# What's your favourite smell?



## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

OK here's my vote:

Freshly torn basil leaf.










As an aside: Marilyn Manson's answer of 'cocaine' is a jolly amusing response to this question.


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

A good steak, cooking on a hot charcoal grill!


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Even mediocre steak smells good!!

The other day, a woman wafted past me that smelled like my first girlfriend. 

It turned out I never liked her that much, but she smelled good and we were young.


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## Snow Hill Pond (Aug 10, 2011)

That this topic has come up and I am seriously considering posting a sincere response must mean that we are officially in the dead of winter.


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## FalconLorenzo (Aug 14, 2013)

Autumn, you know? Like, the smell of everything outside dying a slow and beautiful death. 

Also, steak or burgers on the grill!


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

hamburger cooking
pumpkin pie scent
coffee in the morning
Polo or Lagerfeld cologne


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## Liberty Ship (Jan 26, 2006)

Napalm in the morning!


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Pluff mud (also spelled plough). The glorious scent (or stench) of the low country - sweet, sulfury, eggy, fishy - the smell of salt, heat, and organic matter in various stages of decay. 

As my old saltwater fly fishing buddy Pluff Mud Paul (no, I didn't make that up) said of pluff mud, "she's a dirty ol' whore - she'll take your shorts and leave you smelling like a shrimp boat!" 

It is an acquired taste.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

^ How very evocative. A visceral tang of nature, I approve.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

pine scented air freshener
leather jacket smell
powder fresh scent


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Shaver said:


> ^ How very evocative. A visceral tang of nature, I approve.


As good as the smell is, so also is the memory and anticipation that it evokes for me. It is the smell of catching my own shrimp, a delicately placed fly and a line coming tight to a slot redfish that will be grilled on the half-shell, blue crabs climbing out of the water on spartina grass saying "eat me for dinner!" the exhilaration of wading through a gator-infested mud flat to see spotted tails in the air as they push up into oyster beds at a perfect flood-level high tide, 0500 bourbon, coffee, and fly tying sessions on the bed of a truck at the boat ramp.

Basically, it is sort of what heaven hopefully smells like.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Tilton said:


> As good as the smell is, so also is the memory and anticipation that it evokes for me. It is the smell of catching my own shrimp, a delicately placed fly and a line coming tight to a slot redfish that will be grilled on the half-shell, blue crabs climbing out of the water on spartina grass saying "eat me for dinner!" the exhilaration of wading through a gator-infested mud flat to see spotted tails in the air as they push up into oyster beds at a perfect flood-level high tide, 0500 bourbon, coffee, and fly tying sessions on the bed of a truck at the boat ramp.
> 
> Basically, it is sort of what heaven hopefully smells like.


Wonderful! Such a vivid depiction.

Odour can stimulate a direct conduit to the past, both evoke old and establish new memories, can disrupt our faculties, can precipitate bliss, in a way that none of our other senses can even approximate.


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## MaxBuck (Apr 4, 2013)

Cedar wood

The melange of brewing coffee and frying bacon, with an overlay of cinnamon or maple syrup

My daughter's head when she was an infant


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

baked bread
scrambled eggs
red roses


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## KenR (Jun 22, 2005)

Vanilla
Chanel #5 (not on me though)


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

chocolate
cinnamon baked anything
pizza


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## gaseousclay (Nov 8, 2009)

bacon
fresh mint leaves
shave soap


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## gaseousclay (Nov 8, 2009)

Howard said:


> scrambled eggs


smells too much like farts


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

gaseousclay said:


> smells too much like farts


HA! OMG!


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Guys, I think you can only have one favorite smell. That's how superlatives work.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Tilton said:


> Guys, I think you can only have one favorite smell. That's how superlatives work.


so why can't you have more than one smell?


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Howard said:


> so why can't you have more than one smell?


You can like a lot of smells, but only one can be your favorite smell. Like I said, superlatives, etc.


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## Magnusson (Feb 4, 2014)

Honestly.... probably gasoline. I don't know why, but I've always loved it. Every time I fill up the car I have to resist the temptation to inhale a good whiff when I am putting the cap back on. 

A good tobacconist's shop is another wonderful smell. Pipe tobacco, cigar smoke, cedarwood, and leather chairs, all coming together at the same time...


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## Gurdon (Feb 7, 2005)

As Shaver has put it above, the act of smelling is a complex and nuanced experience. The original question and the responses thus far have stirred memories and emotions associated with numerous situations, experiences and locations, and which span just over 2/3 of a century.

It is impossible to pick one favorite smell. Home-butchered steak cooked over a pin~on fire is one that comes to mind. The smell of sex is another. The smell of wet dust from a thunderstorm on childhood summer nights in New Mexico connects me to places and people now gone. 

I cannot match Tilton's eloquence, but ocean smells, kelp and salt spray, and the particular odor of ships, feature strongly in my memory. And, just outside the front door of our new house are bay laurel trees that when I smell them remind me of arriving in Berkeley 50 years ago and discovering that bay trees, of all things, occur naturally in the northerly parts of California.

Nice question.

Regards,
Gurdon


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## Shoe City Thinker (Oct 8, 2012)

A camp fire combined with the crisp air at 4000 plus feet of elevation.


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Magnusson said:


> Honestly.... probably gasoline. I don't know why, but I've always loved it. Every time I fill up the car I have to resist the temptation to inhale a good whiff when I am putting the cap back on.


I remember it smelling better when it didn't have alcohol in it and better still with lead in it!!


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Magnusson said:


> Honestly.... probably gasoline. I don't know why, but I've always loved it. Every time I fill up the car I have to resist the temptation to inhale a good whiff when I am putting the cap back on.
> 
> A good tobacconist's shop is another wonderful smell. Pipe tobacco, cigar smoke, cedarwood, and leather chairs, all coming together at the same time...


smell gasoline? I hate the smell of it, it's revolting!


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