I’m sorry to tell you, I’m sick. A sinus infection that had me drive three hours home today in a state of semi-delirium/dubnium/Deuteronomy. You see my problem? So, to save my throbbing grey matter, I’m going to list ten things I love the smell of – or that I’m longing to smell soon – when spring finally gets sprung and rolls into glorious summer. You do the same please.
1. A plate of olive oil seared (and home grown, of course) pimientos de Padron, sprinkled with sea salt and consumed rapidamente.
2. Pavements/sidewalks drying oh too quickly after a late summer downpour.
3. The earth I scrape from under my nails after digging/ planting/sowing.
4. Sliced jalapenos.
5. Basmati rice, simmering.
6. Monsooned Malabar coffee beans, poured into the grinder. Or sitting on the seat next to me in my car, on the way home from the store.
7. Dogs’ paws. Any dogs’, though some are better than others.
8. Daphne bholua ‘Jaqueline Postill’, at its best right now, that sits by the front door and hits you with its intense voluptuousness on arrival home.
9. Matt. Anywhere. Anytime.
10. The scent of expectation.
Your turn please.
Photo of Daphne courtesy of the oh so wonderful Cambridge Botanic Gardens, UK.
( We're still digging
Srsly the issue
Lee, that was a beautiful post and it moved me to tears. I’m ill right now, too, and thus maybe overly sensitive but your writing reminded me how damn good it is just to be alive.
Thank you.
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:28 am
It is good to be alive for sure!
Elizabeth Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I totally forgot one of my faves – eucalyptus trees in NorCal after a rain. Heaven!
Lee,
I hope your sinuses play nicely and heal up rapidamente.
My most beloved scents:
My almost two year old niece Macy’s hair while she’s resting in my arms.
My Mom’s chocolate chip cookies at 1 a.m. during a panic attack…..instantly calming….Moms are like that.
The hot, delirium inducing, gripping smell of, you guessed it, tuberose blossoms.
Gardenias, Hyacinths and Plumeria…..intoxicating and proof that God exists.
Aaron’s shirts.
Trish/Pikake Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 2:43 am
Second that on the plumerias. Send me to nirvana everytime. Love those little blossoms. I’ll take a plane to Hawaii just to sniff one.
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Plumerias are otherworldly, aren’t they?
Meliscents Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I TOTALLY AGREE! When my husband & I flew to Maui to get married or MAUied, as they say. I left him in the car rental place & went in search for a Plumeria tree. I found a batch on the ground & tried to figure out a way to tape them to my nose so I’d have that smell the whole time I was there. I picked up a bottle of local Plumeria perfume for my sister after smelling MANY. It was the closest to the actual flower I’ve ever found but still not as magical as the actual thing. I’m hoping the tree we brought back will eventually bloom, if we’re very lucky.
mals86 Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 11:08 am
My husband went to Australia/NZ a few years ago to do some research for a fellowship… and I got to go, too! (Woo-hoo!) So of course, we HAD to stop in Hawaii on our way home for a few days. Glorious, glorious, thrilling… and I too fell in love with the plumeria and brought home a small plant. It’s growing a profusion of leaves, but I don’t know if it will ever bloom. But I sincerely and heartily hope so. The scent is so lovely.
Trish/Pikake Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
We were just in Maui and stayed at the Wailea Marriott. I was shocked that they didn’t have any plumeria trees on their property. Almost considered writing a complaint letter.
(How’s that for crazy?) Luckily at the place we stayed in Hana, they all sorts of varieties of plumeria, some I’d never seen before…so all was well. I was in heaven.
Joe Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
[Sobs] Hana. I want to go back and stay in Hana. A day trip there was just an evil tease.
Jan V Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Great list! Wow-I forgot about chlorine! I love that too and, the funniest thing, I have two cats that react to chlorine like it was catnip. One of them has extreme reactions to it; she’ll come running from the far reaches of the house (and from a great snuggly catnap) if I use anything with chlorine in it. She rubs and rolls around in it apparently in ecstacy. Both these cats also react like this to ants…which is good because I have dark wood floors and cannot see them for anything when they invade!
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Nice smells (some of which are delightfully predictable!).
I’m not doing too bad. No longer feverish, fortunately.
Dog’s paws!
There is a short part in The English Patient, where Katherine Clifton muses about the scent of dog’s paws being here favourite scent, because they smell of dog and country lanes and grass (something like that, can’t remember exactly). I never really understood this until my parents got a wonderful (longlegged) Jack Russell Terrier, whose paws just have the most delightful scent there is.
So totally second the dog’s paws!
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I love those long-legged JRTs. Such characters – really naughty boys and girls.
dogloverinmn Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
De-lurking to add my two cents re: scent of dog paws. Love it! We think it smells vaguely of Fritos Corn Chips.
At our house we call it ‘Sleeping Puppy Perfume’. It’s the best if you can get to your dog after either a long nap, or first thing in the morning, when they’re still all curled up with their feet in a bunch. Not sure what it is about that smell, but it’s lovely. I just remarked to my husband last night that if they could bottle it, I’d probably buy some. Though I suspect most of the appeal is the dog to whose body the paws are attached
Nancy Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
So glad to hear someone else identified the paw smell same as us. We always called our dog and cat paw smell “Frito Feet” and other people didn’t understand….or didn’t sniff the paws of their pets.
Oh, so sorry about those backed-up sinuses. Spring can’t come too soon, IMO. Never does. Meanwhile, two words: Neti Pot. Sounds gross, works a charm, both as prevention and remedy.
That and good Scotch whiskey.
A few of my favorite smells? New pencils at the start of the school year. Old Spice deodorant on my son. Wet pavement, too. Slow-fried onions and garlic. Garlic. Garlic. Nail polish remover. Diesel fumes in small French villages (Getting too weird yet
?) Douglas Firs on a hot dry day in Oregon. Fresh pain au chocolat. “Masculine” perfumes on male skin (where’s the winking emoticon?) 
Feel much better soon, doll
March Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Wait … so … you put the whisky in the Neti pot and drink it, right?
Seriously Lee, seconding the neti pot. I use one. It’s less gross than it seems…
Louise Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Since you insisted…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm7YpxgOnA&feature=related
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Oh I’m a garlic fan too.
And love forests in the heat – there are beautiful sand dunes backing on to pine forest in Norfolk. It’s magical there.
I will neti invest.
Hope you feel better soon!
My best scents are:
Henna on hair and skin (I wish somebody would bottle the scent of a fresh Mehndi “tattoo”)
Elderflower
The smell of the first drops of a summer downpour hitting a hot street.
Country cat (they smell of hay and lavender)
Rice cooking (any rice, but basmati and Thai perfumed rice are best)
Sweet yeast dough, risen, just before it goes into the oven
Herbs! Lavender, basil, coriander, sage…..
Night-scented stock (and I still have a packet of seeds for you, if you’ll let me know where to send it)
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Elderflower’s a weird one. sometimes beautiful; sometimes straight-up semen. There, I said it.
Magpie Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 2:36 pm
ROTFL!!! I’m glad *you* said it. That particular scent, and my response to it, just confirmed to me that…um, well, anyway, that’s *way* off topic. Point is, why yes, sometimes that’s precisely what eldreflower smells like.
Sorry about the sinuses! That’s a really wonderful list. So evocative. A few of mine…
- steaming Darjeeling tea
- slightly crushed tomato leaf
- fresh paint
- Meyer lemon peel
- Japanese sandalwood incense
- a waft of orange blossom as I walk past a neighbor’s tree
- the brackish breeze from the salt marshes into the rolled-down car windows as one approaches the New Jersey shore
- the interior of greenhouses: all damp, musty earth, but somehow ozonic and ‘alive’
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Love the interior of greenhouses too, but more for nostalgia than the smell itself.
March Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Greenhouses! Or the giant version … the Botanical Gardens on the mall in DC. Big giant greenhouse. And our zoo has this Amazonia exhibit, a rainforest inside a building. I spend my entire time breathing it in while everyone else is going Look, look!
Joe Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
March, isn’t the smell amazing? There’s a huge conservatory at an estate-museum called Longwood Gardens in SE Penna. that’s wonderful. I always had a dream to work in a commmercial nursery or conservatory or something because I love everything about it: the smell, gardening. That air is probably some poisonous mix of chemical fertilizer and pesticide fumes, huh? Oh well, then I’ll fantasize about working at an ORGANIC nursery.
So sorry that you’re suffering with sinus problems…hope that’s history soon.
Scents I love:
Fresh minced ginger;freshly ground coffee; just mown grass; leather; Creosote-go figure-reminds me of living at the ocean, sun, wind, creosote preserved piers; here in Southern California, in late February,the Pittosporum Tobiris trees lend their orange blossom-ish scent everywhere-it permeates the atmosphere;Freshly laundered crisp sheets; my cats’ fur
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I’m totally with you on the creosote and the ginger. I’d love to be with you on the cat fur were it not for the hives and respiratory inflammation…
Jan V Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Wow-I’m tickled that you know what I mean about creosote!! I do so love it and you and I are probably the only ones who do.
Oh, that clean cat fur smell is wonderful-I’m sorry for all the folks with allergies to it and can only imagine how unwelcome those symptoms are.
Hope today is a better sinus day for you!
Lee Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:16 am
Creosote reminds me of my beloved grandfather painting his fence…
Sorry about sinuses. Steaming with tea tree oil? Antibiotics?
Love your list. A few of mine: my son’s skin, creosote, cat paws (dog paws are good as well), clean sweat, philadelphus.
By the way, do you know of any place in the UK from which to order vials and decanting supplies?
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:45 am
T%he UK sucks for decanting supplies. I’ve always bought mine from the States. There are a couple of good uns if you do a google search, though pricier now cus of the exchange rate than in the past.
Share many with others already posted. But a few of my own
- cold snow-filled air
- freshly cut, juice dripping ripe mango
- sea-weeded drift-wooded ocean air
- that tiny fleeting zesty oil cloud that rises from just-cut citrus
- a closet in an old wood-floored house (I am strange I know but as I breath the molecules I think of the lives layered there that become part of me)
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:46 am
A perfectly ripe mango – there are very few things that compare to the wonder of that smell.
This was a wonderful post. Hope you get better soon.
I can’t wait for the smell of spring, fresh, earthy and not too warm yet (summer is too humid and hot here for my taste).
Real, summer tomatoes (not the ones from greenhouses). Cherries and watermelons.
Smell of sunscreen on my skin.
and one of those I love but fortunately won’t be smelling soon – the smell of snow.
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Your words have me longing for real heat!
How awful to have to drive such a long distance feeling like that! Hope you feel better soon!!
I love all the smells you listed – especially the dog paws! I have to confess I also am one of the three people in the world who loves the smell of wet dogs. The forest floor after a good soaking rain also puts me into a state of pure bliss. And nice old fashioned exhaust fumes from buses and trucks w/ no anti-pollution parts on them. Gas fumes when filling my car. And Pine Sol (great memories of childhood). Baking bread. Brewing coffee. Cigarettes or pipes or cigars – any form of tobacco at any stage. Why I don’t smoke is a mystery to everyone I know. Fresh mown grass (summer!!!). Sawdust (used to work w/ wood). The air just before dawn – any season.
Elle Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Forgot used bookstores! As far as I’m concerned the worst thing about Kindle is the utter lack of scent. It breaks my heart each time a used bookstore shuts down in our town. Love the scent of books period, but a used bookstore – heaven!
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Sawdust is one of those all time wonders to me. Too lovely.
I’m not up before dawn enough, I think. Even if I’m awake.
What a lovely post! Wishing you good health soon.
Some of my favorite longing-for-warm-weather smells:
1) my Sarah Bernhart peonies
Summer weenie-roast bonfires
2) Steeping oolong tea (why does it seem different in the cold?)
3) The smell of the local ballpark: grass, beer, peanuts, hot dogs, ice cream, sweat, baseball gloves…
4) Hay (we live on a farm; being surrounded by the smell of cut grass drying is heavenly)
5) The smell of my sons’ hair after they’ve been running around in the yard
6) The mauve irises that came from my grandmother’s yard
7) Boxwood
9) The air, just after it starts raining
10) The pool: chlorine, sunscreen, cotton candy, and laziness
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Great smells! Love hay, and oolong and the peonies too!
So many wonderful scents are listed here. It is hard to add to them. I do have one or two more though:
1) Leaf mulch after it has been properly composting for a season or so
2) My husband’s or son’s pillow
3) Freshly washed and dried laundry (unscented detergent and no dryer sheets).
4) Green beans just picked from the garden
5) Incense fragrances on my teenage son-his skin does marvelous things to them
Melissa Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Okay, maybe a few more than one or two to add! Obviously I enjoyed this post!
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Leaf mulch. Y’know, I could roll around in that any time. I love those earthy smells.
You stole my post, you mind-reader! Okay, no you didn’t. But I was contemplating the wonderful smells that surround us. I wonder if spring, with all its fresh new smells, makes us more aware of that?
Damp earth. Wet pavement. Two of my favorites.
The smell of my children. The smell of foreign cities. Mango and sticky rice. Farmers’ markets. The ocean.
Natalie Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Foreign cities, yes yes yes! Even the not-so-sweet-smelling ones. I swear even the car/bus exhaust smells different in different countries.
March Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Absolutely, they don’t have to smell “good” in any conventional sense. Bangkok smells amazing (shrine incense and pollution and food stalls.) Florence and Rome. London, Paris, New York. The sheer foreign-ness of their smells is intoxicating.
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Sticky rice. I haven’t had that for so long and now my craving is intense. Intense I tell you.
March Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Your boiling rice … I cook Basmati or Jasmine. That’s what I cook because that’s what I like. And both are more fragrant and stickier than conventional rice here, esp. the dreaded “Uncle Ben’s.” You ought to be damned grateful you don’t have an Uncle Ben, Lee… at any rate, so that rice is what my children think “normal” rice is. You hand them a bowl of good ol’ US rice and they look at it suspiciously…
Now I am suddenly desperate for rice pudding. Hmmm….
Joe Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
How did that CB Boiled Rice accord work out?
And don’t go telling me you haven’t ordered it.
Lovely post; hope you feel better soon!
Some of my favorites:
- clover & honeysuckle on the vine, grass
- my Pat Austin rose
- My daughter’s hair
- Linden blossom wafting around the neighborhood
- spring air and soil – sunny, rainy, doesn’t matter
- mulch: cedar, cocoa (fabulous), hardwood
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:52 am
All wonderful. Dog owners have to watch out for the cocoa mulch though – the smell is very attractive to dogs, but the mulch itself is highly toxic should they eat any. And they will!
Leslie F Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Wow, that’s an excellent point. For the sake of the neighborhood canines, I shall cease and desist with the cocoa mulch! (Actually, it molded anyway, which diminished the joy a little bit…)
I had to ask my family if they had anything to add, and of course they did:
Freshly washed baby
Sun-dried laundry
Bacon
The farm pickup: hay, dirt, whiffs of diesel fuel and tractor oil, sweat, rusty wrenches, cattle, grassy-smelling manure, corn sileage…
Buttered popcorn
Sweet feed (a pelletized feed for calves or ailing cows, containing molasses and grain, it smells dusty-sweet)
Lilacs
Pears
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:53 am
A ripe pear is one of nature’s best gifts.
Note to self – plant pear trees and soon.
Oh, so many…
1. saffron bread baking (actually, saffron anything)
2. onions frying in butter
3. my father’s dank basement and musty garage (also his backyard when the mock orange and daphne and vibernum and lilacs are in bloom)
4. my son’s head (I swear it smells like oatmeal cookies)
5. tomatoes hanging on the vine in the hot sun
6. quinces
7. a patch of ferns in the middle of a forest
8. freshly mown grass and hay; hay barns, too
9. hot tar and asphalt (unfortunately, however, Bulgari Black gives me an instant migraine!); also engine grease and general car mechanic smell
10. maple trees when their leaves have just opened and are still sticky and the flowers are just opening
11. Italian churches with heaps of incense and candles and marble and gorgeous art
12. wood fires
13. rain
14. ballpoint pen ink
15. freshly washed and bleached bed linens
16. sweaters that I’ve worn a few times with various lingering perfumes all mixed together
17. coffee, although I don’t even drink it anymore (cigarettes too!)
Natalie Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Forgot to add that I hope you feel better! I recently battled a sinus infection for weeks, and not being able to smell or taste anything for so long took so much of the joy out of life.
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Thanks!
Lee Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Fabulous list including many things I love. How did I forget quinces, one of my all time and forever best smells? They’re intense, floral, fruity and oh so wondrous.
I wish you well!
Favorite smells that come to mind. Orange tree in blossom. Basswood (Linden) tree in blossom. My big dog. North Dakota summer morning air. Florida morning air, especially with gardenia or jasmine. Fresly split firewood. Spring with melting snow.
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:17 am
Good smells!
Some of my favorite smells:
origami paper, Diet Dr. Thunder (so complex, I wish someone would make a perfume out of it!), gasoline, the neighbor’s orange blossoms, the smell of Florida as you make your way in from Mississippi…the air is so sweet and clean it’s like taking huge gulps of water.
And my sister says our dog’s paws smell like Cool Ranch Doritos…
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:18 am
I’d never heard of Dr Thunder til today. No chance of smelling it I’m afraid!
Wow, I have so many favorite smells that it’s hard to pick just a few but here goes.
Warm thick black soil
1) The smell of ozone before it rains
2) Clean Kitten/Cat fur
3) Puppy breath
4) Fresh honey with the comb
5) Breakfast cooking, coffee & bacon (reminds me of Grandma’s house)
6) A Cedar chest
7) Clean dry laundry fresh from the outside line
9) Blooms on my orange tree, Jasmine or Honeysuckle vines
10) Unburned pipe tobacco
Oooo, and brand new, completely unused Crayons or Playdoh. With these things I’m a kid again!
trish/Pikake Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
yes…..a cedar chest. lovely!
Natalie Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Mmm, fresh honey with the comb… My father used to keep bees, and the smell of extracting in a hot, dusty shed was heavenly.
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:19 am
Pipe tobacco. I used to open my grandpa’s choice and take deep huffs…. Such a nostalgic smell for me.
What a fun post!
Orange blossom and vanilla Rooibos teas
the local Indian restaurant
garlic and onions sauteeing
campfire
my mom’s stroganoff
Oregon morning after it rains
I may have to come back to this…
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:20 am
Great list so far.
Feel better, Lee!
Some of my favorite smells, in no special order:
Very early spring in the northern Connecticut woods–spicebush, wet earth, and even the skunk cabbage;
Late summer heirloom tomatoes;
My dogs right after their bath;
Remembered smell: mimeographed paper
Garlic slowly caramelizing in olive oil;
An ice-cold Tanqueray martini with a twist;
Another remembered smell: my mother’s lipstick, Westmore Irish Rose;
A just-peeled Minneola tangelo;
Very fragrant roses;
My husband’s hair.
Fun posts, all. Thanks.
Jan L. Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Hi, if I may inquire, which cosmetics line produces Westmore Irish Rose? It sounds lovely in an old-world way.
Francesca Reply:
February 28th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Westmore was the name of the company, founded by three brothers who’d started out as Hollywood makeup artists. My reference to my mother’s lipstick goes back 50 years, and I doubt the line exists anymore. Mom felt that nice women didn’t wear eye makeup, so Irish Rose and a bit of powder was it for her.
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:23 am
I quite like skunk cabbage too!
summer jasmine and honeysuckle
freshly cut parsley from the garden
baking gingerbread
the ink of a new book, or the musty pages of an old one
hardwood sawdust
hot Lady Gray tea
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:24 am
Lovely smell!
Sorry to hear about the sinus troubles, had that myself back in January. I find that I nice steaming cup of hot black tea “sweetened” with a shot or two of Drambuie helps one along nicely.
As for favorite smells….
Yellow wood trees in full bloom
Ceylon Vithanankande tea
Killer bee honey
Fresh chives pulled out of the gadren
Cat neck
Grapefruit peels
New leather gloves
Fried pickles
Joe Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Fried pickles!? That’s a new one to me so I can’t help asking: please say more about this.
Natalie Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
If you’re not from the South, Disteza, I’ll eat my hat!
Disteza Reply:
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Oh dear, is my Reb petticoat showing again? I pass the Scarlett test, if that means anything (born, raised, married, honeymooned, and owned property all below the Mason-Dixon). Fried pickles are indescribably yummy, especially with some warm fresh dill dressing on the side. It’s the sort of thing you’ll find at a state fair or the occasional higher-brow traveling carnival. They’re basically breaded dill pickles spears fired in veg oil, but they’re still crunchy on the inside, and full of pickle juice. Makes me yearn for hot weather just thinking about them.
I loved reading everyone’s lists. Here’s mine:
~The scent just before the Monsoon hits on a blazing summer afternoon in Phoenix
~Rain on hot pavement
~My sons’ skin
~Navegar on my husband
~Plumerias
~Orange blossoms blooming on the tree
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:25 am
I want rain on a hot pavement, and I want it now!
Here are a few of mine:
* moist, humusy soil;
;
* the top of a baby’s head (especially mine);
* a wood shop;
* lilac wafting in the window;
* burning leaves;
* woodsmoke;
* the cool of the forest in the heat of the day–yes, that is a smell
* bathing suits drying on the line;
* any number of leaf stems when cut in the garden;
* an attic;
* mimeograph ink;
* honeylocust in the spring;
* the breeze off the lake.
Thanks; this has been a wonderful diversion in my day!
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:26 am
Oh my! Those are just perfect.
Lovely post, Lee! Aww..sorry that you’re sick.I’ll hold your hand and keep you company..
[I'm stuck at home because I just got 5 teeth (4 wisdom +1) extracted at one go yesterday...I'm doing better than I expected though, and the vicodin always helps.
My (predictable) list of favorite smells:
1. tuberoses...I always think of the smell of tuberoses as cold..maybe because that's the part I like best and so it's enhanced for me? (Everybody on the various boards seems to call them a warm smell..)
2. The smell of onions and garlic being sauteed in ghee/olive oil.
3. The smell of melting gruyere cheese (I never know how to add the accent to a letter) and melting dark chocolate
4. The smell of the earth/pavement after the first rain
5. The smell of a storm
6. The smell of my mother's and grandmother's sarees.
7. My husband..anywhere ..anytime..(I had to steal that from you!)
8. The smell of orange, clove, patchouli and sandalwood oils (mixed in the right proportion)
9. The smell of rose concrete in jojoba oil..no wait the smell of basil, corriander and mint leaves.
10. The smell of the thought (or the thought of the smell) of butter masala dosa .I always thought I hated butter till I tasted this dish ( crisp crepes made in butter and then stuffed with potatoes) in a tiny eatery near my house, when I lived in Bangalore. *drool*. It doesn't taste this good anywhere else..
11. The smell of freshly brewed filter coffee.(Strangely I don’t like coffee in perfume)
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:27 am
I don’t like coffee in perfume either but I love your list.
Dogs feet AND puppy breath.
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:27 am
Animal lover!
1)lilacs
2)fresh-cut zoysia grass
3)my best-beloved cat Pickles
4)popcorn
5)coffee
6)cow manure – I grew up on a dairy farm in upstate NY and it reminds me of my childhood.
7)onions fried in olive oil
Jan V Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Hey Claudia,
I too grew up in upstate New York, near Saratoga…love that fresh air, hay, the rich loamy soil and fresh tomato leaves! I’m in California now and at times pine for air that one cannot see (though we do have days here that are clear)
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:29 am
*goes off to look up zoysia grass*
Honeybunny -
I wish for a speedy recovery for you!
Short list (many smells but this is a short list)
Oil paint
Turpentine (but only as it’s used in cleaning oil paint brushes – by itself it’s too acrid)
Sweating draft horses
The little space where a dog’s ear meets his head
Viburnums in the spring, when the smell is headiest and most elusive
Cooking chocolate (ask anybody on the Mag Mile about Blommer Chocolate Factory – when they’re cooking their chocolate and the wind shifts east…..
Hyacinths in a pot, on a warm, wet day (like in a bedroom, with the window open)
Freshly ironed sheets
The crunch of eucalyptus pods in the Presidio, on a foggy day
The smell of the redwoods in Mill Valley, on a sunny day.
xo
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:31 am
Oh, I’ve had the eucalypt pods in the Presidio too. Love stepping on them….
Russian olive trees blooming in May. One of those smells that travels on the warm air and is so heavenly it took me years to find the source. The flowers are tiny, but radiate their scent for miles!
chris g Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Ooo, I almost forgot-the smell of greasewood (aka chaparral) after a desert rain storm.
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:31 am
They do have a phenomenal smell.
Are there any scents left to mention?
So many of my favorites appear, but a few more include ~
The South Louisiana bayous; fishy, swampy, sleepy and soothing, all at once;
Shrimp and potatoes boiled in Zatarain’s Crab Boil;
Sweet basil, sprinkled onto sliced roma tomatoes;
Rain-kissed cats, especially my Persians, Mimi and Bambi;
Nail polish;
Pumpkins;
The nearby woods, which I am certain are home to a variety of lovely faeries, brownies, elves, gnomes and sprites.
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:32 am
Fun list – and the first smell is something I must experience.
feel better, Lee!
1. Chlorinated pool water.
2. The smell of my mom’s fried green tomatoes as I walk in the door.
3. My sister’s hair.
4. My mom’s robe.
5. Wet grass.
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 5:33 am
Fried green toms – yes please.
Big, squidgy basset paws! Dog paws are on of the most comforting smells, I so agree. Also the soft, snowy fur on the underside of Halsbury’s neck — it smells like snow and earth.
There is a particularly poignant smell I come across once in a blue moon that is incredibly evocative of my early childhood. It is a smell of dust, wood polish, cedar — the scent of the big wooden hall at a summer camp in rural Pennsylvania my mom’s parents owned when I was a little girl.
Other favourties are:
the garrigue in the south of france — wild thyme, rosemary, pine and sea salt
lavender, lilacs and wisteria
the old burgundy roses in Grays Inn, London
coffee and baking croissants on a damp cool morning in Paris
the weird mesh of saffron, cumin, coffee, honey and humanity of the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul
Cinnabar remnants on my mom’s cashmere sweaters
hot pretzels and chestnuts in New York City in winter!
Sigh…..
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 6:37 am
I went on holiday reading your comment!
The smell of smokey BBQ coming in your window when you can first drive around in early spring with your windows wide open (that’s February here in Houston)
Jasmine climbing up and all over fences
Wild strawberries when you are picking them on a warm sunny morning
Fresh leather interior of a new purse (or not-so-fresh interior of a beloved person’s well-worn leather motorcycle jacket)
Fresh-cut grass
Pork roast with rosemary baking in the oven
Daffodils (smells yellow, smells like sunshine)
Get well soon, Lee!!
Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 6:38 am
Your first smell is totally evocative!
library books
my husband’s neck (heat & spice)
sweet pea flowers
just-picked mustard greens (they are strangely perfumey)
my mother’s purse when I was a kid (lipstick, powder, leather, money, chewing gum)
loquat blossoms in November (intoxicating & syrupy)
baking a sweet potato in the oven & the potato bursts & spills some juice on the oven floor & the juice burns–that smell.
Lee Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:18 am
I must do a post on sweet peas in June. I love them then, but am bored of them by August.
Oh, favorite scents of spring…so hard to conjure up today, when it’s snowing heaps and heaps. Let’s see:
Sun-warmed cat fur
Freshly tilled dirt
The sweat of garden/farm work (it’s different than sweat generated by other means, at least to my nose)
Laundry that’s dried on the line
The scent of coming rain
Wet horses
Sun-warmed lumber (it always seems there’s something that needs to be mended or built in the spring)
Apple blossoms
Lee Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:19 am
And there’s also nothing quite so delightful as how your face feels after working outside on a crisp spring day…
What an evocative list. I was thrilled to see and smell my Daphne’s first blooms this morning! Hooray for Spring!
Lee Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:20 am
Yeah – they’re a little later here too, so I moved one of my potted ones to the heat of the front of the house. All the blossom is now open.
[...] Split Leaf Maple Tree Todays top smells are Perfume Posse I found some cool stuff here: Todays top smells are Perfume [...]
maurys seasoning salts