Scents and sensi-bility

[rayge]

We spend a fair amount of time talking about what we hear, see and taste that pleases us, but, to the best of my knowledge, I've never seeen a thread about fragrances, even though scent is widely regarded as the surest conduit to evoke memories of times past: every time I smell clove pinks, for example, which incidentally is often as I grow them, I am smacked back to a late evening in June around 1960, when, on holiday in (I think), the Isle of Wight, I suddenly became conscious of that scent, rising up from a west facing bank of carnations as the setting sun arrowed in on them.

Anyway, maybe we don't talk about them because they are BORING, but in my more deluded moments I'm inclined to think it may be just because the vocabulary of scents is so limited, and basically all about analogy: you can say that something smells like something, or of something, but there are no equivalent words to those hundreds that make subtle distinctions in colour, brightness and texture of the visible, or all those words you can use to describe the quality of the things you hear in music or speech. So I'm testing that (lavender) water.

Anyone have anything to say about what goes up their nose, for or against? Personal faves, in no particular order, petrichor, freesias, frankincense, hashish (and terpenes generally), sandalwood, citrus, musk and the usual floral suspects.

There's loads I don't like, mind, but then again, it's me...

Anyway (again), I've got plenty more to say on the subject if anyone shows the slightest interest (take that as threat or beseechment according to temperament) but I've more threads to start.

[tory]

I had a proustian rush to the smell of melted perspex as I was teaching D T this week.

[cousinlou]

May 30, 2021 15:32:05 GMT rayge said:

We spend a fair amount of time talking about what we hear, see and taste that pleases us, but, to the best of my knowledge, I've never seeen a thread about fragrances, even though scent is widely regarded as the surest conduit to evoke memories of times past: every time I smell clove pinks, for example, which incidentally is often as I grow them, I am smacked back to a late evening in June around 1960, when, on holiday in (I think), the Isle of Wight, I suddenly became conscious of that scent, rising up from a west facing bank of carnations as the setting sun arrowed in on them.

Anyway, maybe we don't talk about them because they are BORING, but in my more deluded moments I'm inclined to think it may be just because the vocabulary of scents is so limited, and basically all about analogy: you can say that something smells like something, or of something, but there are no equivalent words to those hundreds that make subtle distinctions in colour, brightness and texture of the visible, or all those words you can use to describe the quality of the things you hear in music or speech. So I'm testing that (lavender) water.

Anyone have anything to say about what goes up their nose, for or against? Personal faves, in no particular order, petrichor, freesias, frankincense, hashish (and terpenes generally), sandalwood, citrus, musk and the usual floral suspects.

There's loads I don't like, mind, but then again, it's me...

Anyway (again), I've got plenty more to say on the subject if anyone shows the slightest interest (take that as threat or beseechment according to temperament) but I've more threads to start.

Yes, I often think of the sheer power of fragrances to spur long forgotten memories.

What you say about the limited vocabulary to describe them, I think is true for other sensory things as well. How to describe a sound to a person that was born deaf, or a colour to a person that was born blind?

[harrylemon]

We have a wooden unit that my Mum had for years, open the doors and I'm back in my Mum's house.

[Sneelock]

May 30, 2021 15:32:05 GMT rayge said:

Anyway, maybe we don't talk about them because they are BORING...

[Sneelock]

I know I’ve mentioned the smell of juniper berries in Hollywood - more accurately, the absence of the smell of juniper berries. Whenever I visit, I notice I don’t smell them. When I lived there in the early seventies I usually walked or rode my bike and I smelled them everywhere.

A lot of guys & gals used fragrances in those days. I liked ‘musk’ better than ‘patchouli’ but preferred the juniper berries to all of them.

I’m glad that whole “Axe body spray” fad seems to have blown over. I didn’t care for that.
the single worst smell known to man, in my humble opinion, is the smell people make when they are giving their hair a “perm” Holy Crap! I’d rather smell a pissed off skunk.

[souphound]

May 30, 2021 16:20:48 GMT cousinlou said:

Senses are much stronger that we think, aren't they.  I happened to watch a scientific bit on tv today where they had tested people for the effects of sound on other perceptions.  One example of the strength of the sense of hearing was one lady wearing headphones, eating a series of potato chips (crisps if you like).  As she was munching them, she would rate each chip as to freshness and crispiness (out of 100).  Fact was all the chips were from the same bag but the sounds she was hearing of her munching were doctored to differ in tensity for each.  She rated differently depending on the sound she was hearing.  Without fail.

As far as smells I like, it's a bit bizarre I guess but walking in to my place right after the floors have been washed and being hit in the face with cleansers' odors makes me happy.

That and bread baking.

[fonz]

I think hops are related to cannabis? I love very hoppy ales.
I like the smell of cannabis, and pipe tobacco, more than the experience of smoking them.

Lavender

Petrol

Glue/solvents (never been a sniffer though!)

[tory]

The smell of burning coal takes me back to seeing my Grandmother in Horsham at the age of 5 or 6.

Pine forest takes me back to holidays in Greece at the age of 7 or 8.