Want to buy or sell something? Check the classifieds
  • The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Old smells, that immeditately transport you back in time?

Adcurium

A-List Customer
Messages
316
Location
Newport County, Rhode Island
Oh, Polo green (I don't know if that's what it is called but everyone knows what I'm talking about). One whiff and PaPOW! I'm in 8th grade, and I've got a bitchin' Jean jacket with a Billy Idol and Clash pins on the lepal...
 

dnjan

One Too Many
Messages
1,690
Location
Seattle
coal-burning furnace

Walking outside in winter, and smelling a coal-burning furnace takes me back to my childhood.
Haven't smelled that in 10-15 years ...
 

Jaguar66

A-List Customer
Messages
358
Location
San Rafael, CA
I have an old mens cologne by Prince Matchabelli, called Black Watch. I have half a bottle left, and when I smell it, I am back on a date with my high school sweetheart, driving around, and just laughing and cutting up.
 

MisterCairo

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,005
Location
Gads Hill, Ontario
Ah yes, that was called a Gestetner here in Australia. Named after a British guy who invented it. Same thing...a spirit duplicator. We all used to sniff the paper when they were printed...hehe. I remember when i was around 10 that they started using green and pink ink on the paper as well :) If I smelt that fresh printed smell right now it would take me straight make to Primary School.

Glad I'm not alone on that! The smell did give a sort of "high", didn't it? Or at least we thought it did!
 

Stray Cat

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Tilia. (Lime)
Brings me back to my early mornings of walking to school. There was a street, on my way to school, and we used to walk along it every morning (classes started at 8am, so we would be there around 7:45). Whole street had lines of Tilia trees. On both sides of the road.
I can remember many mornings when I smell that tree.
And I can instantly sing a tune (popular at that time.. in my country). lol
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
Walking outside in winter, and smelling a coal-burning furnace takes me back to my childhood.
Haven't smelled that in 10-15 years ...

That's the same for me, too. Even after all these years, in the winter when the temperature is just right and air a little damp, that old coal smoke smell still lingers at the old house.
 

Spitfire

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,078
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark.
The sweet smell of horse or horse stable takes me right back to my late twenties, when I had my own horse or went riding whenever I had the time...

IMG_0008.jpg


IMG_0009jpg-1.jpg


Sweet memories of another great time.
 

Miss Moonlight

A-List Customer
Messages
440
Location
San Diego
^Cool photos. :)

I grew up with a father who worked on classic cars in his spare time. He also smoked a lot and like a lot of people drank beer at home. So that combination- beer, cig smoke and grease- takes me back to being 10 or 11 and handing him tools as he asked for them, like he was a surgeon and I his surgical nurse
 

Miss sofia

One Too Many
Messages
1,675
Location
East sussex, England
What a nice story Miss Moonlight.

The smell of fruit or sponge cake everytime i open a tin in the larder always reminds me of my Nana, who was always baking or making jam. It's the same when i take the lid off a pot of marmalade as that was one of her specialities.

The smell of Old Spice and brylcreem always reminds me of my Grandpa too.
 
Messages
10,181
Location
Pasadena, CA
I tired explaining to my coworkers today that i was born in Montana, and spent a lot of time traveling by car with my family. All the greasy spoons, truck stops we ate in all had people smoking too. I hate being around smokers, but when I'm in one of those, I love it! How odd is that?
Also, my grandfather owned a shop on the Seattle coast that repaired freighters that came in. The smell of those machines and the cigars/pipes grandpa smoked hit me when I smell one or the other in the right place. Not always, but when it hits, I'm 8 again!
 

shazzabanazza

Practically Family
Messages
537
Location
New Zealand
The small of cut grass always transports me back to summertime when I was a kid, playing outside with my sister, riding our bikes. Good times :)
 

_Nightwing

One of the Regulars
Messages
128
Location
Gastonia
The smell of cotton candy takes me back to that horrible day at the circus when a clown killed my Dad. No, I'm just cribbing from Jack Handy as usual. Let's see, the smell of fallen pine needles really baking in the hot sun reminds me of just about every summer camping trip I ever took. Makes living in crappy apartments in North Carloina, which are surrounded by pine trees nineteen times out of twenty, quite a treat. I worry sometimes that the memory of living in crappy apartments will supplant the memory of camping with my family, but that still hasn't happened yet.

Another great one for me is the smell and taste of drinking Orangina, which for some reason is sold in stores here imported from Canada. Takes me right back to the first time I ever had it as a boy, on holiday in the South of France.

The taste of iced tea is practically erotic, because I never had it until I visited Florida when I was nineteen, and a lot of good stuff happened in Florida when I was nineteen.
 

Renault

One Too Many
Messages
1,688
Location
Wilbarger creek bottom
the sweet smell of burnt gun powder & old cosmoline from surplus rifles

Hoppe's #9 Powder solvent! Smell it everyday at work. Transports me back to hunting camps of the past. And the shed of my adopted gramps, there next to his range. Helping and cleaning rifles after a sight in session...

Another good one for me is that old canvas smell........ And a very bad one for me is diesel fumes. Bad experience during a wet landing while in the Marines..............

Renault
 

Rats Riley

A-List Customer
Messages
365
Location
Whitewater WI
Old car smell or should I say vintage car smell. Unless you own one or have ridden in one, you might not know what I mean. In 92 I got home from the service and the 1st car I bought with my GI savings bonds was a mist green, 58 Plymouth Savvoy... Sucker had a push button tranny, 2 in the goo with a flat head six, four doors with fridge handles, a rear view mirror on the dash board and NO radio. It was apparently optional with that make, as was the seat belts.
 
Messages
10,883
Location
Portage, Wis.
Sounds like my old 58 Chevy, minus mirror on the Dashboard, that was mainly a MoPar thing, and older 'Vettes. Push button trannies, my great-grandpa had one in his 59 Fury Interceptor. That was a dandy car. You only saw those trannies in MoPars and of course the Edsel Tele-Touch.

My brain bucket was sitting on the table today and a friend picked it up and put it on. A minute later he says, I can smell the stuff in your hair in here (Tres Flores pomade) and it smells like my dad.



Old car smell or should I say vintage car smell. Unless you own one or have ridden in one, you might not know what I mean. In 92 I got home from the service and the 1st car I bought with my GI savings bonds was a mist green, 58 Plymouth Savvoy... Sucker had a push button tranny, 2 in the goo with a flat head six, four doors with fridge handles, a rear view mirror on the dash board and NO radio. It was apparently optional with that make, as was the seat belts.
 

Bugguy

Practically Family
Messages
570
Location
Nashville, TN
Gin - back in the fraternity days I over indulged on gin and slivovitz. My "brothers" stood me up between my mother's screen door and main front door, rang the bell, and ran. First and only night I ever spent in a bathtub.

Gin will never, ever touch my lips.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
109,269
Messages
3,077,657
Members
54,221
Latest member
magyara
Top