Your favoUrite smellsFollow

Icky!

Nexa

It smells like ............ victory!!!

Hm. I somehow left out coffee, freshly ground. Mmmmmm!

Also, my girlfriend.

I have to agree with freshly mown grass. Also I absolutely love fresh potting soil. If my cat didn't scatter the soil everywhere, I'd have potted plants in every corner of my house.

Next favorite has to be garlic and onions sauteed in butter. You smell that and you KNOW something good is cooking.

I also absolutely adore Yankee Candle's "Honeydew Melon" scented candles.

It's a pretty short list, I know, but I spend most of my time desperately attempting NOT to be exposed to new odorants, because I have a lot of trouble with scent allergies. Certain scents can trigger instant migraines. The worst offender is vanilla-scented perfumes and air-fresheners, but there are too many others that have the same effect if I'm exposed to them for more than a moment or two, or if they are too intense.

I have the same issue, I think it is fairly common with migraine sufferers. Vanilla isn't bad, it is just fake vanilla that gets me. I also can't stand flowery scented air freshener or perfume. Any scent in high doses is bad, so places like Bath and Body Works are instant migraines. All the people that said gasoline is a good smell, well, it makes me want to puke and have a headache.

I love the smell of my husband at the end of the day....cigarettes, beer, cologne, and whatever sweat might have accumulated. I can't think of any smell more comforting.

warm apple cider
any smell associated with Christmas....cider, pine, cinnamon and cloves...
cardamom seeds
clean clothes that are still warm
freshly mowed grass
the outside-the-bar street smell. sometimes it is gross, but sometimes it just makes me nostalgic for "the old days" or reminds me of New Orleans, which makes the bad smell become a good one.

car oil
sex
blood
lavander

Taste is frequently augmented by smell (and also by texture) and the primary gustatory and olfactory centers in the cerebrum are very close together, but the physiological processes which produce the two senses are separate. They work in ways that are quite similar to each other, but they are separate processes that just happen to complement each other.

Tastants (chemicals that produce the sensation of gustation, or "taste") require being dissolved in saliva before they can bind to the gustatory hairs, which are chemoreceptors (specialized nerve receptors that respond to chemical stimuli) on the tastebuds. This produces a receptor potential that is transmitted to Cranial Nerves VII, VI, and X to the medulla, hypothalamus, and to the primary gustatory area of the cerebral cortext.

In a similar process, odorants must be dissolved in nasal mucus produced by Bowman's glands in order to be picked up olfactory cilia (which are again chemoreceptors) before being transmitted by way of Cranial Nerve I to the limbic system and hypothalamus (emotional and memory response generated by odors takes place here) and to the primary olfactory area of the cerebral cortex located in medial temporal lobe.

What's odd about Kaolian's situation is that almost all people who suffer the loss of their sense of smell also suffer some diminishing of taste--again, in large part because olfaction augments gustation. Some of this may be due, however, to the fact that the olfactory and gustatory areas of the cerebral cortex are so near each other. So in the case of someone who, for instance, suffers brain damage as a result of an accident, it makes sense that if one area is injured, the other is as well.

This makes me wonder if what is happening with Kaolian's family isn't perhaps some genetic abnormality of either the olfactory chemoreceptors, a defect of the Bowman's glands that produce the mucus in which odorants MUST be dissolved in order to bind to the chemoreceptors, or a defect of CN I, the olfactory nerve.

Again, though, this doesn't explain how his sense of taste can be so acute when one of the senses that helps augment taste is deficient. Puzzling.

Oooh yeah, I forgot to mention this one. I love those moments just at the start of a rainstorm, when there's that heavy, dusty scent in the air. Mmmm...makes me miss living in the midwest. Out here in the northwest, we just don't get enough thunderstorms for my satisfaction.



I don't particularly care for sports equipment, but I do like the smell of leather clothing. I think this might be in part due to the fact that Mr. Ambrya and I dabble in S&M, complete with fetish clothing, and therefore the scent of leather has become highly sexualized for us. Recently he got a new leather vest and we both had a moment where we just had to inhale the thing.




Edited, Aug 1st 2006 at 2:54am EDT by Ambrya

Yeah, that's what i've been told too. My doctor think's i'm wierd. Possibly an alien.

Aside from the obvious:

Gas fumes
Pot smoke
Good pot
Victoria's Secret Pink Perfume.

Ex-GF wore it all the time. Walking through the mall and smelling it on some girl weakens the knees.

Sandbox thread

Having lived in a farming community (try farming state more like) for all of my life, one of the most distinct and wonderful summer smells is that of Alfalfa. It has this sweet aroma when cut that you can smell from miles away and is quite nice.

My wife loves the smell of TruGreen Chemlawn fertilizer. Yeah I know, she's a freak.