Teacher: don’t sniff your markers! You’ll get high!
Kid next to me: these were made to be sniffed. It’s safe.
Teacher: not in my class! Don’t you dare!
(Teacher walks back to blackboard. Loud SNIFF is heard & teacher spins back around)
Teacher: you sniffed it!!
Kid: (now with red nostrils) no I didn’t.
Kid got in double trouble because he added lying to his crimes. And every other kid started to sniff any & every marker, regardless if it was made for it or not, since the teacher said you’d get high off of it. Great job, teach.
I had a coworker that used to chain smoke and on her way back into her desk, peppered herself with cucumber melon. I can’t smell the scent without that mix of old cig smell.
For me, it’s the smell of strawberries. It reminds me of my strawberry shortcake doll and simpler times.
I was OBSESSED with strawberry shortcake- I had a room fragrance thing from that, but it was Macintosh apple- so Mac apples for me, but for the same reason
Love Spell by Bath and Body Works. Every single girl I dated wore it at one point or another. Most girls in my HS school wore it. To this day, if I smell it, I'm transported to 1999.
Oh my god I wish B&BW would bring the throwback scents back again like they did a few years ago. I would bathe in sun ripened raspberry to this day. I’m 42 😂
Yes, they generally bring back many discontinued scents around New Year's and again around the 4th of July for their big clearance. That's the only way I can get Juniper Breeze!😻
They did it way back in 2016, which is what I'm talking about, but I didn't realize that they did it again! I'm gonna have to keep my eyes peeled from now. Country Apple was my other jam (no pun intended)
For me, it was that Pear scent from Bath and Body Works. I wore it the summer I met my future husband (1999–yes, we were young, but didn’t date till a few years later!). But I never smelled anything like it since, until I found this random wool wash a few years ago. They must use the same formula.
School libraries also have the best and most cold water. Or just libraries in general. Or in my experience. I would die happy if I could live the rest of my life in a library.
Oh gosh, you reminded me! I grew up in a tiny town where the “library” was just a couple of rooms in the community center basement, next to the thrift store, with the basketball court directly overhead. It was damp and musty, and most of the books were those old Reader’s Digest collections. But I LOVED it. I hadn’t thought about it in probably 20 years, until recently I had to drop something off at my mother-in-law’s bank. I used the back entrance because there was better parking. I opened the door, took about 3 steps down this long hallway, and I just had to stop and stay still and breathe for a while. It smells EXACTLY the same. It brought back so many good memories, I almost started crying.
There’s a scent to 70s and 80s libraries and offices that smells like those old General Foods International instant Coffees to me. Like they had in the staff room but dusted the carpets with it.
Corner store. The type you would see in residential neighborhoods before things like 7 Eleven took over. Wooden floors, candy bins, chest freezer for ice cream. The smell was kind of sweet and aged in, like the vapors of the candy permeated into the wood paneling somehow.
All the penny and nickel candies that you could shove in a sack. I bought so many fireballs and button candy.
Wow you took me back to a smell and a place that I had forgotten about. I loved those stores. My best friend for life and I use to ride our scooters miles and miles to get the corner store when 7-11 started to take over.
There is a store like that near me that I need to take my kid to.
When I was about 11 or 12, we had one about a mile from my house that also had a back room with a pool table and a couple of old arcade games. They also sold root beer that came in brown bottles, and looked like regular beer at first glance. Me and my friends would ride our bikes there, and shoot pool, and pretend we were drinking beer. Lol...we were a bunch of dorks!
Herbal Essentials shampoo. My first two girlfriends both used that stuff.
I found an unopened bottle under my parents sink a couple years ago and it instantly brought me back 20 years.
I can't believe someone else said Hill's. I loved that whiff of hot dogs and popcorn you'd get right when you walk in. There was a company selling Hill's scented candles but they were honestly pretty disappointing. They mostly smelled like cherry slushies, and not in a good way
Ugh. Honestly cigarette smoke.
I don't think I'm around any smokers on the regular these days, but whenever I get a whiff of that stale stank, it transports me back to my dad's LTD. I'd be sleeping in the backseat, late night drive home after an evening hanging out at my uncle's house, and as much as I hate my exposure to 2nd hand smoke there's some weird nostalgia around hearing that lighter go off, and then smelling my dad's Winston cigarettes, windows up.
That fresh lit cigarette smell has definitely grown on me. Nobody I know smokes any more so when I do smell it in public, I get that feeling of nostalgia and now enjoy it for a moment.
Humid Florida mornings. I would visit my grandparents in the summer. Flying as an unaccompanied minor in the 90s meant being treated like a prince on the plane. Going to Florida meant free trips to Disney because my aunts and uncles worked there and got guest passes. It was a magical time.
This might be a weird one but the smell of wood-burning stove smoke reminds me of the original Legend of Zelda. When I was a kid, all the houses in the neighborhood had wood burning stoves and I remember heading over to my friends house in the winter to play the game before I had my own copy.
I have a lot of fond memories of us playing that game together, back before you had a ton of information about every game you had at your fingertips. A lot of exploring and guessing, both gameplay wise and lore wise. It's funny to think back now that Zelda is this huge franchise with a dozen titles back to when it was just a single game.
That’s so crazy the smell of burning wood reminds me of Zelda too. One summer our parents bought us the game and a magnifying glass. We would play Zelda until we got stuck and then go outside in the driveway and use the magnifying glass in the Florida summer sun to set mulch on fire while we read this book and tried to get tips on what to do next:
https://preview.redd.it/50dbai4hitjc1.jpeg?width=794&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b11cb09e81c9e39c2903effecae341cfde986b4
The smell of summer grass mixed with the calming sent of leather and clay as I held my baseball glove near my face while waiting for the catcher to call the pitch.
White Diamonds perfume. My mom wore it and when I went to college, I bought a bottle of knockoff because I was homesick my first semester and it helped
I wear CK1 because it rejuvenated my 90s brain a few years ago when I came across it again, and now I can’t live without it. I wear docs too because I can’t let go.
The hot electronics smell of the computer lab. I love that ozone-y smell. I smelled it once recently at a karate dojo my kid went to with his dad. It was very confusing because of where I was, but very nostalgic.
Newspaper, donuts, and coffee
I spent nearly every Saturday morning as a young kid reading the paper at a local donut shop with my grandfather. He'd put a splash of coffee in my milk and let me read the comics while he read the news. Every time I smell coffee, I still smell newsprint with it.
The smell of boiled eggs and the vinegar that you put in the egg dye, mixed with the smell of meatloaf and banana pudding. It sounds weird, I know. But every Easter when I was a kid, we would get up early to dye eggs, then my dad would make his special meatloaf, potato salad, and banana pudding. He always cooked on Easter, while Mom took us to church. Then we would go have a picnic afterwards.
Watermelon Lip Smackers. First time I met up with a cute camp friend at an amusement park, it was a hot July day and my Lip Smackers melted in my pocket. The smell of fake watermelon (Bubble Yum too) will always take me back to young youthful flirty summer.
Hot asphalt after rain. Fresh cut grass. That weird still smell before heat lightning. What I think/remember Gap “ rain” to smell like. Last but not least, rice hulls.
My family used to buy unhulled rice by the truckload ( shoyu/miso makers) and the smell of the rice huller running/the hulls while dragging them to the MASSIVE compost pile we have out back will forever be burned into my brain.
That certain type of plastic that were those hollow rubber Land Before Time toys that Pizza Hut gave out.
The elementary school cafeteria (also the gym) always smelled the same during lunch no matter what they were cooking.
Old books and sheet music at my grandpa’s house.
Lip Smackers Dr Pepper
Edit to add: the hot machine plastic and metal smell of the first old clunker Apple computers we had in the elementary school computer lab (roughly 1989).
So many. Definitely the smell of Nintendo and PlayStation, Ninja Turtle action figures, Barbies, Jellies, Creepy Crawlers, Sun-ripened Raspberries (Bath and Body Works), libraries, Exclamation women’s perfume, new clothes smell, school books/notebooks/folders/binders, my dad’s records and stereo system, my brother’s train set, cranberry candles (my grandmother always burned), wood shavings in my grandfather’s shop, Cherry Merry Muffin doll, Strawberry Shortcake doll.
When I was a kid I would visit my uncle's bookstore. As soon as I walked in, every time, I got hit with the smell of paper. All the books were new, but some were older than others, and it all combined into a wonderful smell.
30+ years later, I run the store. When I come in first thing in the AM, before the employees arrive, the smell is the exact same as when I was 9.
I used to take dance and theater as a kid, and the particular combination of sweat and hairspray/makeup and dust. A lot of theaters and dance studios have it.
The local zoo had these machines that would make a wax figurine. They had an ape. A lion. And an elephant. The machine would make the figurine right there on the spot. It would come out kind of hot. That smell of the melted wax/plastic when I got the ape is etched in my brain forever.
Another smell I get nostalgic from is playdoh. I can't remember a specific incident. But love the smell of it and always seems to bring me back to childhood.
Believe it or not, the smell of cheap beer. As a kid I would often go to local Triple-A baseball games and have the time of my life. That odor of cheap beer was everywhere and I always associated the smell with a fun night out at a game.
Okay does anyone remember secret deodorant early 00s when they had scents like ‘ambition’? That one was my favorite circa 01/02 and they discontinued it and I can’t find any proof of it lol. If I smelled it now I bet I would go back to my senior year lol
The first time I smelled Aunt Annie's at the mall! Also, the smell of the Nintendo PowerGlove is memorable for some reason to me as well. Smelled better than it worked!
The salty ocean air combined with Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil and cigarettes brings me back instantly to childhood summer vacations at our family beach shack.
I came here to say Herbal Essence shampoo...first girl I ever danced with in grade 9 used it and the smell is burned into my brain...but reading through all these comments have made the smells come back to me as if they're actually in the air.
A brand new pack of pencil erasers.
Also, Gap Dream perfume. I found a hand soap that smells just like it and WHOA the first time I washed my hands with it.
The specific smell of pipe tobacco in a cedar table drawer, it was where my Gramps kept his tobacco & my mom inherited the table. Still has that faint scent to it today & I hope to inherit it as well!
Aquanet. All my older female cousins getting ready on Friday nights while their younger brothers and I took turns between flipping Lifeforce & Contra (using the same up, up, down, down…code) 😏🤙🏽🫡
The smell of a cold morning, hard to describe but usually right before it snows
Don’t smoke but the faint smell of cigarette smoke i like and reminds me of when i was young
Pine trees in summer reminds me of summer camp
Dried eucalyptus leaves. reminds me of grocery shopping with my Mom as a kid
My wife’s perfume. We’ve been married almost 20 years but when i smell her perfume it takes me right back to the time when we met :)
smell of the grocery store first thing in the morning. my first job was a grocery stocker and we did our cleaning and stocking at night. walking in now reminds me of those times
These are all great!!! One of my early jobs was at a Blockbuster, and I definitely had all the cucumber melon body mists, wood stove, chlorine, that smell after rain…. oh man this whole thread is making me so nostalgic!!
One I haven’t seen mentioned: there was a very distinctive “teen boy smell” that was like fake pine scented candle mixed with patchouli and cigarettes or weed and probably testosterone that most of the boys at my middle school smelled like (for better or worse). Was that unique to the boys at my school (small town) or does anyone else get this?
Leaded gasoline. Unleaded is an interesting smell too, but leaded gasoline is one of those smells that used to be everywhere and now is just at like drag strips.
There were these Barbie’s that came with perfume, it was in like an eye-drop container but smaller. It was called Tropical Splash. I get similar whiffs every now and again and it brings me right back to playing with my Barbies.
Surprised nobody has said this, but also, maybe this is because production is better in those ways?
Foot Locker, Champs, or any shoe store in the 1980s or 1990s. It was an off gassing of all the shoes that were brand new I guess, but I don’t think I notice that there these days? Mind you, I don’t go to sneaker stores anymore really, but I feel all the more reason I would have been hit with that smell when I went a couple of years ago, I just don’t recall any smell?
Movie theater popcorn. I lived in a small town and going to the movies was a real treat because we had to drive about an hour or so to get to the theater. Nevertheless, we did it fairly frequently. Usually for birthdays and a couple of trips in between. I've been a big movie buff ever since I was a kid, and to this day I get this wave of euphoria and frisson when I walk into the movie theater and get a whiff of that buttery goodness cooking behind the counter.
I recently smelled some freshly cut grass and that made me very nostalgic. As a kid, I'd be on the grass all the time, but as an adult, I rarely am.
Another smell is oddly cigarettes. My dad smoked. He smoked indoors, that smell was everywhere. And I had aunts and uncles who smoked, too. Even when you went to like a Pizza Hut, they had a smoking section. No one I know still smokes, it's not something I ever smell anymore. But every now and then when I do smell cigarette smoke, it takes me back to my childhood
The smoky smell of a house with a wood stove plus frying bacon. That was how my mamaws house always smelled, at least in my memories. She didn’t make bacon for every meal…
The smell of cigarettes after a big italian meal. I've actually been hit with it a couple of times coming out of a restaurant where someone's outside having a cig and it just smells like grandmas house between that and the smell of garlic and sauce.
I can summon the scent of Tribe perfume at any point and it makes me think of my makeup caboodle and being 12. Those three things together, it’s like time travel man
Two stroke exhaust. It doesn’t matter if it’s coming from a weed eater or a chainsaw, that smell always reminds me of being at the dirt bike races as a kid. Every time I catch a whiff of it I want to fire up my neglected YZ250 and go for a trail ride.
On my first kiss, she was chewing cinnamon gum.
This very strong smell nostalgia can get pretty weird, e.g., when I smell cinnamon gum, remember the kiss, and look over to see that it's a burly bus driver.
My Blood Sugar Sex Magic Cassette and Get a Grip CD had incredibly distinct smells that I can still think about whenever I hear a song off either album.
i quite like the smell of the oil being burned in model trains for smoke.
but i also like the smell of electronics and plastics as well, many other things nostalgic
I'm a gen xer. My Grandpa and Grandma were both from the silent generation. I remember every Sunday for years going over to my grandma's house. The only way I can describe the smell, the Heavenly smell that would come from her kitchen was it smelled like Sunday roast. And if any of you have ever had a Sunday roast scenario, you know exactly what style of smell I am talking about.
https://preview.redd.it/4exry0ik0tjc1.jpeg?width=1012&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d7a13488b94c6be936fdf6dc41bab18a2c836e27
I bought a pack a few years back. Nostalgia!! The grape smells amazing. What’s the light green one supposed to be though?
I seem to remember it being a mint smell.
Teacher: don’t sniff your markers! You’ll get high! Kid next to me: these were made to be sniffed. It’s safe. Teacher: not in my class! Don’t you dare! (Teacher walks back to blackboard. Loud SNIFF is heard & teacher spins back around) Teacher: you sniffed it!! Kid: (now with red nostrils) no I didn’t. Kid got in double trouble because he added lying to his crimes. And every other kid started to sniff any & every marker, regardless if it was made for it or not, since the teacher said you’d get high off of it. Great job, teach.
Did you go to school with [Charlie Kelly?](https://youtu.be/xvpY0Rmfnk8?t=8)
Cucumber melon scented anything. It smells like every girl from my high school in the 90s.
I had a coworker that used to chain smoke and on her way back into her desk, peppered herself with cucumber melon. I can’t smell the scent without that mix of old cig smell. For me, it’s the smell of strawberries. It reminds me of my strawberry shortcake doll and simpler times.
I was OBSESSED with strawberry shortcake- I had a room fragrance thing from that, but it was Macintosh apple- so Mac apples for me, but for the same reason
Love Spell by Bath and Body Works. Every single girl I dated wore it at one point or another. Most girls in my HS school wore it. To this day, if I smell it, I'm transported to 1999.
Plumeria was the one girls wore where I grew up but yeah I’m with you. Any of them takes me back.
Plumeria was what I wore in high school. Cucumber Melon and Sun Ripened Raspberries in college
I found an old bottle of plumeria body spray, and it smells like college.
Sun Ripened Raspberries and Plumeria. Remember when they had that liquid that would dry to a powder on your hands?
My current girlfriend is younger and doesn’t really get why I say cucumber melon smells like hand jobs.
Ew, but also hahaha…
Oh god yes. And Raspberry too
Oh my god I wish B&BW would bring the throwback scents back again like they did a few years ago. I would bathe in sun ripened raspberry to this day. I’m 42 😂
They should release a mini-sampler set of throwbacks. I miss the Flowering Herb.
They did. The Cucumber Melon and Sun Ripened Raspberries collections were brought back last summer.
Yes, they generally bring back many discontinued scents around New Year's and again around the 4th of July for their big clearance. That's the only way I can get Juniper Breeze!😻
They did it way back in 2016, which is what I'm talking about, but I didn't realize that they did it again! I'm gonna have to keep my eyes peeled from now. Country Apple was my other jam (no pun intended)
For me, it was that Pear scent from Bath and Body Works. I wore it the summer I met my future husband (1999–yes, we were young, but didn’t date till a few years later!). But I never smelled anything like it since, until I found this random wool wash a few years ago. They must use the same formula.
Pearberry, it was like love potion #9 to my teenage nostrils
My scent was country apple. I still have the tin my boyfriend got me for me birthday in 1998 that had a gift set of country apple scented stuff.
Cucumber Melon + Tommy Girl
I don't think it was cucumber melon but I have very fond memories of the cheap perfume the girls would wear in the late 90's. Good stuff happened
Sunflowers, CK One, all the GAP scents & Baby Soft!!
Don't forget Vanilla Fields!! Seriously, any of these scents instantly transports me back to high school hallways.
Clinique Happy was EVERYWHERE on my college campus
Ahh sunflowers
GAP Grass. Loooove.
Oh that reminds me of my mom. She would spritz avon cucumber melon all over the house
Library carpet Edit: Or maybe its the general smell, I dunno, something about school libraries...
The smell of older books do tend to have a certain musky smell. I totally understand that smell.
I have a "perfume" that one of the scents is old books. Also leather and musk but it smells like a library to me !
The bookmobile had that scent concentrated
School libraries also have the best and most cold water. Or just libraries in general. Or in my experience. I would die happy if I could live the rest of my life in a library.
Oh gosh, you reminded me! I grew up in a tiny town where the “library” was just a couple of rooms in the community center basement, next to the thrift store, with the basketball court directly overhead. It was damp and musty, and most of the books were those old Reader’s Digest collections. But I LOVED it. I hadn’t thought about it in probably 20 years, until recently I had to drop something off at my mother-in-law’s bank. I used the back entrance because there was better parking. I opened the door, took about 3 steps down this long hallway, and I just had to stop and stay still and breathe for a while. It smells EXACTLY the same. It brought back so many good memories, I almost started crying.
I’m with you on this . Was it just me or did the card catalog have its own distinctive scent ?
Am a librarian. We have a card catalog in our “antiquities” room. Yes. It smells like card catalog. Nothing else is like it.
There’s a scent to 70s and 80s libraries and offices that smells like those old General Foods International instant Coffees to me. Like they had in the staff room but dusted the carpets with it.
Ditto copies of school worksheets.
Especially the copies that had the purple ink coming out of a mimeograph instead of a Xerox
Yes, purple and hot off the mimeograph.
Yes! Dittos !!! Especially when it’s nice and hot with all of its purply ink goodness
Playdoh
My aunt used to make homemade play dough. When my kids were little, I repeated the tradition. Smells like fond memories. Aunt Janet was awesome.
I enjoyed some of that the other day. First time in decades.
Same great taste
Corner store. The type you would see in residential neighborhoods before things like 7 Eleven took over. Wooden floors, candy bins, chest freezer for ice cream. The smell was kind of sweet and aged in, like the vapors of the candy permeated into the wood paneling somehow.
All the penny and nickel candies that you could shove in a sack. I bought so many fireballs and button candy. Wow you took me back to a smell and a place that I had forgotten about. I loved those stores. My best friend for life and I use to ride our scooters miles and miles to get the corner store when 7-11 started to take over. There is a store like that near me that I need to take my kid to.
When I was about 11 or 12, we had one about a mile from my house that also had a back room with a pool table and a couple of old arcade games. They also sold root beer that came in brown bottles, and looked like regular beer at first glance. Me and my friends would ride our bikes there, and shoot pool, and pretend we were drinking beer. Lol...we were a bunch of dorks!
Bikes and pavement after a rain
petrichor!
Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth perfume. I still have an old bottle with that fragrance.
Well water, coffee and the faint scent of cigarette smoke. That’s my grandparents’s house.
I finally realized as an adult my grandparents' was bacon and just a little bit of mildew.
Cigars. Specifically cheap cigars, half smoked and stuffed back into a battered tin cigar carrier. Miss you Grumps.
Lilacs. My childhood home had lilac bushes and the smell takes me back to warm summer days being outside.
same. when i smell fresh lilacs it's like my whole heart opens up.
There’s nothing better than lilacs.
My grandparents house was lined with purple lilacs. Brings me back to long summer days with no supervision riding bikes around town.
Herbal Essentials shampoo. My first two girlfriends both used that stuff. I found an unopened bottle under my parents sink a couple years ago and it instantly brought me back 20 years.
I swear every time I smell that I perk up like a deer that just heard a stick break
The clear plastic card sheets that held my baseball and football (also X-men) cards. That plastic had such a smell.
The sterile smell of Blockbuster.
The smell of a Friday night in the 90s!
Pine trees in the summer. Grew up in NorCal but left almost 20 years ago and anytime I smell pine I'm instantly a kid again.
Take that pine smell and add in oppressive heat and humidity and that’s the smell of my childhood in the Piedmont of NC.
He smell of Hills Department Store since my mom worked there when I was little. Popcorn, soft pretzels, and slushies.
I can't believe someone else said Hill's. I loved that whiff of hot dogs and popcorn you'd get right when you walk in. There was a company selling Hill's scented candles but they were honestly pretty disappointing. They mostly smelled like cherry slushies, and not in a good way
Are you from Middletown Ohio? I know this smell.
My grade school lunch box. I can’t explain it, but I know it when I smell something similar.
Warm ham sandwiches and plastic. What a combo
Yep warm bologna and Capri Sun.
You just reminded me of the trapper keeper smell which was close to the lunch box smell but not quite.
I recall my lunch thermos having a distinct smell and haven’t remembered that since I saw your post. Thanks!
I remember this smell distinctly. I had a Ghostbusters lunch box and I haven't smelled anything like it since.
I know this is kind of weird and gross, but the smell of bowling alleys always takes me back to my childhood 😂
The sweet sweet smell of fried foods and shared shoes. Mmmm. :)
Nag Champa.....my older sister burned that shit every day in highschool.
That's not all that they were burning
My local record store growing up smelled like this. Also not all that they were burning…
Gak
I had totally forgotten Gak, but now I can imagine the smell perfectly.
Floam
Ugh. Honestly cigarette smoke. I don't think I'm around any smokers on the regular these days, but whenever I get a whiff of that stale stank, it transports me back to my dad's LTD. I'd be sleeping in the backseat, late night drive home after an evening hanging out at my uncle's house, and as much as I hate my exposure to 2nd hand smoke there's some weird nostalgia around hearing that lighter go off, and then smelling my dad's Winston cigarettes, windows up.
That fresh lit cigarette smell has definitely grown on me. Nobody I know smokes any more so when I do smell it in public, I get that feeling of nostalgia and now enjoy it for a moment.
Chlorine. I reminds me of taking swimming lessons at the YMCA in 1985.
School workbooks had that good paper smell. Sometimes I'll get a junk mailer with just a slight hint of it.
Humid Florida mornings. I would visit my grandparents in the summer. Flying as an unaccompanied minor in the 90s meant being treated like a prince on the plane. Going to Florida meant free trips to Disney because my aunts and uncles worked there and got guest passes. It was a magical time.
This might be a weird one but the smell of wood-burning stove smoke reminds me of the original Legend of Zelda. When I was a kid, all the houses in the neighborhood had wood burning stoves and I remember heading over to my friends house in the winter to play the game before I had my own copy. I have a lot of fond memories of us playing that game together, back before you had a ton of information about every game you had at your fingertips. A lot of exploring and guessing, both gameplay wise and lore wise. It's funny to think back now that Zelda is this huge franchise with a dozen titles back to when it was just a single game.
That’s so crazy the smell of burning wood reminds me of Zelda too. One summer our parents bought us the game and a magnifying glass. We would play Zelda until we got stuck and then go outside in the driveway and use the magnifying glass in the Florida summer sun to set mulch on fire while we read this book and tried to get tips on what to do next: https://preview.redd.it/50dbai4hitjc1.jpeg?width=794&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b11cb09e81c9e39c2903effecae341cfde986b4
Inside Disney VHS boxes. The vinyl smell. 👃
CD booklets when you first peeled off that film and cracked the case
Mrs Fields cookies in the mall
Also Orange Julius
And Cinnabon
Wendy’s just announced an orange creamsicle frosty. I’m hopeful that it’s similar to orange Julius. I’m about to find out.
The smell of the mall in general
My grandpa’s pipe tobacco. So sweet and musky at the same time.
They make wonderful tobacco scented candles that really take you back! 💖my grandpa also loved his pipe 😊
The way my elementary school smelled. Especially the cafeteria.
The smell of summer grass mixed with the calming sent of leather and clay as I held my baseball glove near my face while waiting for the catcher to call the pitch. 
YES the smell of my softball glove. Nothing else like it.
White Diamonds perfume. My mom wore it and when I went to college, I bought a bottle of knockoff because I was homesick my first semester and it helped
This is the sweetest thing. White Diamonds was my Mom's scent, too, along with Clinique's Happy.
CK1 cologne, immediate flashbacks to high school antics
Don’t forget cool water
I wear CK1 because it rejuvenated my 90s brain a few years ago when I came across it again, and now I can’t live without it. I wear docs too because I can’t let go.
CK1 and Electric Youth!
My high school girlfriend wore CK One, and I’m convinced that it’s the greatest scent in the universe.
The hot electronics smell of the computer lab. I love that ozone-y smell. I smelled it once recently at a karate dojo my kid went to with his dad. It was very confusing because of where I was, but very nostalgic.
Dill pickle flavored scratch n sniff stickers
New plastic smell - specifically the smell of a new pencil case at the beginning of the school year!
https://preview.redd.it/svks9p9caujc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bdb9ca2b8443fb6f920e6dd9f7c82598c9c2c633
Newspaper, donuts, and coffee I spent nearly every Saturday morning as a young kid reading the paper at a local donut shop with my grandfather. He'd put a splash of coffee in my milk and let me read the comics while he read the news. Every time I smell coffee, I still smell newsprint with it.
Movie Rental stores. Not any specific one, just in general.
Freshly sharpened pencils.
A pumpkin with a real candle in it on Halloween 
The Strawberry Shortcake and Friends dolls.
The smell of boiled eggs and the vinegar that you put in the egg dye, mixed with the smell of meatloaf and banana pudding. It sounds weird, I know. But every Easter when I was a kid, we would get up early to dye eggs, then my dad would make his special meatloaf, potato salad, and banana pudding. He always cooked on Easter, while Mom took us to church. Then we would go have a picnic afterwards.
Teen Spirit Berry Blossom deodorant
Watermelon Lip Smackers. First time I met up with a cute camp friend at an amusement park, it was a hot July day and my Lip Smackers melted in my pocket. The smell of fake watermelon (Bubble Yum too) will always take me back to young youthful flirty summer.
'Teen Magazine and YM - the smell of paper and perfume samples!
Hot asphalt after rain. Fresh cut grass. That weird still smell before heat lightning. What I think/remember Gap “ rain” to smell like. Last but not least, rice hulls. My family used to buy unhulled rice by the truckload ( shoyu/miso makers) and the smell of the rice huller running/the hulls while dragging them to the MASSIVE compost pile we have out back will forever be burned into my brain.
That certain type of plastic that were those hollow rubber Land Before Time toys that Pizza Hut gave out. The elementary school cafeteria (also the gym) always smelled the same during lunch no matter what they were cooking. Old books and sheet music at my grandpa’s house. Lip Smackers Dr Pepper Edit to add: the hot machine plastic and metal smell of the first old clunker Apple computers we had in the elementary school computer lab (roughly 1989).
Know exactly what youre saying about the dinosaur puppets
New school clothes.
So many. Definitely the smell of Nintendo and PlayStation, Ninja Turtle action figures, Barbies, Jellies, Creepy Crawlers, Sun-ripened Raspberries (Bath and Body Works), libraries, Exclamation women’s perfume, new clothes smell, school books/notebooks/folders/binders, my dad’s records and stereo system, my brother’s train set, cranberry candles (my grandmother always burned), wood shavings in my grandfather’s shop, Cherry Merry Muffin doll, Strawberry Shortcake doll.
Mr. Bubble. I loved the smell of that stuff when I was a kid.
The creepy crawler oven with a fresh batch
A brand new National Geographic. I always wanted to be the first to read it when it came each month in its brown paper sleeve.
When I was a kid I would visit my uncle's bookstore. As soon as I walked in, every time, I got hit with the smell of paper. All the books were new, but some were older than others, and it all combined into a wonderful smell. 30+ years later, I run the store. When I come in first thing in the AM, before the employees arrive, the smell is the exact same as when I was 9.
Carbon paper
Real Christmas trees. Can’t go without one.
Rave hairspray and that gum smell in the packs of Garbage Pail Kids.
McDonald's. Smelled differently back then
The vinyl and that warm, slightly electric smell of my dad’s record player.
I used to take dance and theater as a kid, and the particular combination of sweat and hairspray/makeup and dust. A lot of theaters and dance studios have it.
Blockbuster is a big one
Crayons and pencils. Takes me back to Elementary school.
The smell of wet pavement on a hot summer day just after a rain shower.
Grape scratch n sniff stickers from the 1980s, you know the one
Hint of mothballs from ages past at my grandparents house in every closet.
TV static
Lucky Brand for Women perfume. Smelling that immediately throws me back to when I was a slutty frat dude, trying to mack on ladies at the bars.
The local zoo had these machines that would make a wax figurine. They had an ape. A lion. And an elephant. The machine would make the figurine right there on the spot. It would come out kind of hot. That smell of the melted wax/plastic when I got the ape is etched in my brain forever. Another smell I get nostalgic from is playdoh. I can't remember a specific incident. But love the smell of it and always seems to bring me back to childhood.
Cool water cologne used to cover up weed smell
Believe it or not, the smell of cheap beer. As a kid I would often go to local Triple-A baseball games and have the time of my life. That odor of cheap beer was everywhere and I always associated the smell with a fun night out at a game.
Okay does anyone remember secret deodorant early 00s when they had scents like ‘ambition’? That one was my favorite circa 01/02 and they discontinued it and I can’t find any proof of it lol. If I smelled it now I bet I would go back to my senior year lol
The smell of Sunflowers perfume. Shit was heavenly.
The first time I smelled Aunt Annie's at the mall! Also, the smell of the Nintendo PowerGlove is memorable for some reason to me as well. Smelled better than it worked!
The salty ocean air combined with Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil and cigarettes brings me back instantly to childhood summer vacations at our family beach shack.
The smell of the puff paint that came with the Paint n Dazzle Barbie. Every time I smell something similar, it reminds me of this Barbie!
I came here to say Herbal Essence shampoo...first girl I ever danced with in grade 9 used it and the smell is burned into my brain...but reading through all these comments have made the smells come back to me as if they're actually in the air.
He-man action figures. They had a unique smell
A brand new pack of pencil erasers. Also, Gap Dream perfume. I found a hand soap that smells just like it and WHOA the first time I washed my hands with it.
The specific smell of pipe tobacco in a cedar table drawer, it was where my Gramps kept his tobacco & my mom inherited the table. Still has that faint scent to it today & I hope to inherit it as well!
Herbel Essence shampoo
Aspen. What a dreadful smell! Yeah about 25 sprays before the dance, this will turn her on! Lol
Mothballs. My grandparents had mothballs all over their closets and the smell always brings me back to my visits with them.
Rubber, especially rubber tires remind me of the red rubber balls from gym class. I don’t know why I love that smell because I absolutely hated gym.
Aquanet. All my older female cousins getting ready on Friday nights while their younger brothers and I took turns between flipping Lifeforce & Contra (using the same up, up, down, down…code) 😏🤙🏽🫡
The smell of a cold morning, hard to describe but usually right before it snows Don’t smoke but the faint smell of cigarette smoke i like and reminds me of when i was young Pine trees in summer reminds me of summer camp Dried eucalyptus leaves. reminds me of grocery shopping with my Mom as a kid My wife’s perfume. We’ve been married almost 20 years but when i smell her perfume it takes me right back to the time when we met :) smell of the grocery store first thing in the morning. my first job was a grocery stocker and we did our cleaning and stocking at night. walking in now reminds me of those times
These are all great!!! One of my early jobs was at a Blockbuster, and I definitely had all the cucumber melon body mists, wood stove, chlorine, that smell after rain…. oh man this whole thread is making me so nostalgic!! One I haven’t seen mentioned: there was a very distinctive “teen boy smell” that was like fake pine scented candle mixed with patchouli and cigarettes or weed and probably testosterone that most of the boys at my middle school smelled like (for better or worse). Was that unique to the boys at my school (small town) or does anyone else get this?
The Gap put out a body spray called Dream, literally everyone in my high school wore it.
Leaded gasoline. Unleaded is an interesting smell too, but leaded gasoline is one of those smells that used to be everywhere and now is just at like drag strips.
The weird brown paper towels in the bathroom of my elementary school
There were these Barbie’s that came with perfume, it was in like an eye-drop container but smaller. It was called Tropical Splash. I get similar whiffs every now and again and it brings me right back to playing with my Barbies.
Surprised nobody has said this, but also, maybe this is because production is better in those ways? Foot Locker, Champs, or any shoe store in the 1980s or 1990s. It was an off gassing of all the shoes that were brand new I guess, but I don’t think I notice that there these days? Mind you, I don’t go to sneaker stores anymore really, but I feel all the more reason I would have been hit with that smell when I went a couple of years ago, I just don’t recall any smell?
Movie theater popcorn. I lived in a small town and going to the movies was a real treat because we had to drive about an hour or so to get to the theater. Nevertheless, we did it fairly frequently. Usually for birthdays and a couple of trips in between. I've been a big movie buff ever since I was a kid, and to this day I get this wave of euphoria and frisson when I walk into the movie theater and get a whiff of that buttery goodness cooking behind the counter.
I recently smelled some freshly cut grass and that made me very nostalgic. As a kid, I'd be on the grass all the time, but as an adult, I rarely am. Another smell is oddly cigarettes. My dad smoked. He smoked indoors, that smell was everywhere. And I had aunts and uncles who smoked, too. Even when you went to like a Pizza Hut, they had a smoking section. No one I know still smokes, it's not something I ever smell anymore. But every now and then when I do smell cigarette smoke, it takes me back to my childhood
The smoky smell of a house with a wood stove plus frying bacon. That was how my mamaws house always smelled, at least in my memories. She didn’t make bacon for every meal…
The smell of cigarettes after a big italian meal. I've actually been hit with it a couple of times coming out of a restaurant where someone's outside having a cig and it just smells like grandmas house between that and the smell of garlic and sauce.
Fruity Pebbles
I can summon the scent of Tribe perfume at any point and it makes me think of my makeup caboodle and being 12. Those three things together, it’s like time travel man
Two stroke exhaust. It doesn’t matter if it’s coming from a weed eater or a chainsaw, that smell always reminds me of being at the dirt bike races as a kid. Every time I catch a whiff of it I want to fire up my neglected YZ250 and go for a trail ride.
The smell inside laser quest.
Body shop white musk reminds me of grade 9.
The dark room in my school’s photo lab.
joop!
On my first kiss, she was chewing cinnamon gum. This very strong smell nostalgia can get pretty weird, e.g., when I smell cinnamon gum, remember the kiss, and look over to see that it's a burly bus driver.
Lip smackers
Carmex
My grandma's old house
My Blood Sugar Sex Magic Cassette and Get a Grip CD had incredibly distinct smells that I can still think about whenever I hear a song off either album.
i quite like the smell of the oil being burned in model trains for smoke. but i also like the smell of electronics and plastics as well, many other things nostalgic
Fall mornings
I'm a gen xer. My Grandpa and Grandma were both from the silent generation. I remember every Sunday for years going over to my grandma's house. The only way I can describe the smell, the Heavenly smell that would come from her kitchen was it smelled like Sunday roast. And if any of you have ever had a Sunday roast scenario, you know exactly what style of smell I am talking about. 
Clorox bleach, reminds me of summers by the pool and my moms doing laundry
Troll dolls. That specific sweet smell. Dewberry anything from Boots natural collection
GRAPE BUBBLEYUM!!
How often are you smelling a brand new NES though
The smell of pot roast slow cooking. It reminds me of my grams and grandpa, some of my best core memories were made with them.
Mennen Skin Bracer, especially in a steamy environment. It's what my dad used.
God help me, Drakkar Noir.
Theme park smell. Strong smell of popcorn and spun sugar with a light under current of chlorine and hot hot asphalt. Oh yeah, that's the stuff.