I like the slightly stale smell of a large body of water. Sort of like the watery freshness plus all the seaweed flora, some dead some alive, combine into the smell of adventure.
Tobacco smoke, but only when it is someone else who's smoking.
Tea tree oil is just great.
I love the smell of gardening soil mixed with the smells given off by whatever plants you’re working on. Really makes you feel connected to the earth.
The cold. Fresh snowfall, clean freezers, and so on. I'm not even sure if it's a smell so much as a feel, your nose getting punched in its proverbial face, because most of those things have no reason to smell similar.
Cumin, fresh limes, almond extract, just some cooking favorites
Wet grass and fireworks smoke
My absolute favorite smell is shitty airport coffee drifting from across the terminal, the kind that gives you a slight headache, especially if I'm on the verge of falling asleep. It makes me think of all the traveling ive been fortunate enough to do with my family, and of being a kid trying to catch a few minutes of rest before a night flight. Airports (and mass transit stations in general) can be such beautiful spaces, but even the simplest of them share a singular loneliness at night that makes me feel a mixture of relaxed and slightly creeped out. Anyone who's watched Airplane! can guess what I mean- it's that well-lit emptiness, both amiable and foreboding, the washed out colors and dated furnishings and geometric carpets, glass terminal windows looking out at darkness, making you feel small and displayed. It's wonderfully uncanny, and those experiences were probably a big contributing factor to my love of liminal spaces, as well as my architectural predilection for tile walls, brushed steel, and frosted floor to ceiling glass windows. That, and the first couple of Resident Evil movies, which I was just the right age to enjoy completely unironically and whose slick, richly smooth aesthetic is my favorite thing to this day.
Basically, whiffing cheap coffee at a certain level of sleep deprivation sends me into a dreamlike aesthetic reverie
The smell of the night air in summer when it's sort of like a cool humid and really late, or really early. Reminds me of stops on long road trips as a kid, fighting to stay awake as I wander around the aisles of a gas station under the too-bright florescent lights. Reminds me of times I've been on the road for work and stop for coffee to keep my eyes open. Reminds me of drinking and having a good time on other summer nights.
Wet concrete, root cellars, damp caves. That musty earthy sent just resonates with me for some reason.
What The Rock is cookin'.
Reason: It smells delicious.
It's not my favorite, but the smell that I feel in the most visceral and emotional way is the smell of a diesel engine being started on a freezing morning. It's not something I like, but it gives me flashbacks to so much of my (work) life.
I'm thinking of big International engines in trucks I've driven at various jobs. The imagery I get hit with when I smell them is sooty snow and black filth. And then I have the unforgettable secondary sensation of sitting in a musty cab with freezing feet while you're blasted with hot air. It's not all bad, I just really feel it.
Cigarettes on a cold night outside a music venue, coffee early in the morning, dog breath, fresh baked bread, Victoria's secret lovespell for high school nostalgia
For years, ever since my childhood, I would catch a whiff of this very sweet, fruity, ethereal smell on the wind--almost like if a smell could be "malted." It would show up randomly and in an instant it would be gone. Years later (when I was like 20) I would learn that this smell came from Black N Milds lol
Also I love the smell of certain high quality printing, like the smell of Pokemon cards. I guess this one is probably linked to the child gambling scheme that is TCG booster packs (perhaps the first loot boxes)
Sandlewood makes me think I'm beautiful and about to go on an adventure
The scent of old books is just great. It really lets me feel like I'm stepping outside of the normal flow of time to read some classic poem or ancient history. I inherited some books from a researcher with a cigarette habit, and they simply smell wonderful to read. The scent of salmon will make my mouth immediately water. So will a roast in the oven, or corned beef boiling away with cabbage. The smell of fresh vegetables really rejuvenates me. Especially as they are being cut and boiled. A full tin of tea leaves always has a wonderful smell to it, so exciting and robust. The air at sunset is just perfect for me, and then as it deepens a little bit later into the evening.(ironically, early morning air makes me feel sick) Pine trees with just a bit of dew on them immediately teleport me back to when I was at camp as a kid, so I love the smell. Chili the way my family makes it just feels like coming home and collapsing at the table after a long day for a good meal. Coffee obviously. It has such a great earthy scent. The smell of unscented bar soap makes me feel comfortable and safe. Flannel shirts just smell familiar and reliable. Bakery air smells heavenly. So many pastries and treats. The smell of old churches, libraries, and museums are all wonderful to me. They smell almost distant and austere, but also loving and nurturing, and like that is where I am supposed to be. The scent of spearmint makes me fell like I am ready to fight and argue through anything. I don't have that strong of a sense of smell, so these are most of the positive smells I can think of and enjoy. The smell of pleather in a car with the heat on of the sun out makes me very upset, and peppermint can give me a headache.
