Question of the Day | 05/26/2009 11:00 pm

What scent do you associate with a pleasurable memory? An unpleasant one?

French fragrance designer Christophe Laudamiel is collaborating on a ‘scent opera,’ a new performance art that pairs music with a choreographed sequence of smells, from pleasing to pungent, titled ‘Green Aria.’ Tell us about a particular scent that pleases you and the memory it conjures. Tell us about one that is unpleasant, and its accompanying memory.

Joan Juliet Buck | 05/26/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Juliet Buck's Burnt-Toast Home Smell

Good smell: Slightly burned whole-wheat toast. When I came home from the Lycée every afternoon at 5, I’d burn two pieces of toast in the grill under the burners on the stove for my goûter— my tea. That smell meant I was home and could sit in the living room, eat my toast with blackcurrant jam and watch my favorite show, "Fury", before I went up to my room to do my homework. I still like my toast well done, and toasters being more efficient than the old grill pan, I manage to burn my two slices every single morning. If I’m feeling a little rattled, the smell of burning bread always comforts me.

Ugh. One day in Ireland when I was a child, some rats got caught in the weir by the Galway bridge and drowned. It was actually a great many rats. The water somehow receded or dried up because of the amount of rats, and the smell that hung over Galway was something I can’t describe in a family website.

3 Comments

Whoopi Goldberg | 05/26/2009 11:00 pm

Whoopi Goldberg on the Best (Chanel No. 5) and Worst (Burnt Hair) Scents

Chanel No. 5. I was a little kid, and I don’t know who was wearing it, but I felt safe. Unpleasant smell – smell of hair burning. I had a little too much to drink, my hair was very long — VERY LONG — and I attempted to stoke the fire in the fireplace, hence I learned that smell was not good.

31 Comments

Candice Bergen | 05/26/2009 11:00 pm

Candice Bergen Loves the Scent of Stables

Stables. I love the scent of alfalfa, sawdust and horse manure. Since I was a kid and had horses. Also the scent of melting cheese. A stand of trees in blossom. I hate the smell of hospitals.

10 Comments

Liz Smith | 05/26/2009 11:00 pm

Liz Smith First Smelled This Pleasurable Scent on Elizabeth Peabody

I will rave again about the perfume whose name, Ysatis, nobody I know can pronounce. I always write it on a piece of paper when I go to buy it. But even though it is made by the fashion giant Givenchy, it has become hard to find.

I ran into Ysatis when I met Elizabeth Peabody, a hardworking Manhattan heiress from a fine old family. (Her aunt was Marietta Tree; her father was a distinguished professor at St. Bernard’s and her Peabody ancestors had been governors and activists for Civil Rights.)

Miss Peabody herself is tall, blonde and cultured.

She is seriously generous to her friends and works as a psychiatric social worker doing all kinds of philanthropic good things. She works with people who are seriously ill and their relatives. She is an amazing creature. And, being a friend of Givenchy himself, she always smells so great!

3 Comments

Marlo Thomas | 05/26/2009 11:00 pm

Marlo Thomas's Lazy Summer Scent

I’ve always loved the smell of freshly cut grass. It reminds me of the lazy, sunny days of my California childhood.

2 Comments

Joan Ganz Cooney | 05/26/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Ganz Cooney: The Smell of Orange Blossoms, Smoke

Orange blossoms in spring will always remind me of Arizona, where I grew up. It is exhilarating to walk near orange trees when they blossom; they produce a scent one can never forget. It bespeaks of spring romance and summer coming and freedom from school for three months.

I hate the smell of smoke in the house; it will always reminds me of a terrible fire we had in our apartment house about ten years ago. The fire broke out in an apartment three floors down from us but our own apartment became filled with smoke (we were unable to get out because the smoke and heat were coming up through the fire stairs). The housekeeper, the dog, my husband and I retreated to a little balcony we had overlooking the East River at about three o’clock in the morning in February and stayed there until firemen came up at 6:30 AM and told us we could go back in the apartment. The smell lingered for many months.

1 Comment

Read more about: Beauty, Christophe Laudamiel, fragrance, Music, perfume, Style

71 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Chlorine. Ahhhh…the smell of chlorine and all those dives into the pool with all my friends. Those were the days that we got really, really tired and worn out from having fun all day. The smell of coconut suntan lotion, and zinc oxide on our noses so that we all looked like lifeguards…..although we were ten years old. LOVE it!

By Pamela Eckhardt on 05/27/2009 5:54 pm

e-mail alert

My pleasant memory smell? I associate the combined fragrance of freshly made coffee and cigarette smoke with my paternal grandparents. This combo was in the air every morning when I was at their home and I loved it. I still am reminded of them on those very rare occasions when coffee and cigarettes come together in one place. My unpleasant memory smell? I can’t think of one, but (and I adore my kitties) a used cat box, anyone wearing too much cologne, and strong B.O. are bad enough to leave me with unpleasant memories at least for a while.

By Livia Jones on 05/27/2009 8:06 pm

e-mail alert

wow… smells… to many to count in terms of associations with memories. But for some reason I have one really STRONG association memory. Ciara perfume. When I smell it I’m taken back in time (as though I’m in the moment) 30 years ago. I was 15 years old and had just moved to another small town in Idaho. I was always the new girl and always moving to another small town. It was mid winter in north idaho. the snow had to be 3 feet deep. cold and lonely. I’d found out that the local community center had a dance for teenagers on friday nights. I showed up, alone of course and was early. waiting on the step to go in before it opened. This girl my age walked up and to me she looked like the most beautiful sexy wild thing I’d ever seen. Funny to be remembering that about a teenage girl. but that’s my memory. she was wearing a funky cowboy hat and had hair down the middle of her back. and she was wearing Ciara. I wanted to be her for years. I wore that perfume for years. It’s still around. Every now and then I’ll get a whiff and I’ll be 15 again. standing on a step surrounded by snow on a dark winter night in north idaho. Wishing I was someone else.

By Chrome Toe on 05/27/2009 10:26 pm

e-mail alert

These posts were a trip. Smells. Hmmm. I took some lilac out of a cemetery in the Berkshires over the weekend and held it up to my nose at intervals for the whole ride home to Jersey. (I only took a sprig and I did thank the occupants for it. ; ) Ivory dishwashing liquid reminds me of a woman that I used to clean house for when I was 12, I can be instantly transported back to her small kitchen standing there washing off potatoes for her and her son’s dinner. I *love* the smell of a gardenia, once in San Francisco I was going for a ride on a cable car with my daughter and someone was actually selling them in the street, so I bought one, it that even had a pin to go with it so I could put it on my jacket and wear and smell it all day. Bad smells? Liver cooking.

By Eileen Alannah on 05/27/2009 11:14 pm

e-mail alert

Gap Grass. It was inexpensive, but had an outdoorsy, reminiscent of grass, fragrance, which I loved. I was so dismayed when they stopped making it. Then there are lilacs and lilies of the valley from my childhood yard, which I haven’t seem for years, but can still remember how wonderful they smelled. Also like the smell of clean laundry fresh from the dryer.

By Lizzie R. on 05/27/2009 11:19 pm

e-mail alert

Faroy #1 - the candle I used for years, and years - (the Houston company went out of business a few years ago, and I could still purchase them from other suppliers, until … none!).

And, Jean Louis Scherrer - does to my friends as Joan’s "magic" does.

By C jay on 05/27/2009 11:30 pm

e-mail alert

I’ve really enjoyed reading all these posts on the subject of scent. And when I read about the scent opera, I really got excited. I will definitely make any effort needed to get to see this if I can - I love the idea of incorporating specific scents into the drama of an opera.

As a perfume addict, I also enjoyed reading about people and their "scent memories" associated with various fragrances. I seek out new perfumes very frequently, as well as enjoying old favorites like Joy (which is a link to my mother, who wore it very often) and Miss Dior (sometimes hard to find) and Caleche. There is a real revolution going on in perfume nowadays, with a great many "niche" brands available. Comme de Garcons has also created some amazing unisex fragrances (2 Man is just amazing - when a man wears it, it is powerful, and on a woman it is pure seduction! Very cool effect.)

In my memory, though, there are some scents that I really treasure:

Coty loose powder

The way lace curtains dried outside in the sun smell

The smell just before a thunderstorm on a hot summer day

The smell just after a thunderstorm on a hot summer day

The smell of a Christmas tree when it is first brought into the house

Seda France candles all smell wonderful, but Foret Royale is exquisite

Frangipani

By Susan Crawford on 05/30/2009 3:55 pm

e-mail alert

White Shoulders. My mother only wore White Shoulder’s, which is not an expensive scent, but is one of my favorites. I don’t wear it because I associate it with her and I want to keep it that way. My mother was not perfect (I was never as perfect as my two older sisters) but the scent reminds me of the other wonderful, perfect side of her.

By linda lucchese on 05/30/2009 5:04 pm

e-mail alert

I always loved the damask roses type smell, then my daughter when she was 8 years old wrote a Mother’s Day poem about me always smelling like roses so now every time I smell a rose fragrance I think of my lovely daughter.

By karen spies on 06/01/2009 1:05 pm

e-mail alert

The smell of salt air and wet sand, the old Hope perfume, and the aroma of coffee brewing in the mornings (Even though I don’t drink it, it gives me a wonderful feeling.)

I don’t like the smell of Doublemint gum or peppermint…or any mint, now that I think about it.

By darcus grey on 06/02/2009 9:28 am

e-mail alert

Jergen’s lotion, the orginial scent. My grandmother a farm wife with little extra money to spend, used Jergen’s lotion and had no other fragrance or even cosmetic. I use it because it reminds me of my ‘Oma’ Dierks.

I also love the smell of: Wind Song Perfume, first given to me on Valentine’s Day by a handsome young Airman on our 3rd date (now my husband). But I can no longer find the perfume. The cologne does not have the same fragrance. That was February 1954 … we’ve now been married almost 54 years. That how my life began at the age of 18.

Original Scent Spray by Clare Burke, Rain on hot pavement, bacon frying, yeast bread baking, A barber shop & bay rum, (daddy was a barber), and Baby Powder on babies. God willing we will have a new Great Grandchild by December. :o) Omie from Texas

I don’t like the smell of roses, they remind me of the funerals my mother took me to as a child. Seems like all the funerals were in summer when the room was hot and rose smell overpowering to me as a small child. Worst is stale cigar or cigarette smoke

By Omie from Texas on 06/04/2009 10:53 pm