Scent

The other day I discovered that one of my newest friends from Sydney (originally a New Zealander, go figure) lost his sense of smell a few years ago thanks to a head injury involving a skateboard, a car dressed up as a cow in the Undie 500, too much beer and no helmet - luckily his taste wasn't affected, bar the odd herb or two.

For me this was deeply disturbing. To say that smell is important to me is a gross understatement. My sense of smell is a keen one and (excluding coffee) is one of the simplest pleasures I find in life - I find gratitude, and basically just pure happiness, in sometimes the most mundane and 'weird' (according to my boyfriend) smells in day-to-day life. I couldn't dream of losing it.

My all time favourite smells that can make me smile in a heartbeat are,

1. Hot tar when it has just rained. The smell of summer rain-showers, running and dancing around in the rain in your bikini at the ripe age of 10, with the delicate steam rising off the tar from the cooling raindrops.

2. Freshly washed sheets, dried in the sun. Nothing beats hopping into bed with crisp white sheets and that smell of laundry powder teamed with the indescribable smell that is sun-dried clothes, sheets and towels.


3. Sun-blocked skin in summer. The smell of sunblock itself I'm sure evokes fond memories in everyone, but I also love that dewy smell once it has soaked into your skin after you've baked yourself for over half an hour.

4. Freshly baked bread. Well this is more freshly baked/cooked anything, including but not limited to, bacon, toast, coffee, cookies and my all-time favourite banana cake.

5. Pledge. They say aromas most readily send us into recollections of the past - this certainly rings true of the multi-purpose spray Pledge. I spent years waking up on a Saturday morning to my mum Pledging the whole house, and now just a whiff takes me straight back to sleep-ins at her house, reading Goosebump books in bed and eating banana and honey on crumpets for breakfast.

6. Vanilla. Hands down my all time favourite smell. Candles, perfume, creme brulee, body lotion. Anything vanilla infused. Yum.