The smell of Boxwoods takes me back to my grandparents gardens. As soon as I recognized that from being at my dad's--I promptly planted three around the front porch. And every time I put water on a washcloth and wash my face--I smell my other grandmother--she was a clean one. :wink:

This is what I was going to say!!! HAHAHA

Ok, this will 'date' me, that is for sure. I remember birch beer smelling so good.

Sour apples and hot biscuits for breakfast.

My favorite toy was a brown teddybear with a button in his little tail and when you patted it, he tooted, so his name was Tootie!

And, I still have my Tina doll! Bet you are all to young too remember these.

snicker, hit me!

My SIL Still uses the regular scented jergens..! when i go over her house, i always go to the bathroom and put some on my arms and hands..and smell it all day...

grandma used ponds and noxzema..i don't recall the smell of the ponds....

liver and onions..yuck, once a week, grandma fried it is a cast iron skillet..with bacon...i would gag..!

New crayons! I used to love birch beer - can't get it down here.

My Mom: Tabu perfume and Noxema LOL
My Dad: Old Spice and rusty tools/grease/oil
My Paternal grandmothers home...flowers and that nice earthy dirt smell...she had a green house room right off of the dining room..and lard/bacon fat, she always cooked everything using one or the other and her kitchen always smelled of them.
My Maternal grandparents home always smelled of some baked goody fresh out of the oven.
School: The old powdered paints that we would mix up to paint pictures, paste, chalk, clay (remember the handprints and sculptures/ashtrays lol) wet wool coats.
My neighbor's home (my home away from home) woodsmoke and pancakes,bleach. They had a wood cookstove in their kitchen right next to their electric stove...she would dry clothes on lines over it in the winter, and when the power went out they would come over and get us in the mornings and cook us pancakes on the cast iron top.
Horse smells/hay...my friends who raised/showed horses, that clean horse smell was all throughout their homes and vehicles...all the hours spent with them riding, mucking out stalls, haying, playing/sleeping in the hay and hay lofts...

Vicks. Mom used it on us when we had a cold. She would put it on chest, in our nose and just in case we had to eat some too. ICK. Once my Grandma made a mixture of onions and sugar for a cold. That wasn't to bad.

New crayola crayons
Play Dough
Dove soap -- my grandmother
Fresh-baked bread -- my grandmother and mother

The smell that will always make me feel nostalgic is fresh picked lilacs. Mom would fill the house with them in the spring and now I do.

Oh, yeah! I got some when I was 8 or 9 as part of a manicure set, a "birthday gift" from an aunt. This aunt never really liked me (and I was a good kid!), and it was really a backhanded kind of thing to get me to stop biting my nails. But the little bottle of Jergens that came with it had the orange and pink swirls on the label, and orange-and-pink was my favorite color combination at that age, and the smell was just the epitome of girly-girl to me!

Other smells:

the original scent of Lysol - I just love it, but I guess no one else does since I can't find it anywhere any more.

linoleum - okay, so linoleum was declasse, but I liked the smell

There's a certain smell I associate with nursery school washcloths. It must be a cleaning solution of some sort, or maybe a kind of soap. It's still around, because every so many years I smell it somewhere. Anyway, the washcloths were these red, white and blue plaid things. I remember them very well, because when I was older my mother bought a set of them on sale. They totally clashed with our otherwise light green towels, but I was still young enough to be enchanted that we had the same washcloths I'd had in nursery school.