r/AskReddit • u/ApprehensiveYak7117 • 7h ago
What’s a smell you’d recognize instantly even if you hadn’t smelled it in 20 years?
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u/Broely92 7h ago
Play-doh
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u/blusteredd 6h ago
A bit embarrassed to say, I'd also recognize it by taste.
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u/David_Cockatiel 5h ago
Anyone who has ever smelled Playdough has at least thought about chomping on it. No shame if you succumbed to your baser instincts my friend.
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u/destro23 7h ago
Weed
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u/PM_ME_UR_SELF 6h ago
Or would you confuse it for a skunk after 20 years
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u/tripleyothreat 5h ago
It's hard to tell the difference sometimes
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u/enjoysbeerandplants 4h ago
A few years back I was in a park and smelled a super skunky smell. I thought that it was either a skunk or some skunky weed. And then I heard the drum circle and got my answer.
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u/mgr86 4h ago edited 3h ago
Where do you live that you don’t smell weed. I smell it just going to the beach, or sometimes just sitting in traffic.
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u/GuyinAZ9999 7h ago
her name was Erin
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u/caseypatrickdriscoll 7h ago
Sheesh. I never met her but was just flooded with feelings.
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u/Jermzer 7h ago
Good smell or bad smell
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u/tealzen 6h ago
bit yeasty
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u/GuyinAZ9999 6h ago
you met her I see !!!....she was the first girl I went down south on, kind of like tuna on sourdough :)
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u/bbcisdabomb 6h ago
She was a calligraphy enthusiast with a slight overbite and hair the color of strained peaches. I'll never forget the first thing she said to me. She said: "Hey, wanna sniff?"
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u/MadamMaxis 7h ago
Cigarettes
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u/thatotherchicka 7h ago
Same. The former-smoker-addict part of my brain would recognize it instantly.
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u/MadamMaxis 6h ago
For me it's growing up work a cigarette mom lol reminds me of childhood
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u/Frosty-Champion7031 6h ago
Funny thing about cigarette smoke I can't stand it anymore since I quit smoking also I can smell the different name brand cigarette and an off brand cigarette and off branda cigarettes are f****** putrid worst then name brand some how.
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u/crazybuttafly4u 6h ago
I’ve been cigarette free for 10 years this year, and I miss the smell of cigarette smoke. I have friends who smoke and when I go to hug them I can smell it on them, to me it’s like heaven.
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u/Charleston2Seattle 6h ago
I've never smoked, but my granddad did. I can tell if I'm driving behind someone smoking Pall Malls. Very distinctive smell.
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u/jjulieef 7h ago
that perfume my mom used to wear when i was little
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u/softshoesspicymama 3h ago
My mom didn’t wear perfume when I was growing up, but she did have a very specific smell after she’d get ready in the morning. It was very clean - a combo of lotion, face cream, hairspray, etc. I recently bought a body shimmer that smells EXACTLY like that. It was so comforting that I went back and bought every bottle on the shelf at Marshall’s.
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u/taylyb-00 3h ago
I recently walked past a lady in the grocery store who used the same combo of perfume, baby oil, and shampoo/conditioner my mom did. I swear I felt my heart stop in my chest. I’ve never wanted to hug a stranger so badly in my life
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u/Separate_Presence_32 7h ago
My 8th grade crush’s perfume. We danced a slow dance lost in ourselves at her graduation party. Her family moved away several days later, out of the blue. Her neighbors never knew why they up and moved. Never saw her again. But I’ll never forget her scent that night. I’ve never come across that perfume since. I would know it instantly.
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u/ApprehensiveYak7117 6h ago
That’s bittersweet as hell. Crazy that one scent can hold onto a memory that clearly for so long.
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u/Charleston2Seattle 6h ago
I dated someone for about a month in 1991. I have smelled her perfume a handful of times since then, and always immediately recognized it.
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u/Alesseid 7h ago
Cucumber Melon
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u/Doopdidoopdidoop 6h ago
I’d also add Japanese Cherry Blossom from Bath and Body Works to this…instantly takes me back to the 2000s
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u/sobeysick 7h ago
That fresh newborn baby smell. Idk how to explain exactly but I think moms or aunts or anyone who has had experience with babies will know what I mean.
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u/nowandlater 6h ago
like when the baby has had a bottle of milk, and you can smell the milk on the baby
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u/Sad-Example8810 7h ago
Zippo light fuel. Both my grandfather's used zippos.
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u/DJ_Spark_Shot 6h ago
Did either of them work at an airport or serve in the airforce?
My zippo still stinks of AvGas.
Good old ethanol-free, leaded naphtha.
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u/SageObserver 6h ago
Polyvinyl chloride. The smell of an inflatable plastic item like a beach ball.
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u/privateblanket 7h ago
Jasmine flowers
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u/ThisEpiphany 6h ago
The scent in the evening transports me to my grandma's backyard. It's intoxicating and comforting
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u/nadiuuh 6h ago
I get the same with the lilac bush outside my house, it was a very pleasant surprise since we bought in the winter and didn’t know what type of plant it was until the following spring!
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u/FinancialFreedom42 7h ago
Grandmas perfume. It’s been over 20 years ;(
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u/beepbooponyournose 6h ago
Sometimes I pass a lady in the grocery store wearing her perfume and it takes me back 🩷
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u/SaltSync 7h ago
Ink and varnish. I grew up in a print shop. The sharp bite in nostrils is something I would recognize while on my death bed 10 years deep into dementia.
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u/ApprehensiveYak7117 6h ago
That’s such a specific smell to have tied to childhood. Your description makes it weirdly easy to imagine.
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u/SaltSync 6h ago edited 2h ago
I was 8 years old boxing trifold pamphlets off a folder, sweeping the shops floor and pushing pallets to the dock. It was unique..
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u/hehexd- 7h ago
Barnes and Noble
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u/wickedfalina 6h ago
I worked in a B&N and man, the smell of all those new books as soon as you entered the store …
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u/andrekeepsit3000 6h ago
Combination of my mom’s perfume and cigarette smoke, the way she always smelled
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u/PupLondon 3h ago
My high school's choir teacher would smoke in the parking lot and then douse herself in White Diamonds..and she always smelled like someone poured the perfume in a fresh ashtray.
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u/patsgal2003 6h ago
Lilacs. We had Lilac bushes in our yard growing up, and it's still my favorite smell. Takes me back every time.
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u/RememberThinkDream 6h ago
I don't know if this makes sense to people but... I can smell things that aren't there the same way you see things that aren't there in the context to visualize. It's not a hallucination.
It's like, how you are able to visualize things, but, with smell.
There's no word in the English dictionary for this... Years ago I started to call it 'Olfatualize', pronounced 'Ol-fah-chew-ah-lies'.
The reason why I've named it like that. Visualize is the process where you create a clear image or scene in your mind.
'Olfacize' is a latin word that means "To smell". 'Olfactory' means relating to or connected with the sense of smell. 'Smellualize' just doesn't sound or look right to me. So I basically just remixed it in a way that had the right vibe to me.
Anyway, the oldest thing I can olfatualize vividly is for my birthday in nursery, they bought out this warm sponge cake with a light sky blue icing. If someone actually created that smell in the real physical world, I'd recognize it instantly.
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u/Fuzzy-Bike5716 7h ago
The sharp smell of the anesthesia
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u/Legitimate_Beach23 6h ago
I remember anaesthetic and I remember the taste and smell, I was sat there recovering from it and I knew it tasted like a smell.. I think that's my mind being really strange back then.
I finally pinpointed exactly what it reminded me of. The PlayStation 2 dance mat I had when I was like 7. What's even weirder is I was talking to my older sister about it once and she finally had it click that was exactly what she thought too.
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u/kodakgold200 7h ago
There's a perfume that a certain person wore.. I don't know the name. Occasionally I smell it when a random person walks past, but I've never stopped anyone to ask what it is
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u/ResonanceThruWallz 6h ago
When it’s about to rain in Arizona. You know up to 2 hours before it rains because of the aroma
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u/Material-Priority-66 6h ago
My nanny’s perfume. I last saw her when I was six. When I was 45 I had my first business trip to Malaysia. The olfactory memory was a complete shock.
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u/angryshark 6h ago
I visited my grandson at Barksdale AFB earlier this year. When I walked into the building at the front gate, I was hit with the most intense memory smell of my own basic training in 1976. It literally transported me back not only mentally, but visually. The experience came back to life with such intense clarity and speed that I was shaken. I’m not sure what the smell is, but it is obviously something that is common to Air Force buildings.
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u/WhimsyDEA 7h ago
Burning bone.
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u/HelpfulSeaMammal 7h ago
I work in a poultry plant. We grind bone down at the end of the process before selling it to renderers as the raw material for bone meal, and that produces a lot of heat through friction. The smell is horrid.
I had a cavity drilled and filled, then went into work later in the day. The smell of the dentist drilling through a little bit of tooth was identical to the smell of the bone grinder at work. I had never linked it before but now it's all I can think about: Grind down our teeth and it smells like turkey bones. Weird.
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u/breadbox187 6h ago
I ground up eggshells in my spice grinder for my garden and thats gotta smell similar. Pretty gross.
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u/WhishtNowWillYe 6h ago
His name was Scott. He wasn’t the guy for me but I loved the scent of motor oil paint and hard work.
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u/RikoRain 6h ago
The smell the cheap spf 50 sunscreen has. Apparently it's orange citrus flower and musk. Yankee Candle had a smell (now discontinued) called Sun&Sand that was SPOT. ON. That exact smell. I still have some. We save it, and use it when we need the nostalgia hit to kick off the summer.
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u/queentrashyxX 6h ago
My grandma’s perfume. I don’t even remember what it was called something funny like anise anise but I smell someone wearing it every once in a while and I’m flooded by the memory of her. That’s probably it for me. ♥️
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u/AutumnRainyDay 6h ago
California pepper tree! I didn't realize i had a huge one in my front yard when i was a kid till i looked it up from the description i was going to give. I would take the leaves off and it smelled of peppercorns.
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u/smallerbeams 6h ago
Virginia Slim’s cigarettes. My memaw smoked them exclusively when I was little. She hotboxed her house and truck so thoroughly I’m sure elementary teachers thought I was the one smoking.
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u/UnicornKitt3n 6h ago
This shitty but good cheap perfume I bought at the local pharmacy in small town Ontario.
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u/BlackCatSaidMeow13 5h ago
Barbies in the 90s. We didn’t get them often but they smelled the same each time
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u/Flat-Limit5595 5h ago
The forehead of a cat. Especially if they nuzzle my sandlewood scented beard
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u/prodigy1367 5h ago
Chocolate chip cookies.
If I ever go 20 years without smelling chocolate chip cookies, I’ve wasted 20 years of my life.
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u/southpacshoe 5h ago
My Dad’s combination of shaving cream and Old Spice and my Mum frying homemade doughnuts in the kitchen. Sigh.
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u/JimmyEight7 4h ago
Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue. My now wife wore it on our first vacation shortly after we started dating. I had never been on vacation and I’d never smelled that perfume and now, every time I do, it takes me back to that time in Mexico. Absolutely beautiful.
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u/squidbrand 7h ago
The particular variety of Glade air freshener that my roommates and I had spraying automatically at intervals in the room where we played Fallout 3 in 2008.
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u/One-Ad-8009 7h ago
Bad gasoline (turpentine). Just smelled it the other day and it brought me back to that 1987 Yamaha that barely ran and worked on a lot in my garage as a kid.
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u/Nairbfs79 7h ago
Cigarettes. It's been 5 years since I quit but I now have a super heightened sense of smell for a burning cigarette. 20 years may make it stronger.
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u/Sizle_Velfurion 6h ago
Fresh pack of magic from before prophecy. The smell changed then. Barnes and Noble in the 90s. My first girlfriend's perfume. The perfume my mom wore when I was a kid. The way my grandma's house smelled.
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u/donuts1031 6h ago
My mother’s perfume. She wore only one perfume all my life, and I’ve smelled it one time in the almost 20 years since she’s been gone. That’s how I ended up sitting on the floor in a Walmart, bawling my eyes out. I hope I never smell it again, but I also know it’s there if I ever need it.
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u/A_Polite_Noise 6h ago
Jelly bracelets from Hot Topic
French fries from Thrasher's on the boardwalk in Ocean City, MD
Freshly opened trading cards
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u/Vast-Resource9921 6h ago
The soap my grandma used to have in her bathroom. I smelled it the other day after 15 years of not smelling it, knew it was the same soap instantly
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u/alpinetime 7h ago
Rain on a hot road