Favorite Smells
September 26th, 2006
A few weeks back I talked about some smells that annoy me, and today I’ll talk about my favorite smells, as in, other than perfume. Well, to be honest, at this very moment, my very favorite smell in the world is the new Blue Agava & Cacao by Jo Malone. It’s supposed to be officially launched next week but my local Saks already had a tester. The notes, from what I remember, are agave, cardamom, sea salt, chocolate. This is the most un-Jo-Malone-like of all Jo Malones since it’s a rather gourmand and rich scent. It’s basically a sweet, slightly powdered-sugary cardamom with a cashmere-like effect, and, in spite of being gourmand in character, it’s quite sophisticated and complex. I’m on pins and needles waiting for the bottles to become available – it’ll be a definite purchase, and I cannot wait to wear it this winter.
Back to my favorite smells. Perhaps I’ll start with an odd one. I love the smell of cellars. Always have. When I was little, we used to live in a typical Soviet style brick apartment building that had a cellar where each resident had their own secure spot. We usually kept all our canned food in there, and every time I was asked to go down there to bring a jar of jam or pickles, I’d be thrilled beyond belief. I have vivid memories of walking down the stairs, kneeling down and getting my nose real close to the steps to inhale the smell. Oh, I could eat it! The combination of slight mold, dirt, old wood, and cement was amazing.
I also love the smell of new books and school/office supplies. Once again, it goes back to my childhood obsession with everything that had to do with preparation for school. Usually, somewhere mid-July I’d start stocking up on new school supplies (even though school didn’t start till September 1). I’d take them all out every day gazing at them with utter devotion and absorbing that crisp scent.
Besides these two, I also love the smell of the pavement after summer thunderstorm, butter melting in the frying pan, rotting leaves, wet wood, tomato leaves, fresh potatoes, unlit cigarettes, leather car interior, daffodils, bricks, pipe tobacco, and many more.
What are some of your favorite smells?
Image source: www.corbis.com
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized
25 Comments
1. Patty | September 27th, 2006 at 12:58 am
Oh my gosh! Those are all my favorite smells, too!!!
2. Vimal Solanki | September 27th, 2006 at 1:20 am
Most of these are my favorites too. But potatoes? Hello?? I love to smell Eternity and Hugo Woman [on my woman’s back of the neck]. I also like to smell freshly tailored children’s uniforms, fresh coriander leaves, wet mud, especially after the first rains of the season, floor layered with cow dung, yellow dal tadka, a horse stable, henna.
3. dinazad | September 27th, 2006 at 2:16 am
Henna! Oh yes, freshly hennaed hair, and the smell of hennaed skin (stays for ages). Hot tar. Hot streets hit by the first raindrops. Elderflowers. Dry autumn leaves. Freshly cut grass. Hay. Dirt (as in garden soil). Herbs and spices (coriander,thyme, oregano, mint, dill, caraway, cumin, you name it), tobacco, bakeries, markets, the merry-go-round in the English Garden in Munich, and cats which sleep in the hay. Fresh linen. The smoke rising from a blown out candle. Freshly cut wood. Pencil shavings. Warm pork fat (does anybody else here now the smell of pork fat cut into cubes and warmed until the cubes are crisp and swimming in the liquid fat? – don’t kill me: tastes great in cooking!) To name but a few. In fact, I think one of the great things about life is the immense variety of smells, both pleasant and unpleasant (and I don’t have a particularly keen sense of smell): the particular smell which tells you it’s autumn, no matter what temperature and calendar say. The elusive smell that tells you it will snow soon. The smell of day to day. You gotta love it!
4. Cait | September 27th, 2006 at 3:50 am
I really enjoyed this piece. My favorite smells … I love the sap in cottonwood buds, the smell of silk, new books, sea dunes that smell like sand and lavender, a honeyed kind of body smell, the smell of fires and roasting coffee that reminds me of both Cairo and Veracruz, Mexico, avocado leaf, and tadik, the rich crust on basmati rice. Oh, I could go on all day. Actually it’s putting me in a great mood just thinking about it. Thanks for doing that!
5. Elle | September 27th, 2006 at 6:13 am
Cellars! Yes, great smell! Very comforting, safe, timeless. Also adore the smell of used book stores, the forest after rain, the garden and wet dirt at dawn, gasoline, diesel fumes (swoon), cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke, pipe tobacco, wood smoke, coffee brewing, Savva’s fur and feet, mangos (don’t like to eat them, just smell them), bread baking, fresh cut wood, hay, the air before a thunderstorm, fall leaves and ocean air.
Cardamom in Blue Agave! MUST have.
6. March | September 27th, 2006 at 6:50 am
Bacon. Approaching thunderstorms, and the first drops of rain spattered on blistering hot pavement. Coffee. Snow. Pinon smoke. October. My children as they sleep.
7. greeneyes | September 27th, 2006 at 6:54 am
Oh, salt air, cellars (yes!) or an old, musty building that smells like time itself, rain, fresh cut grass, coffee brewing, garlic, paper, new books, new car, pumpkin pie (or anything remotely fall/winter holidayish), honeysuckle and jasmine on the air, swimming pool, fresh bread, toasted bread, wine, really good gin, blue cheese, cinnamon anything (except the nasty cinnamon thing that happens to me with Chinatown).
8. The Scented Salamander | September 27th, 2006 at 7:38 am
Great exercise! I just wanted to say that you reminded me of two very characteristic Soviet smells: the smell of Soviet books and another one I have not quite identified but which seemed to linger on in many a Soviet appartments, even abroad. It seemed to smell of some kind of berry. I think I smelled once a Finnish alcohol made with berries and they seemed to be related. Do you know what it is?
Also, the smells of black bread, hot steaming black tea, and birch bark. Next, I’m thinking of liquidey Russian jam and of the standard ice-cream that would be sold on the street.
9. Marina | September 27th, 2006 at 7:46 am
Ina, you like the smell of a cellar? How…interesting
Ugh. We had one of those too. Ugh.
*takes deep breaths*
OK, favoite smell…can I be cheesy? DD’s smell, her skin, her hair…the best smell in the whole world
10. Giselle | September 27th, 2006 at 9:47 am
This time of year, I recall all of the school smells, long dormant in my momory I suppose… paste, floor wax, the supply cupboard, typewriter ribbons, ink, the various paper smells, the smell of workbook, text book, mimeographed sheets, onion skin paper, craft paper, all so different! The teachers wore classic perfumes, you knew them by their signature scent. Paint and clay, the cloakroom, damp woolens, shoe leathers and soaps. So many kids in a small space, the very slight smell of a girl’s new permanent wave, the window, open a crack, lets winter cut like a silver knife into the overheated room. And on it goes, through lunch and recess outdoors, another thousand smells.
11. Giselle | September 27th, 2006 at 9:48 am
I really need to learn to type.. er MEMORY , we’ll save MOMERY for mother’s day scents. (like lilacs)
12. violetnoir | September 27th, 2006 at 10:41 am
Bread baking in the oven. Love it! The smell of a baby’s head. That’s one of the best smells ever. Freshly popped popcorn at the movie theatre. Ina, it’s simply divine! And, let’s not forget that new car smell. I should buy a new car (I really need to buy a new car) just to experience that smell.
I agree with you that bound books, not paperbacks, always smell yummy, as do freshly sharpened pencils. Do you remember that mimeographed paper smell? I do. I don’t think schools use mimeograph machines anymore. What a loss!
Hugs!
13. IrisLA | September 27th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Chinese carved sandalwood fan, freshly ground coffee beans, fried pork chops, garden after a rainstorm, green tea leaves, new paperback books, Christmas tree lot, sawdust, roasted chestnuts . . . .
14. Teri | September 27th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
I’d like to add ripe tomatoes and tomato vines baking in the late summer sunshine; marigolds with their pungent ‘notice me now’ scent; the smell of a child after its bath; the chlorine scent of a swimming pool; the scent of meat being cooked in a smoker; lemon Pledge spray; the little cloud of miniscule droplets released when you peel a citrus fruit; the delicate pear-like scent of a Crenshaw melon; and of course a warm, slighty sweaty man.
15. CindyN | September 27th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
What a great exercise! Best loved scents: the sand and surf of a beach in the AM; campfire/wood fires; cake/cookies in the oven;
casablanca lillies and fresh tubersose; hot chocolate; new leather; christmas trees; cinnamon and nutmeg in warm milk or chai; playdoh, chalk and paste (harks from early childhood days)
16. peppernuts | September 27th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
..Apples in wooden boxes, kept fresh in the cellar, the smell of very old books-some kind of sweet,dry mildew, a real rose (one hour ago I had the chance to smell one, it was the most beautiful rose I smelled for years!), fresh white truffels, the hot and clean scent if I iron clothes, skin after sun and sea, fresh cut wood, indian dishes….ad infinitum:)
17. Tom | September 27th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
the smell of the air after a thunderstorm: that clean bracing ozone smell.
The smell of an ld car- all wood and leather and oil and old chrome. “Nostalgia” tries to get it but just missess
The smell of the night-blooming jasmine we have in LA during the Santa Ana winds- makes you want to be Fred MacMurry. Or Barbara Stanwyck. Or both
18. Lauren | September 27th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
leather car interior – particularly in a Mercedes, I feel like they have a distinct smell all their own – this always reminds me of my grandmother and my favorite aunt, being a kid and hoping that a ride in the car would take us somewhere new and intriguing.
Lilacs in bloom. Stops me dead in my tracks every spring. It is absolutely intoxicating, and I stop and think of the first spring I noticed this smell, in Charleston, S.C.
You’ve got me thinking….:)
19. Ina | September 27th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Patty, yeah! Way to go!
Vimal, um, cow dung? This is hilarious.
Dinazad, I love your fave smells! Can’t recall what henna smells like, though.
Cait, thank you! How could i forget about fires.
Elle, bread baking! Of course!
March, bacon!! Yeah, baby!
Greeneyes, love the smell of fresh cut grass!
Helene, maybe it’s cranberry? Lots of Russians like to can berries, so that explains it. Love the smell of black bread, too!
Marina, ah, I can just about imagine.
Giselle, floor wax brings back tons of memories for me, too.
Robin, ah, baby’s head. Swoon! No, I don’t remember that paper smell. Hmm.
Iris, sawdust is a fave here, too.
Teri, chlorine in the pool? Um, hmm.
Cindy, Christmas trees, yes! Love the smell.
Peppernuts, I adore the smell of all Indian dishes! With a passion.
Tom, I’m yet to smell the night-blooming jasmine. Jealous.
Lauren, love the smell of lilacs in bloom!
20. Vimal Solanki | September 28th, 2006 at 4:25 am
Dear Ina, you must visit a village in rural India, where common folk coat their mud floors with layers of cow dung. Believe me, its NOT yucky. While it certainly does not beat a Guirlain Vetiver or Green Irish Tweed, dried cow dung has a very ethnic, earthy scent. And Ina, if you freak out on smelling the cellar or your mama’s kitchen apron, i am sure you’ll love the dried dung as well. On second thoughts, floors coated with cow dung are quite hip. If the modern world has adopted age old herbs, henna, ayurvedic drugs and yoga, it wouldn’t be too far when you would start liking stuff like cow dung!!
21. chaya ruchama | September 28th, 2006 at 6:38 am
Dear friends-
I was trapped at work yesterday, when this post began…
So many of your favorites echo my own, and I love you for your frankness !
Dina- I hennaed my hair for years [years ago], and remember the odor fondly- it was the best part !
Vimalji- you don’t have to sell me on the merits of cow dung- I can’t wait to attend the Topsfield Fair, which opens this Friday…it is my personal mission to meet with every cow, sheep, goat, chicken, pig, bunny, cavy, et al…
For a city gal, it thrills me…
For all those who love babies’ heads, the smell of their sleeping loved ones, and sweaty men [preferably clean, first !]
I kiss you !
One summer, 19 years ago, I remember being on a crowded train in late July- no a/c- and being in the last throes of advanced pregnancy, when I became passionateky aware of the most powerful, glorious smell…
I found myself irresistibly drawn-
To the tiniest, least good-looking Puerto Rican gentleman !
[Poor fellow, he would have been SO chagrined...]
I think I would have yielded my unwieldy self to him without restraint, right there and then…
Such is the power of scent…
22. Giselle | September 28th, 2006 at 10:55 am
I agree with the cow dung comments from Vimal.
I spend a lot of time visiting relatives who burn turf (from the peat bogs) and a lot of American & Japanese tourists visit and some will say to me, “Doesn’t that smell horrible? How do these poor people cope?” The turf smoke drifts from the chimneys and it smells wonderful to me. It goes with the rain and the gorse and the heather and the sheep dung and the constant wind picks it all up and makes a fragrance, and yes, it needs the sheep dung to be complete. I never thought of it before ever, as a complete fragrance, thank you Vimal!
23. Vimal Solanki | September 29th, 2006 at 12:40 am
I guess its about how close you are to nature. I have never had an opportunity to live in the country side or a village, and therefore my nostrils are used to inhaling only the city [read pollution, smoke and all the crap that comes along]. But whenever I get a chance, I love to smell a lot of nature, and all natural. Some of this natural stuff may come in unusual packages [like the cow].
Thanks Giselle. Way to go, Chaya Ruchama.
Do you know, dried cow dung can also be used in place of coal on a BBQ. Roast a corn cob or cheese or potatos [sorry, I am a vegetarian and don't roast animals] on it, and see the difference in the way it tastes. it smells like heaven too.
I do not know if any of you people remember, but there indeed was a fragrance launched many many years ago which smelled of the first rains on earth.
24. Wendy | October 1st, 2006 at 4:31 pm
The smell of freshly mowed grass!
25. DEDE | December 31st, 2007 at 12:39 am
It is strange but my 2 all time favorite smells are NEW CARPET and our CEDER CHEST that held our fresh linen when I was a kid. The scent I miss the most is the smell of my mom. Then some other favorite smells I just love are the following , My poodle, Fresh baked Chocolate chip cookies, Sugar and burned sugar ,Cinnamon ,Berries – strawberries, blue berries, raspberries ,Nuts – Peanut butter, cashews, hazelnut, roasted chestnuts , Popcorn both fresh and slightly burned ,Fresh baking bread, pie, muffins, Toast, Warm cider ,Coconut ,Lemons, limes, oranges, mangos, pear, Crenshaw melon, watermelon, ,Vanilla, almond scent ,Hot drinks chocolate mochas, coffee, hot steaming black tea ,Herbs fresh basil, cilantro, lemongrass ,Cooking onions, garlic, bacon ,Turkey with stuffing, Roast, Steak, Lighting storm before and after ,Rain ,River, Lake ,Fishing, Autumn leaves ,Fresh cut grass ,Flowers Rose, Lilacs, citrus blossoms, honey suckles, hydrangeas, gardena, jasmine, marigolds, Fresh fallen snow ,Desert dirt before and after a rain ,Winter breeze ,Tar road ,Horses ,Hay ,Leather ,Chlorine in swimming pools ,New carpet, Basement “cement”, Cellar – musty ,Workshop, Sawdust, Wood – cedar, oak, pine, birch bark ,Campfire ,Christmas trees ,Salty beach ,Burned out match ,Gasoline ,Diesel fumes ,New tires “rubber” and burnt rubber ,New car ,Oil ,Garage ,Plastic ,Scotch tape ,Permanent marker ,Fabric softener ,Laundry detergent ,Clean laundry ,School smells – new Crayola crayons, paste, ink, typewriter ribbons, paper smells, news papers, paint, clay, playdough, chalk, fresh copied paper ,New book, Motor cross race – dirt, mud with gear and fumes from the bikes, New babies, Baby powder, lotion, wipes, Kids hair, Cigarette smoke “since I use to smoke”
DID I MISS ANY?