“Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.” ~Diane Ackerman
Research has shown that the sense of smell is more closely linked with memory than any of the other senses. It’s also a sense linked with emotion. If you close your eyes and think about your childhood home, likely it will be aromas that come to mind first. Cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven, the way cherry Kool-Aid smelled when you stirred up a fresh pitcher, the scent of laundry fresh off the clothesline on a summer day. These are the enticing elements of many of our memories. For me, growing up on the farm, add the heady aroma of fresh mown hay, the smell of my grandmother’s homemade bread with butter churned by hand. And lilacs brought into the house and arranged in a blue Ball canning jar. Little bits of heaven on earth.
Let’s be honest: If you have kids or pets in your house—or a teenager with stinky feet—not all the smells of home are going to be pleasant ones. But there are certainly ways to make your home smell wonderful almost every hour of the day—and give your family something pleasant to breathe in, and something evocative to carry with them when they travel away from home. Whether it’s for a weekend…or for forever.
Making your house smell like a million bucks doesn’t have to cost a million bucks either. Here are some ideas for easy ways to infuse your home with smells that will be remembered for decades.
• Use the clothesline to dry your laundry. (Or, if you don’t have a clothesline, hang fresh sheets over a clean porch railing or spread them on a freshly mown lawn to dry. You’ll not only save on your electric bill, but it’s hard to match the fragrance of sheets dried on a summer breeze. If that all sounds like too much work, the clean scent of a dryer sheet is a close second. (Bounce original is still my favorite.) Laundry soap is available in some amazing scents these days, as well.
• Bake something. My grandmother used to simmer apple slices on the stovetop in a pan of water with cinnamon. It made the whole house smell delicious! Simmering a pot of whole cloves in water will do the same.
• If you’re really feeling ambitious, remember the old Pillsbury commercial that said “nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the oven”? Let the aroma of chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven greet your family at the door. If you’re not crazy about baking, instead of store-bought cookies, opt for the pre-made cookie dough so you still get to enjoy the smell without all the work.
• A pot of coffee brewing will perfume the whole house. My husband can’t stand the taste of coffee, but even he likes the smell of it—especially the flavored blends. My parents weren’t big coffee drinkers, but whenever we had company, the coffee pot was on. Maybe that’s why I like coffee so much—to me, it smells like a party about to happen!
• Fresh-cut flowers and just-picked fruits are another source of delicious smells. In the summer, I like adding sliced lemons or limes to a water dispenser. It’s a good way to remind me to drink more water, and the citrusy scent makes every glass a treat. Try gently scraping the rinds of a few whole lemons, limes, or oranges with a fork, and put them in a bowl on the counter or use as a centerpiece on the table. Sweet-smelling and pretty, too.
• It’s difficult to beat the fragrance of roses or lilacs or peonies. If money were no object, I’d have cut flowers in vases in every room, every week. But since money is an “object” I enjoy flowers from the bushes around our house in season…
• …and out of season, I enjoy potpourri, scented candles, oils, and waxes. I’ve discovered I can buy half-burned candles at garage sales for pennies. They smell just as good as when they were new, and no one’s is the wiser that I wasn’t the first one to light those wicks.
• Never underestimate the power of the incredible smell of popcorn popping! A great aroma to welcome kids home from school, to signal an impromptu movie night, or just because.
When you make your home a haven of pleasing aromas, you’re helping your family make memories that may very well last a lifetime.
What is your very favorite smell? What are some of the scents and aromas that bring memories rushing back for you?
Latest posts by Deborah Raney (see all)
- Inspired by Scripture - November 24, 2024
- Inspired by Scripture - November 17, 2024
- Writing “The End” - November 11, 2024
Great post, Deborah! My grandparents lived near the woods. Whenever I smell fresh pine I am back there again. (BTW, your pictures are gorgeous. Did you take them?)
Oh, I love the smell of pine, Lynn. Neat that it takes you back to your grandparents’ place. And yes, I took the photos. I don’t have a fancy camera, and I’m not a great photographer by any stretch, but I’ve learned that if you take about 50 photos with various settings and light, you usually end up with 2 or 3 pretty good ones. 🙂
Deb–The word-pictures you painted in the post had me “smelling” everything you described. So evocative. Great job. I just may have to simmer some cloves today…we had five inches of SNOW yesterday and are in a winter storm watch for most of the day.
Thanks for your sweet post.
Roxy
Roxy, I saw your snow pictures on Facebook. That’s just not fair! 🙁 Hope spring returns VERY soon to ND! So glad you enjoyed my “stinky” post. 😉
I don’t have a strong sense of smell, so I don’t realize how much smells are linked to memories. I loved your post, though, to remind me that others have that sense and maybe I should turn on my “scentsy” burner. I forget to do that a lot because I usually can’t tell if it is on or not.
Susan, my mom had sinus problems when she was about my age, and completely lost her sense of smell, and mostly lost her sense of taste. I never realized how precious those sense were until I saw how much she misses them! She started choosing food by texture since that was the new way she could enjoy food.
My daughter-in-law gave me a scentsy burner a few years ago and I really enjoy it!
Love the scent of lilacs in the spring. I have 3 bushes out back. The scent from them carries on a gentle breeze and is beautiful. I now have Irises blooming. Love that scent. Also love pansies and tulips.
Shirley, I’ve never noticed the scent of irises. I’ll have to pay more attention next time I smell some. My mother-in-law loves irises and started an Iris Festival out in California and has an iris named after her, even!
That sound cool. When my first iris came up Saturday I was standing eyeing it and a beautiful aroma came up to me.
It’s cool that your mother in law has an iris named after her!!
Nothing to me smells better than hot coffee and bacon sizzling over a campfire.
I also love to smell hot fudge cooking over the stove.
Bacon and coffee are way up there on my list, too, Gail. And the smell of a campfire. Mmmm!
Wonderful word pictures as well as photos. Love all the memory smells you mentioned. The smell of “Vicks salve” is a comfort fragrance, when I was growing up it was a cure for a head cold in winter and my mother always had it near her pillow for her “sinus problems” at night! I think the smell of cinnamon rolls or homemade bread are one of my very favorite memory smells. All the flowers you listed also, and LOVE the smell of new-mown grass too.
Ah! Vicks Vap-o-rub! What a comforting smell! I used to put it on my lips like lip gloss all through high school. I probably smelled like I had a constant cold, but as one who suffered with asthma, I felt like it helped me breathe better. Now they say you shouldn’t put it on lips, but I haven’t suffered any ill effects that I’m aware of. I might just go open a jar of that and take a deep whiff right now, Karen! 🙂
This post really made a lot of scents, Deb. (okay, I had to slip in one cheesy pun, LOL). 😉
Seriously, I think pleasing smells are so important – – especially in a home. Even though it’s “only me and the cats” at home during the daytime, I always keep at least one scented candle burning and always have a pot of coffee on (my relatives and friends know that no matter what time of day they might stop by, I always have coffee!). 🙂
LOVED your photos – – I was also wondering if you took them. They really look like photos out of a magazine- – very impressive!
LOL! Love your cheesy pun, Patti Jo. I’m like you with the scented candles. I have at least one burning from morning till we go to bed, winter or summer. Glad you enjoyed the photos. This batch did turn out pretty nice…but like I told Lynn, you never know. Sometimes I take 50 and NONE of them are worth keeping.
One thing I absolutely love the smell of is tomato plants and fresh picked tomatoes from my garden-it sounds weird probably but such a satisfying aroma. An all-time favorite is lilacs as they remind me of spring growing up and Mother’s Day, since that always seemed to be when my mom’s were blooming and we’d pick her a bouquet. Now that I have my own house, I love my hyacinths, especially when the wind picks up their scent and it seems to envelope my front porch.
Amanda, this is my first year to try growing tomatoes. As soon as it stops raining, I’m going to go out and take a whiff of my plant! Lilacs are one of my favorite scents, too, but though I’ve seen hyacinths, I don’t know how they smell. Can’t wait to find out. We have honeysuckle vine growing on one of the deck support posts, and the smell is luscious!