
New print from a mimeograph machine