Scent and memories....

I recently had a shot of Ouzo, because I have a cold and a fellow Greek bud I was visiting insisted it would kill the sickness. (LOL) I hadn't smelt Ouzo since I was a child. My dad is Greek and he used to always have a bottle in the home. My siblings and I would take it out and pretend like we were drinking it, since we thought it was cool. LMBO! But as soon as that scent hit my senses, so many childhood memories hit me all at once.
 
My brother recently gave me an afghan that was crochetted by our great-grandmother. I took one sniff of it and suddenly could see her in my mind. She kept it on the foot of her bed for years... and now it's on the foot of mine. J says he thinks she made it around the time I was born.

Lavender brings back memories of my mother. Leather bound books reminds me of one grandfather who constantly read.

You'll find as you grow older, many, many things will take you back to another time and place.
 
The original Polo Ralph Lauren scent reminds me of my dad. He always wears it when he goes somewhere nice. I remember when he and my mom were still married, they'd go out on a date night a couple of times a month. The bathroom would always smell like Polo while they were getting ready. He still wears it, it's my favorite men's cologne.

I remember when my parents got me Polo for Xmas when I was like 14. I thought I was hot $hit and that I was finally a man!
 
With us it was Drakkar Noir, (I graduated in 93, so keep that in mind)...then we got into Calvin Klein or Polo. I went through this odd, redneck preppy stage. Denim shorts with a tucked in Polo or silk shirt and a mullet. Ahhh...the late 80's, early 90's!
 
The ocean air reminds me of living on Kwajalein and of going to college. (In certain buildings, I'd be sitting in class looking out the window and I'd see the ocean.)


My grandmother had this scent that I'd used to call The Grandma Smell. I later realized it was baby powder. When she passed, I got one of her sweaters. I was upset to learn that it had been washed. I ended up buying a baby powder scented candle and leaving it in the pocket.


Lilac reminds me of the bushes growing in backyard of the house I spent the first six years of my life in. We were never allowed to go up close to the bushes, because poison ivy grew there.


White plumeria reminds me of living on Kwajalein. Those trees were everywhere.


Hugo Boss reminds me of my brother.


Honey baked ham reminds me of Christmas Eve.
 
My grandmother always used Eterna 27 face cream for her very dry skin. I recently bought some hoping that it would work for me...and when I first put it on my face...it was like my Nana was right there...seriously...such a strong smell recognition. I told my DH, "Honey...come here and smell this...I smell just like my grandmother!!!" He said that I had given him a great mental picture...and from then on he would feel like he was sleeping with my grandma!!! It was funny!!
 
My grandmother always used Eterna 27 face cream for her very dry skin. I recently bought some hoping that it would work for me...and when I first put it on my face...it was like my Nana was right there...seriously...such a strong smell recognition. I told my DH, "Honey...come here and smell this...I smell just like my grandmother!!!" He said that I had given him a great mental picture...and from then on he would feel like he was sleeping with my grandma!!! It was funny!!

Haha, I was worried about that when I bought Yves Saint-Laurent Paris. (Although I think that's part of WHY I bought it. Also I love perfumes that have rose notes in them.)

One more . . .


Lavender reminds me of being in Provence with my family.
 
Thank you everybody for your replies- I appreciate it....my minor is in psychology and my major is Biology with the future intentions of becoming an Obstetrician. Scent and memory always intrigue me.

When my son was born, November 4, 2001, my body took a beating because he was born Cesarean section at 9:48 pm on my mom's birthday~ yep, she turned 49 on the day her first grandchild was born. Seth was a huge baby, 10 pounds 1 ounce, 21 inches long and went straight to size 1 diapers. Well, after my body was able to move around fairly well I'd stay up watching him sleep, breath, move his mouth, cry and twitch. My mom brought me flowers in the hospital the next day and that night after feeding him and letting him sleep, I knew it was time to change his diaper- I could have just changed it but I wanted to see if the smell of flowers would wake him up. I took a flower from the vase and placed it by his nose so he could pick up the scent, a few moments later he opened his eyes slowly and awoke. Small things like this amaze me, this tiny baby smelled sweetness for the first time in his existance...
 
I think that smell memory is stored in the right hemisphere of the brain - so that when it is activated it brings back 'big picture memories' (as opposed to the left brain where language based memories are stored). Also they are untainted (its not like you have revised them in your mind etc) which is why they are so powerful because they are relatively pure.

For me the ones that do my head in - is when I use a toiletry product - shower gel/shampoo - especially out of the blue - at someone else's house etc - and it just shoots me back to a time when I used a product with that smell myself. It might even have been for a couple of months - but I am taken straight back to that time. And so many long forgotten memories from that time come back to me.