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The Smell of Success
My daughter ran over a bit of metallic debris on the freeway, so I’m back at the tire shop getting a replacement. Not that I mind. I’ve loved tire stores since a Discount Tire in north Phoenix was a final stop on my Arizona Republic paper route. Back in the wayback ago, I’d need to stop by each week to collect my $1.35. The staff would joke, insult, and plead poverty before turning over the blood money along with a big, fat tip.
Something about the tire-shop smell always puts me in a better mood. Purchasing a new set of tires is one of the best olfactory retail experiences available.
Maybe it’s just a guy thing, but repair shops are the only aromatherapy I want. Shoe repair/leather stores are awesome. Lawnmower repair shops provide a nice cut grass and gasoline combo, like the first day of summer. I’ll never turn down a visit to the lumberyard. (And don’t get me started on Hoppe’s No. 9; it should be a cologne.)
How about you? Do you have a few favorite retail scents … and is it just a guy thing?
Published in General
Fresh cut grass – particularly hay that will be baled – is one of the best smells there is. Nothing better than going into a barn with a hayloft. I grew up in a farm in NE OH and we had a bank barn. I remember feeding the animals in the morning, walking into the pungent ground floor to feed them, and then getting a good olfactory cleanse when I went upstairs to get some hay. Good times. Good memories. Thanks for reviving them.
Hoppe’s No. 9 is so good, I brush my teeth in it. Well I don’t really brush my teeth with it, because it is toxic, but it is one of the best burnt black powder residue remover I’ve came across (that is what it was originally designed for).
Small town sporting goods stores where you get a cacophony of smells. Basketballs, footballs, soccer balls. Baseball gloves. Ice skates. Sleeping bags. And perhaps some of that gun oil.
Radio Shack with the smell of outgassing particle board and electric ionization.
Not a “retail scent,” but an amalgam of dirt, hay, horse, bull, manure, testosterone, leather… the rodeo.
I don’t personally like the smell of rubber, or gasoline, or cut grass. The grass part is probably due to my sinus allergies, though. It doesn’t smell bad, it’s just a smell that I avoid. I agree about leather.
Cordite and gun oil, baby. That’s a great smell. Smells like victory.
Coffee brewing.
Bread baking.
Meat grilling.
Christmas tree lots.
You forgot the blood.
Not just meat in general, but bacon in particular, also eggs…
Even a couple hundred years from now…
https://www.hoppes.com/accessories-4/no.-9-air-freshener-3-pack/HO-H9AF3.html
https://www.etsy.com/listing/216469516/carbine-mens-cologne-oil-roll-on-cologne
I never shopped there, but I used to go out of my way to walk past the Wilsons (The Leather Experts) store in the mall just to get a good whiff.
The wife and I are both shooters, and ‘a dab of #9 behind the ear’ is a standing joke.
One of the few times I agree with Jerry: Burnt powder and gun oil is it.
I think lots of people love the smell of a new car! Any new car…
The dust from a field where the soybeans have just been harvested. There was a field across from my elementary school that seemed to be in soybeans every year. I hadn’t smelled that smell again until I took a job outside of Peoria smack dab in the middle of more bean fields.
Word.
It IS a cologne. See above.
Newspaper press room. Ink smell is one of kind. Brings back great memories and a few nightmares.
Back when I was working, I used to drive past a Nabisco cookie bakery on my way to the office. That was a treat.
My mother is not a shooter, and she has a weird sense of what smells good, but she really likes Hoppe’s No. 9.
My all time favorite smell was at the feed store when I went with Dad. They had silos of grain, and bags of animal feed like alfalfa pellets. Good stuff like oats with molasses. It all came together in a big wooden warehouse full of dusty cobwebs, and a loading dock along the front.
The store office had cool stuff like saddles and baby chicks.
Haven’t encountered anything comparable in almost 50 years. Went back a couple years ago and nothing is left but an empty lot.
Peat smoke, with or without whiskey.
I grew up in a small town and we had a coyote club. They would go out hunting together and once a year would hold a pancake feed for the community. Mom would joke that we had to get there early because beer would be consumed and the pancakes would spend more time on the grill at the end of the shift.
There’s a taco place in town that serves breakfast, to include pancakes, all day. I don’t know if they use the same type of grease or what, but I was transported to my childhood the first time I stepped inside. It smelled just like the pancake feed.
Not necessarily retail smells, but: Two-stroke engines with a top note of oil. GoJo hand cleaner, good for garage work. Butane.
Chemistry teaching labs are not exactly known for their pleasing aromas… except for the ester lab. The delightful scent of bananas or wintergreen fills the air. Steam distillation labs can also be pretty amazing – they often extract essential oils from delightful plants.
Working in a flower shop is usually quite pleasant – floral smells mix with wood/greens and the solvent aroma of various spray cans.
Burning leaves is part of the smell of fall to me.
The smell of success.
The stink of freedom.
The air of nostalgia.
The whiff of dyspepsia.
So much to absorb, nostrilly.
And male loneliness, oozing from the pores of staff.
With whiskey, it’s the stench of Irish despair.
Freshly-baled hay
Joe’s Bakery on Main Street in Washington, PA
The first whiff of diesel when my tractor fires up in early Spring. (It doesn’t work for me long-term, but it’s a great relief to breathe it in for the first time after a long, cold winter)
Old-fashioned roses, and the scents of my garden
Strega (because it reminds me of freshly-baled hay: See above)
The only thing I can add is the smell in the machine shops and labs at Johnson Space Center. Kind of like a machine shop or auto shop, but cleaner. I entered one a few days back and was back in my pre-teen years getting ready to board XL-5 for a trip around the solar system.
Fresh cut Grass of a lawn I have just mowed is especially nice. Going to miss it soon.
Also, back in my childhood, when there was still room for a lot of new construction around me, two smells of work stand out.