In my junior year of high school our state/county banned paddling as discipline, so our school switched to “Buck Rags” as an alternative. Basically they’re rags rubbed all over a billy goat in rut for a long time and then stored in jars. The school purchased a couple from a farm and if you misbehaved, you’d be taken out back and made to stick your nose in the jar for 2-4 minutes as punishment.
I never got it, but when a student was disciplined you could faintly smell it on and around them for the rest of the day.
Some students and parents complained it was cruel but I personally loved that they used it. Bullying and class disruption and all the typical HS nonsense went way down after the implementation.
Instant teleportation back to the first vacation I can personally recall, where my parents rented a houseboat in the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River and we would hop island to island, hiking amongst the pines, boat-camping tied up to rickety docks in otherwise natural areas, swimming in the chilly waters.
Boiled cabbage. We lived in the most cultural melting pot of an apartment building, in one of the largest apartment complex locations in the US. We were in district 10, where-as D1 and D2 were long buildings with over 50 residents in each. They had vending machine rooms in the halls, the lucky bastards
The smell of wood at the beach on a hot day brings me back to summer vacations – we only went a handful of times to the beach and yet it’s such a powerful memory- all of us together, happiness, freedom, sunshine…
The smell of red grapes. My great grandmother had a 50 yo arbor thick white the most fragrant grapes she grew from cuttings from her parents’ own arbor.
Orange peel. We were poor and my dad would put orange peel on the radiator to make it smell nice. He would also put my socks and shirt on it so that I wasn’t cold when getting ready for school.
Ok hear me out. My mom used to work at a Bob Evan’s (North Eastern US breakfast chain) and when she would come home some days, I’d hug her and her face would smell like makeup/perfume, fryer grease, and chicken.
Sometimes when I walk into a Bob Evan’s these days, if all the smells swirl around just right with a hint of one off the old ladies perfumes… smells just like hugging my mom as a kid.
Spilled beer, it reminds me of when I’d go with my mom helping her bottle beer at the brewery place she made her own. I don’t particularly care for beer to drink but that tangy yeasty smell brings me back to there, we didn’t get along too well but during that was nice.
Growing up there was this spice rack that my grandma had in her kitchen. It had these pretty hand painted containers that slotted into a wooden rack. I would pull them out and smell the spices, and the cloves always smelled best.
UPS drivers. My dad worked for UPS for most of my life. They have a distinct smell especially if they work in an air hub. I’m not sniffing them, but if they walk by I’m instantly back in his office on “take your daughter to work day”. Those were good times.
Cigarette smoke haha. Once I mentioned to one of my coworkers when he came in from a smoke break that the smell was kind of nostalgic and he started teasing me after future breaks pretending to waft the smell toward me.
I’m not a smoker, but I find as long as I’m not trapped with the smell, like in someone’s car or something, I don’t mind the smell of a burning cigarette.
Marlboro reds. My grandpa use to smoke them a lot and their entire house smells like them. I lived with them for a couple years when I was younger when my mom was between housing.
2 stroke exhaust. We had a Moto-Ski snowmobile when I was a kid that ran a 28:1 ratio of gas to oil so it burned quite rich, way more than later 2 stoke engines that were 50:1. I smell a rich running 2 stroke exhaust and I’m a kid again watching my Dad work on that sled.
Probably really weird for this one, but cow manure. My great grand parents had a dairy farm and anytime I smell cow shit I’m 8 years old hanging out in the milking parlor or hay loft.
Idk why but every country home I went to had this smell in the office, I cannot for the live of me find the smell but I 100% recognize it when I smell it.
My father owned an auto mechanic shop, now long since closed and him passed on. Probably not the healthiest environment for a child, but it’s distinct. I get nostalgic everytime I need to take my car in for repairs.
Fresh bed linens that had been dried outdoors in the summer. Strawberry scented anything, I loved that as a kid! The probably toxic scent of Super-Elastic-Bubble-Plastic.
Leather. When I was 8 I went to South Korea for the summer and my uncle owned a luggage store that sold a lot of leather products so the smell always brings me back there.
In the winter where I live, people would trim some trees and burn the branches. Idk what tree it is, but the smoke from that seeping into the car is heaven. It was a subtle, sweet, smokiness that made me just happy
There is a book I have that has always smelled a certain way. It was my favorite when I was little. I keep it wrapped up so that hopefully when I’m old, it will still have its smell.
The ‘second hand smoke’ smell of used video games.
We used to rent N64 consoles as a kid: we weren’t allowed game consoles until much later, so if we were good, we’d get to play games for 3 days, and the foam briefcase they’d come in always smelt like second hand smoke. Something about how smoke stuck to these things smelled oddly pleasant and just reminds me of watching my brothers get the Tag Team belt in NWO vs. WCW Revenge
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Sawdust (hamster bedding from when I was little)
The smell of soil after rain
Freshly cut grass.
Sauna, the smell of wood there is different fr
Buck rags / Billy goat stench!
In my junior year of high school our state/county banned paddling as discipline, so our school switched to “Buck Rags” as an alternative. Basically they’re rags rubbed all over a billy goat in rut for a long time and then stored in jars. The school purchased a couple from a farm and if you misbehaved, you’d be taken out back and made to stick your nose in the jar for 2-4 minutes as punishment.
I never got it, but when a student was disciplined you could faintly smell it on and around them for the rest of the day.
Some students and parents complained it was cruel but I personally loved that they used it. Bullying and class disruption and all the typical HS nonsense went way down after the implementation.
Fufu
Freshly cut grass
The pink soap used in schools in the 2000’s
Mixed gas from 2 stroke dirtbikes
The smell of when you pour water on sand instantly takes me back to my childhood.
Chlorine and the pink oil of olay..
Lysol. My grandma cleaned her bathroom with it. Always reminds me of her house
Bacon
Baking bread. Both grandmother’s were constantly making bread.
Dried paint
Manure in the fields! 🤣
Fresh cut grass and dandelions! I associate my childhood most with springtime
Estee Lauder Youth’s Dew
Hyacinths and lilac.
My grandma has them in her yard.
Oscar Meyer Baloney, the kid’s staple in the 60’s.
The chalky, medicinal smell of Flintstones vitamins.
Honeysuckle. Wood stove or campfire
Church. I can’t even really describe the smell of the church but it’s like old wood.
Chocomilk (mexican nesquik)
Lavender, my dad used to get this scent for everything, be it laundry detergent or room sprays!
My mom was a zookeeper, and the horrible stench of running errands in her car after she had just cleaned the lion houses forever haunts my memory 🤢
Chocomilk (mexican nesquik)
The smell of a XX55 series John Deere Tractor
Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen.
Smell of the ocean.
Dried pine needles.
Instant teleportation back to the first vacation I can personally recall, where my parents rented a houseboat in the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River and we would hop island to island, hiking amongst the pines, boat-camping tied up to rickety docks in otherwise natural areas, swimming in the chilly waters.
Smell of a rainy day in a farm
Boiled cabbage. We lived in the most cultural melting pot of an apartment building, in one of the largest apartment complex locations in the US. We were in district 10, where-as D1 and D2 were long buildings with over 50 residents in each. They had vending machine rooms in the halls, the lucky bastards
Cookies. My mom would make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for after school as a treat.
Woodstove
blood
An early spring morning
Chlorine
That weird chemical smell of those puffy stickers
Cucumber sandwiches
The smell of Cottonwood seeds when they’re all sappy. Unlocks memories from when I was like 2/3
Quaker blueberry muffins, lifelong memories from times with my grandma <3
Scent of dry soil after a bit of rain
Plasticine
mimeograph ink. been a long time.
That stuff that the school would use to make a student’s puke chunk into more of a paste for cleaning.
My Uncle’s junk
Weed and Natural Light
Honeysuckle & Gardinas & Magnolia & Bubby Rose
Lilacs
Bandaids
Vic’s vapour rub
Play-Doh
Juicy-Fruit gum
Oil of Olay and English Leather.
Cut grass, lawnmower exhaust, the smell of Diasanon that dad would spray on apple trees.
Play-Doh. It’s like time stops for me if I open a can and smell it.
the smell of rain for sure
Stale cigarettes and aftershave from my dad
Roses. My grandpa grew them for my grandma.
Pigs in a blanket. There was a summer camp I went to where they served them a lot and sometimes I get whiffs of things that reminds me of them
The smell of wood at the beach on a hot day brings me back to summer vacations – we only went a handful of times to the beach and yet it’s such a powerful memory- all of us together, happiness, freedom, sunshine…
Strawberry Shortcake dolls
Also, does anyone remember the strong starchy smell that new sets of cartoon bedsheets used to have?
That weird skunk like smell that certain toys had. I’m thinking of He-Man specifically, but other toys had a similar smell.
Canadian Tire. Trips with Dad on Saturday.
The smell of red grapes. My great grandmother had a 50 yo arbor thick white the most fragrant grapes she grew from cuttings from her parents’ own arbor.
Old car exhaust. Every car used to smell that way.
A car with vinyl seats and an ashtray full of cigarette butts
The smell of my mom’s cooking… mixed with a faint hint of panic because she forgot the dinner was burning.
Frying onions with garlic smells like grandmas house.
Instant chocolate pudding.
Facet water in the bath
crayons
Maple cookies and lilacs. Grandma had lilacs around her house and always had maple cookies.
The distinct smell of tobacco being cured. (Dried)
Panama Jack sunscreen tanning oil. The coconut smell takes me back to being 10 years old at the beach.
That specific hot rubber smell from the rubber playground “wood”chips
I don’t know why, but I always associate talcum powder’s smell with childhood memories.
Lilacs
Dial soap was always what we used for baths at my grandma and grandpas 🙂
Also my coworker has perfume that smells like one of my Barbie’s. Whenever I smell her I’m like “you smell like a Barbie!!” 💜
Skin so soft by Avon
Burning leaves…we used to rake them to the street and burn them
The smell of porridge cooking ….mom would get up early on particularly cold mornings to make it
Those big pink erasers.
Amoxicillin Pink bubble gum medicine
Orange peel. We were poor and my dad would put orange peel on the radiator to make it smell nice. He would also put my socks and shirt on it so that I wasn’t cold when getting ready for school.
Cigar smoke. My father smoked cigars.
Jasmine. We had a jasmine bush in my parents front yard growing up & I always used to smell it when I was playing outside as a child
Cigarette smoke💀
This is very specific but the smell of a gas fire that has been turned for the first time in a while! Reminds me of weekends at my grandparents house!
✨Maggi!✨
The fall. It’s a unique smell.
Lip smackers
Cigarette smoke. I feel like almost every adult smoked when I was a child. Also, hot vinyl and metal. Like hot car seats.
Ok hear me out. My mom used to work at a Bob Evan’s (North Eastern US breakfast chain) and when she would come home some days, I’d hug her and her face would smell like makeup/perfume, fryer grease, and chicken.
Sometimes when I walk into a Bob Evan’s these days, if all the smells swirl around just right with a hint of one off the old ladies perfumes… smells just like hugging my mom as a kid.
The smell of sunblock lotion. Reminds me of swimming during the summertime and the beach with my family.
White shoulders perfume
Smell of cheeseburgers n coffee at Mc Donald’s
Freshly washed sheets that were dried in the sun
Lupines and pine trees
Pie crust cinnamon rolls.
My grandmother would send me home with a gallon Ziploc full of them every time I visited.
The smell of bread baking from the Arnold’s bakery (massive) company on the way to school
Spilled beer, it reminds me of when I’d go with my mom helping her bottle beer at the brewery place she made her own. I don’t particularly care for beer to drink but that tangy yeasty smell brings me back to there, we didn’t get along too well but during that was nice.
Cloves.
Growing up there was this spice rack that my grandma had in her kitchen. It had these pretty hand painted containers that slotted into a wooden rack. I would pull them out and smell the spices, and the cloves always smelled best.
I think of her every time I smell it now.
Onions in a skillet
pokemon cards
Road tar. My old junior school in Luton was next to a tar factory. Those were happy days. Weird. But you love what you love
Scented Easter basket grass.
taking one step into a home and instantly getting hit with the sweet sweet smell of arroz con gandules currently cooking in the kitchen
Wood paneling and old cigerate smoke
Rubber, campfire smoke and grandma’s cooking
UPS drivers. My dad worked for UPS for most of my life. They have a distinct smell especially if they work in an air hub. I’m not sniffing them, but if they walk by I’m instantly back in his office on “take your daughter to work day”. Those were good times.
Vaseline
Crayons
Mine is more of a taste…Gripe water
Bug spray.
Also, the smell the air gets just before a good thunderstorm.
The dirt smell of a baseball field, too.
Fresh baked bread
teatree oil
Freshly opened books
Vinyl pool toys
Honeysuckle, lilac, or wild onions (we used to pick all of these growing up in the country).
Max factor cream puff smell mixed with cigarettes!
Cigarette smoke haha. Once I mentioned to one of my coworkers when he came in from a smoke break that the smell was kind of nostalgic and he started teasing me after future breaks pretending to waft the smell toward me.
I’m not a smoker, but I find as long as I’m not trapped with the smell, like in someone’s car or something, I don’t mind the smell of a burning cigarette.
Honeysuckle
The spray sunscreen and chlorine.
Inside of an old metal lunch pail. (I always open them up and smell them when I see one at an antique store.)
My mom’s spaghetti sauce.
Artificial strawberry smell
Lemon-scented Pledge. Takes me back to 3 or 4 years old.
I grew up in Amish country, PA (not Amish)… chicken coops and cow shit
Floorwax. Home cooked meals.
Burning gun powder
Stale cigarette smoke mixed with freshly lit cigarettes
Bookmobile
cheeseburger happy meal and warm rain on a summer day evaporating off hot asphalt
Coppertone
Old Spice aftershave.
Cigarette smoke
Play Doh
Marlboro reds. My grandpa use to smoke them a lot and their entire house smells like them. I lived with them for a couple years when I was younger when my mom was between housing.
Honeysuckle
The smell of Magnolia trees and flowers. My aunt used to babysit me and she had a huge magnolia tree that I used to climb often.
Grilled cheese on grilled bread.
My grandfather used to make this for me.
Even now when I do this, I instantly think of him. He’s still alive, but very old and cannot do much by himself.
The smell of birthday candles after they’ve been blown out. Pure nostalgia!
Burning leaves.
Wet thawing fields in Spring that smell like rotting worms and gas cannisters, weird funky books and glycerin soap
2 stroke exhaust. We had a Moto-Ski snowmobile when I was a kid that ran a 28:1 ratio of gas to oil so it burned quite rich, way more than later 2 stoke engines that were 50:1. I smell a rich running 2 stroke exhaust and I’m a kid again watching my Dad work on that sled.
Play-Doh
Old furniture, mothballs
Juicy Fruit Gum. My grandmother always has it and a kind , elderly gentleman used to give us all the kids a stick of it after church .
the smell of old books
Church. Old wood, candles and plasticine smell in the basement where we played after service.
The smell of a leather baseball glove.
My sister.
Pink winter mints, they always remind me of my grandma
Dry cleaning solvent
Cigarette smoke (my mom was the smoker , not me lol).
Probably really weird for this one, but cow manure. My great grand parents had a dairy farm and anytime I smell cow shit I’m 8 years old hanging out in the milking parlor or hay loft.
Playdough 🙃
Moth balls 😂
Crayola crayons and Play-Dough
Idk why but every country home I went to had this smell in the office, I cannot for the live of me find the smell but I 100% recognize it when I smell it.
Exhaust fumes and grease.
My father owned an auto mechanic shop, now long since closed and him passed on. Probably not the healthiest environment for a child, but it’s distinct. I get nostalgic everytime I need to take my car in for repairs.
Animal poop…chicken & pigs being the worst. Lots of farms and always windy.
Fresh bed linens that had been dried outdoors in the summer. Strawberry scented anything, I loved that as a kid! The probably toxic scent of Super-Elastic-Bubble-Plastic.
Leather. When I was 8 I went to South Korea for the summer and my uncle owned a luggage store that sold a lot of leather products so the smell always brings me back there.
The sweet smelling self rolled tobacco. My grandfather smoked a pipe and that sweet tobacco smell always immediately reminds me of him.
In the winter where I live, people would trim some trees and burn the branches. Idk what tree it is, but the smoke from that seeping into the car is heaven. It was a subtle, sweet, smokiness that made me just happy
Pancakes. Reminds me of my brother constantly cooking them.
Main Street Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean, and from my 20s, the MBTA.
Carmex
There is a book I have that has always smelled a certain way. It was my favorite when I was little. I keep it wrapped up so that hopefully when I’m old, it will still have its smell.
Playdoh
Oven cooked sausage smelltakes me back to my nursery days where we were served overcooked brown sausages and mash dished out with an icecream scoop.
Hot PVC.
It reminds me of my childhood of drinking from the garden hose. That smell and taste makes the water so much better.
Cherry vanilla pipe tobacco
Pine. Annual vacation to Lake George where we rented a cabin. LOVE that smell. Also, Christmas.
Houses from the early 1900s. My grandma had one in Pittsburgh and there are a bunch in SF, where I live now.
Moth balls. Reminds me of my grandmas closet/house.
Fresh land
Cut grass
That smell that all childcare centres seem to have. No idea what it is but it’s kind of distinct
The ‘second hand smoke’ smell of used video games.
We used to rent N64 consoles as a kid: we weren’t allowed game consoles until much later, so if we were good, we’d get to play games for 3 days, and the foam briefcase they’d come in always smelt like second hand smoke. Something about how smoke stuck to these things smelled oddly pleasant and just reminds me of watching my brothers get the Tag Team belt in NWO vs. WCW Revenge
Pipe tobacco from my uncle Jeff. Worcestershire sauce from my mom mom’s homemade chex mix. Wisteria growing over our dog’s kennel outside
That army/navy store smell reminds me of my dad’s closet in the house I grew up in. He was in the national guard.
Opening certain electronics. The new Nintendo smell will ALWAYS make me happy.
Yay Capitalism!/s
The smell of a dental office. My mother used to be a dentist and that smell is really strong.
Vacuum cleaner dirt.
that orange dish soap 🤠 it was like some fruit and it was always used in every house i’ve ever been it in michigan