Yes, they do for me too..when I smell tomatoes on the vine it reminds me of being a child, we lived in my grandmother's house, the 5 of us and my aunt, uncle and grandmother. My uncle had a garden in the back yard and I remember the aroma of the tomatoes, very good, warm memories of living there. Many others bring back memories...songs too.

The smell of a dentist's office still brings back horrifying memories of going to a dentist as a child who did not, I think, believe in administering local anesthesia to children; there were a lot of painful memories.

Sometimes being in a very quiet place, smelling the flowers and nature brings back memories of my Dad and his garden with roses that smelled so good, flowers of trees in the springtime, or just the clean smell for fresh air on my grandparents ranch. Oh so quiet, with animal noises in the distance, chickens in their area (free range), and that bright clean fresh air.

My grandparents had a big wooden porch and as you entered their front door there was always the smell of damp wood and a boiled dinner. My Scottish Grandpa used to make head cheese or had some piece of meat simmering on the stove. Years later I played cards at a British Pub and every time I entered the old house the pub was in it was just like walking into my Grandparents house with the same smell of old damp wood and boiled dinners. I liked that smell because it evoked good memories.

My other English Grandfather raised homing/racing pigeons in the loft of his barn/workshop. Sometimes I go somewhere and I smell wood or damp wood and it reminds me of the smell of my Grandfather's pigeon loft. I used to love helping him band his baby pigeons. He carved tiny pigeon feet onto all of his tools and he was never without a handful of cracked corn in his pocket to feed the birds.

I always pump my own gas, and sometimes the smell brings me back to when I was a teenager, filling the gas can for our boat.

The scent of fresh basil reminds me of cooking with my daughter Gillian. The smell of fresh beets does the same thing, as she and I were the only ones in the family who liked them.

I'm sure I could think of other examples. Scent is very powerful.

My mother would order boxes of french milled soap (and toilet paper!) when Marshall Field's had their annual sale. One soap was lemon verbena and one was rose geranium. As I type that I picture our upstairs bathroom -- yellow tiled walls and the soap in the soap holders over the sink and at the tub, and the pretty boxes in the linen closet.

My mother wore Chanel #5 and scented her handkerchiefs with it. I've written before about asking her to hold a carrot treat for my favorite horse while I took a riding lesson. She put it in her purse, and the horse would have none of it, thank you!

Saddest smell in the world is the scent left in the clothing of someone gone from your life.

Autumn leaves,burning or not bring me back to a happy, carefree childhood. We used to rake them and make them into outlines of houses.

Yes smells do and so does music and certain songs. I grew up on the farm down on the bayou so all the smells associated with the farm bring back childhood memories. Lots of outdoor cooking, bbq, frying, and boiling crawfish and crabs in a huge black cauldron on a wood fire. All good things!

what a nice, smile-making thread!

Jergens lotion in the original cherry almond scent is my "way back" machine;
my grandmother & Naomi, a friend of my parents who sometimes babysat us, both used that lotion.

The reminder about Yardley English Lavender made me smile, too;
my friend Debra & I were young teens during the mod/English Invasion/op & pop art sixties, & we did our best to strike Jean Shrimpton poses in our boots & mini-skirts.

We *loved* Yardley English Lavender!

That's easy - just pop open a brand new box of 48 Crayola crayons. Nuff said.

Absolutely, that Crayola smell. Sadly, I agree the scent left by someone who is no longer with you is devastating. I have worn Chanel #5 since I was 18, and while I try to apply it lightly, many people have said that that scent reminds them of me. Crazily, I keep a can of AquaNet hairspray in my laundry room. It is wonderful at removing ink stains. One whiff of it, though, and I am transported back to the sorority house in 1964 and I can hear "I Want To Hold Your Hand". In my head.

Oh, this is going to sound silly, but the smell of a new plastic shower curtain makes me think of Christmas.

Let me explain! One of my first Christmas memories is of getting a new doll. The very first brand spankin new, not hand me down doll I ever had. Of course, it was made of plastic, and new plastic shower curtains have that same smell.

I also love the smell of the packing paper you get in boxes of stuff you've ordered that was shipped from Asia. It's sort of spicy. When I open one of those boxes, I take the paper and crinkle it in front of my nose. It reminds me of the 2 1/2 years we lived in Turkey. The air smelled similar to that.

So many others.....

Coming home from school and smelling my mother's awesome pound cake, fresh out of the oven.

Loved spreading butter to melt and enjoying that piece to the utmost. with a glass of milk.

A few smells do transport me back to another time. I, too, was raised in a small, old farmhouse heated with wood. My grade school was heated with a coal furnace that sat classroom, the same as occupied by we students.

o A freshly lit coal fire, one that has not yet developed a bed of coals conjures images of black boards on the walls and a "Regulator", 8 sided clock.

o Kerosene bring back memories of corn cobs soaked in kerosene for starting a fire in the kitchen stove. This was most after the main heating season when strating a fire was needed to cook. During the heating season, a fire was kept going in the kitchen stove most of the time, and after the fire died down, often there were enough coals to begin anew.

During high school, I worked at a filliong station and sold bulk kerosene out of a 55 gal barrel. The smell of kerosene bring up an image of the hand cranked pump for dispensing kerosene. (It was a rotary pump.)

o Gasoline: The fillng station I worked at.

o The solvent in rubber cement: Old style inner tube patches.

o The smell of a new mown hay field curing in the sun.

o A whiff of raw, uncleaned gas reminds me of gas escaping from an oilwell and the flare used to burn it off. Some oilwell gasses contained sulphur compounds, one being hydrogen-sulphide.

o Hot bacon grease: Breakfast, frying potatoes, and popcorn.

o Hyacinths and lilac: Springtime and happier days ahead.

o The most foul smell is disturbed chicken manure on a hot day.

speaking of breakfast...
coffee brewing!

Yes, last summer, I think it was last summer anyway, I took a break to get off the floor at work and moved my car. It was a beautiful, hot summer day. They were reasphalting the street in front of the hospital I work at. The smell of tar on that hot day took me right back to my childhood in San Pedro, CA. Popping tar bubbles in the street on a hot summer day. A good memory.

Not sure if it's smell or just the feel of a cool spring morning, takes me back to Norfolk VA and my mom taking me on the bus to go to kindergarten. Squirrels running around in a park with big trees reminds me of that kindergarten too. It was a two room school, a Christian kindergarten and outside were huge trees and lots of squirrels. I don't remember what the outside of the building looked like but inside the classrooms were divided by a big dark blue curtain.

Jergens, the original scented lotion reminds me of my mom.

I'm with pam on this: Autumn leaves,burning

Some of my best childhood memories are from the time I spent at my great aunt's house. She was like a grandmother to me.

I cannot smell Ivory Soap without thinking of her. She used the cakes of soap which I loved because they floated and also the detergent. Her towels always smelled of Ivory.

All the closets in her house were lined with cedar and that brings back memories as well. If I even smell the cedar shavings in a hamster cage, I think of being a small child in her house. She was very loving.

My grandmother made root beer and the smell of yeasty, old fashioned root beer reminds me of her.

My son cannot smell vinegar without thinking of Easter eggs. One time he asked me why the smell of tuna fish sandwiches reminded him of the beach. That's because I always packed them when we went to the beach!

An old boyfriend once told me that the scent of suntan lotion evoked the summer vacations he had spent on the beach.

For me, it was the scent of chlorine bleach-

I was a little inland child, & the glorious days of my summer vacations were spent at the municipal pool!

When I woke up the morning after RFK was killed, my aunt had just dropped by and was standing in the foyer with an armload of eucalyptus discussing the assassination. I was 13 at the time, but to this day, I still associate the smell of eucalyptus with my aunt and that event.

Absolutely. Lots of pleasant memories. I remember being with my best friend and her cousins and having a sprite and strawberry ice cream soda...I didn't think about it for years or have sprite with strawberry ice cream...but one day I did....immediately transported back to that night and sitting on her front porch.

At an antique auction, I bid on a couple of wooden chairs that I liked. The auctioneer threw in a couple more. One of the big old wooden chairs....I call it my "grandpa" chair....smelled old and musty. The memory associated with that was the upstairs in my grandmother's house. I don't think she had climbed up those stairs in many years, but after she died, I went up there and I remembered the musty smell. She also dipped snuff. Seems like there was a little essence of snuff in there also. And the chair smelled just like it. I didn't find the smell offensive....kind of intrigued that it smelled like grandma's house.

Surely do. Brylcreem and Old Spice are the biggest triggers. Always makes me smile and think of my kind grandfather.

Brylcreem!
Old Spice!
Yes yes yes!

& Aqua Velva (that one was Daddy!)

Glad you reminded me. Aqua Velva. That's the one I was trying to remember but couldn't when I posted (how'd you know?). And for me, also daddy!