I grew up in the suburbs of London, in a town called Sidcup, with my parents and a tortoiseshell cat named Candy. The neighborhood was a typical middle-class 1930s housing estate with roads lined with trees and semi-detached houses, each house with a long driveway, a garage and large garden.

My mum was a housewife who managed everything in our home; always making sure things were in good order. Mondays were wash day: the laundry would be done, the bathrooms scrubbed, and maybe once a month the floors would get a proper cleaning. She always had the radio on, and would often be singing along as she worked.

My mum was always happy and positive, full of energy, and the life of the house. She was also quietly confident. She had a strong personality, and whatever she said felt like gospel as a kid. Even when she may not have been right, she always spoke with such conviction that you believed her.

She was also very practical, more likely to be in her gardening clothes than dressed up in a glamorous dress and heels. She usually had on an apron and her yellow Marigold rubber gloves. Her hair was always the same: short, permed, and curly.

One of the routines my mum had during the warm summer days, while I was at school, was airing out the house. She’d usually have a window or two open while doing her ironing or polishing the silver. And as the warm, stagnant summer air built up throughout the day, she’d open the french doors in the dining room to create a through-breeze between the front and back of the house.

I remember coming home from school, opening the front door against the pressure of the breeze moving through the house. An interior door usually slammed shut from the force of it and the floor-to-ceiling sheer white linen curtains in the dining room would billow in the breeze. Sometimes they’d catch on the arm of the big leather chair by the door, then slip free again with a whoosh.

But it was the smell that really hit me: smooth and airy, like a whisper moving through the house. It made me feel secure, but also free. It’s clean, warm, a little floral from the garden flowers and slightly green from the cut grass. A comforting smell that feels like a snug blanket, or a joyful, quietly confident person greeting me at the door.

There’s also a soundtrack that accompanies the smell: lawnmowers in the distance, dogs barking, children playing, the clinking of plates as neighbors prepared dinner with their kitchen doors open.

To me the smell is the sense of anticipation and excitement. If my mum was getting to the point where she’s opening everything up that means there's only so much more time until school holidays. But it’s also the simple joy of being home. I’d drop my schoolbag by the front door, take off my shoes, and then there was always tea and a biscuit waiting. That was part of the routine too.

The smell makes me feel secure because I’m home. I’ve made it to the end of the day, and that smell means safety. Every time I think of it, it’s that feeling of security, even though all the doors and windows are wide open. That’s the paradox: the openness is the security.

But it’s more than just safety, it’s liberation. The smell makes me feel light, like I’m walking on air, because it’s summertime. Even though it’s just an ordinary weekday, the light and the smell lift the day. They lift the weight of whatever worries I had.

Now I live in North Carolina, where summers are hot and heavy with humidity, and everything has to stay shut tight with the air conditioning on. The only times I can open the doors and windows are in spring, before the heat settles in, or sometimes in autumn before the bitter cold arrives. But it’s not the same. Autumn here doesn’t feel fresh; it still carries the weight of summer. Spring is fresh, yes, but it doesn’t have the warmth of the sun and real breezes are rare.

Unfortunately, I can’t truly recreate the smell, but when I do manage to catch a cross-breeze in the house, the feeling of home immediately comes back.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? A whisper.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? Light grey.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? Smooth.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? To be happy. To embrace what you have, to be grateful for it, and to make the most of what’s right in front of you. It’s not about material things at all. It's about love, freedom, and creating a safe space.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

I grew up in a multi-generational, working class, French-Canadian community on the west side of Manchester, New Hampshire. My Nana lived down the street from me and my parents, and just above her lived my great grandma. Even my dad's mom lived only five blocks away. I was raised by Grandmas.

It was an idyllic neighborhood. Neighbors were everything. We would meet in the backyard, and you would say hi to your neighbors. and all of us kids would play together. I really loved growing up in that sort of multi-generational community.

I remember when I would visit my Nana at her apartment, she always had orange marmalade on buttered toast. That was her standard meal for breakfast, and she also often had it before going to bed. She loved that orange marmalade and she ate it as long as I can remember. What’s interesting is that citrus trees didn’t grow in New Hampshire. So, it made me wonder why she loved that orange marmalade so much. Did her parents eat it, and so the memory was passed down to her?

My Nana’s name was Madeleine, like the cookie. She was the typical grandma. She loved cakes, and especially tea. I remember one time she sent me a card that said, “let’s drink a cup of tea together,” and enclosed a tea bag. She was very thoughtful and nurturing. She was like a soulmate, like a sister from a past life. I just felt comfortable and cozy around her. We would have tea together and we would play games. I remember she would get so mad when she would lose, so she did have a little bit of a competitive nature to her. Overall, her energy was very calming though. I remember we'd go out to eat, and we’d have these long lunches because she would just chew so slowly. Yeah, she had this very slow energy to her, which I think was probably very comforting.

My Nana was also a very spiritual person, who loved to knit. She was always knitting and giving back through her knitting. She made prayer blankets with a group of women. So they would knit and pray and then they would give them to people in need. My Nana has passed on now, but she has definitely become my guardian angel.

The orange marmalade also connects me to my ancestors. My Nana’s lineage went back to the filles du roi, which were a group of young French women who immigrated to New France (Canada) between 1663 - 1673 as part of a program sponsored by King Louis XIV. So we can link our lineage right back to France, which is fascinating. And then to think about these women coming over to Canada and making families. The churches on the west side always had French masses up until about 10 years ago. The older generations are dying, but I got to see that. I think there's something really cool about that short moment in time.

Recently I had an interesting experience. I was at my mundane job, taking a coffee break, and I bought this piece of cake. I took it back to my desk and continued my conversation with my coworker. As we were talking, I took a bite of the cake without thinking much of it, when suddenly it hit me. The taste instantly reminded me of my Nana. It was this beautiful moment where I immediately thought of orange marmalade and my Nana. It took me right back to being a child, spending time with her.

The smell instantly brought me back to the plate of orange marmalade on buttered toast. There’s a gooey-ness to the texture of the cake, kind of like gummies or taffies, and I think that that texture of the marmalade toast was the same. To me, citrus is uplifting. It's happy and zesty. It awakens you. But the smell has a depth to it because it’s also sugary. I imagine the sugar mixed in must have been so exciting for me as a kid, having that experience of a big hit of sugar marmalade - what a treat! But there’s also a toasted aspect. Because it's bread-like, and so it has almost a brown butter and orange smell. And there’s a very sharp note because of the dried citrus pieces in the marmalade, so at the end, or at the beginning, you're getting that pithy brightness.

For me, the smell of that orange marmalade is like a treat; a special moment. And it's exciting. The scent reminds me of being young and innocent. And, more importantly, connects me to my beautiful Nana.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? A whoosh sound. It literally moves you.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? Orange.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? Silky.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? Take life to the fullest. Take the zest of life. I think of that a lot with Nana. Even though she was very quiet and she wasn't an extravagant person at all, she took life to a very spiritual zest. She was always so supportive, telling me I’m doing the right thing. So, whenever I'm making big changes in my life, I think it's about the zest of life, the excitement.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

Growing up as a child in Japan, in the winter my family and I would often go to my grandmother’s house on Awaji Island on long weekends. The small cottage was built on a hill overlooking the ocean, and behind was lined with mandarin trees as far as the eye could see.

My grandmother was an amazing woman. She was very quiet and didn’t want to be the center of attention. She was an avid cook who just wanted to make sure that the kids were always fed, and the grandkids were taken care of. She was the enabler, not the life of the party.

She certainly had her hardships, having lost her husband at a very young age, and raising her children on her own, but she never looked back. She always focused on moving forward, being curious, and thinking about what she could engage in next. She was a doer and owned her own futon shop. So, in that sense, I guess she was ahead of her time. As a single mother, after the War, she was determined to educate all her children, including her daughter, my mother.

In the early 1970’s the Japanese government was incentivizing people to farm mandarin trees. So, being the industrious business woman that she was, my grandmother took advantage of this and got a government grant to plant over 200 mikan trees on her property.

I remember at 5-6 years old, in the winter spending time in these mandarin groves, when the fruit was abundant on the trees. We’d spend endless hours playing hide-n-seek and tag amongst the trees, just absolutely immersed in a sea of mandarins. Many of them were strewn on the ground, the overripe smell permeating the air. We got to pick as many mandarins as we wanted, often peeling and eating them right then and there. We’d collect as many as we could carry in a basket and would bring them back to the house.

The house was typically Japanese, having an exterior big long hallway that was partially concealed with big glass doors. I remember there was this one area of the hall that we didn’t really use, except to store the mandarins. My mother would line the floor with newspaper and put all the mandarins that we picked - it was a good 15 feet worth of fruit - on there. She’d leave them to sit in the sun and dry. Our favorite thing to do was to eat the mandarins until our fingers turned orange from peeling so many fruits. We ate them all the time, as many as we wanted.

My mother would also put the mandarins in a mesh bag and put them in the ofuro, the traditional Japanese bath, to soak for hours before the family took turns bathing in the evening. Back then you didn’t have instant hot water. Instead the bath water was heated over hours by an external furnace and the mandarins would slowly be warmed over time. I can vividly recall walking into the tub room and there being this amazing citrusy smell.

Overall, the smell of the mikan is very vibrant and bright for me. Pure joy and happiness, like sunshine, which was helpful in the dreary, cold winter months. Whenever I smell it, I get a warm feeling inside.

The association is one of spending those days on the island in this little cottage that my grandmother built, with my siblings, my parents, cousins, and friends. Because there were only two bedrooms, a great room, and a small kitchen, we’d sleep on futons on the floor, filling the entire house with bodies. We didn’t care. In the summer, us kids even slept outside on the deck. It was a feeling of happiness, comfort and safety.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? Melodic Jazz.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? Bright orange.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? A cotton ball.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

To remember the happy days and cherish the memories so you can make new ones. Let the smell be a catalyst for new smells, new memories. It’s about not just living in this memory of the past, but to always be creating new memories.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

When I was a young girl growing up in Paradise Lakes in southern New Jersey, my Ma did my hair on the weekends. During the spring and summer months we’d sit outside on the grass in our yard; I would sit in between her legs, facing out to a beautifully tree-rimmed lake. It was on this lake that my father built our home.

We had a very big family and our home was the place to gather. We lived really close to the land, despite not having a proper garden. We would go to the big fields and pick after the machines finished. You could always find big bushels of fruit, snap peas, and other vegetables outside on the picnic table. We canned peaches and tomatoes in preparation for fall and winter. My dad also had a friend who was a farmer with cows, so we'd get milk from him.

When my Ma did my hair, she would grease my scalp with a bergamot scented pomade, which was in a very small, oval green jar. The pomade was made with a lot of natural lanolin, which helped moisturize and protect the hair, but on its own had a very unpleasant odor. So, to make it more pleasant, the product was heavily scented with bergamot oil. For me that bergamot scent smelled exotic because nothing else going on in my life at that time had that smell to it. It smelled otherworldly and different. Today I know that bergamot smells citrusy, green, and floral.

Of course, during that whole process there were other smells too. My mother first washed with a mild baby shampoo and then conditioned. After that she’d use a common detangling product, and finish up with the pomade. It was that last product, and the smell of the bergamot scent, that was most prominent and special to me because it was so intriguing and different.

The process would begin with my Ma giving me a scalp massage, then parting my hair, and afterwards putting the pomade into my hair. You might even get some rubbed in your hands and then dressed on the top of your hair. The process could take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. It was a nice treat after your hair was detangled because your scalp is smarting with pain from being detangled. My Ma would put my hair into two Afro puffs on either side of my head. Afterwards, my hair would smell of the bergamot pomade that she applied.

As a kid, I didn’t enjoy sitting there for so long. Naturally, I was bored and would often nod off to sleep. But I would spend some time talking with my Ma. It was our time together, just her and me. My Ma was very gentle with me, which I really appreciated, because you’d have to hold your head in various positions, and stay patient as she detangled the hair.

My Ma was a very elegant and capable person. Growing up, we’d have the typical strife that mothers and daughters can have, and I don’t think I fully appreciated her until I grew older. She came from a very poor background, but studied ballet, learned French, and mastered archery. Those things intrigued her and she found a way to do them. She was very resourceful. She inspired me to do all of those things as well. And yet, at the same time, she would do what it took to help her family survive. She took on some very mentally difficult jobs in factories. And, as an adult, went to college, got a degree and worked in a bank. My mother was a very complex woman and also a light for the family.

About 10 years ago, while at a beauty supply store, I was able to smell the bergamot scented pomade again. It was so emotional because all those memories tied to this one scent came flooding back to me.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? A mourning dove cooing.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? Yellow-orange.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? The feel of water.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? Remember and honor your ancestors. And don't forget where you came from. Remember everything.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

When I was a little girl growing up in the port city of Kotka, Finland in the mid 1970’s, I loved spending time talking to my mum in her bedroom after she came home from work. She would sit at her bright yellow dresser table, on this ruby red chair, and do her hair after she took a shower. I’d come in and talk to her, most likely showing her something that I'd done at school, and she'd listen attentively while applying this lemon hand cream, made of glycerin and lemon juice, on her hands.

My mum worked full time as a sterile processing technician and a nursing assistant in the hospital, and had to wash her hands repeatedly all day long. So, to keep her hands from getting too chapped, she would use that lemon hand cream all the time. I remember that it was in an aluminum tube, and my mum always kept it in its small cardboard packaging too. She was a really orderly and neat person, so she always put the tube back in the package, and placed it in her dressing table drawer. Everything had its place.

My mum was a very friendly person, easy to get along with. She was very balanced and focused. She was the kind of person who, when you talked to her, would look at you and listen. She wasn't a particularly affectionate person, she wouldn’t hug you. That’s not how she expressed her love. But you could feel that caring from her. She took care of people: her family at home, and also the patients at work. So, she really focused on the person she was talking to at any one time. And then she was also orderly, and a doer. She always focused on what she had to do.

Sometimes when she was at work, I would sneak into her bedroom and take a little bit of the lemon hand cream because I was curious about that smell. I would take the smallest amount and always made sure to put the tube back into the package and into the drawer exactly as she had it, so she wouldn’t notice. I'm pretty sure she noticed that somebody had been there. But I thought I was sneaky.

I’d squeeze a little bit on my hands and just smell it. It smelled so wonderful. Unlike today, where lemon scents are used in cleaning products and all kinds of things, back then a lemon scent was a bit exotic. Lemons don't grow in Finland, they’re all imported. We have an association with the scent to cleanliness, and we know that it's antiseptic, but back then it was just this wonderful citrusy scent that you got from a hand cream. It was lovely.

What’s interesting is that recently, when I was going through my mum's belongings after she had passed away, I found a watercolor drawing that I had made around that age. I had drawn citrus trees around a Spanish looking villa. It was all about a kind of escapism; escaping to something luxurious and far away.

The scent is bright, sparkly, and really uplifting. A very energetic scent. And, like I said, for us it was somehow exotic. When I reflect on the smell, I realize it has all these qualities. It springs you into action, it's very straightforward, and so energizing. And it also helps you focus on the things that need to get done. That scent is my mum.

I know a lot of people say that lemon is just an antiseptic scent. But for me, because I have this association with my mum, this memory, I can really see the complexity. I can actually understand why somebody would like this scent because it gives you that focus and straightforwardness so you do the things that need to get done. That was my mum’s personality. She always said that we have to do what we have to do. It wasn't cold. It was caring.

Today when I think about the smell, it gives me that feeling of caring and cleanliness. And it reminds me of my mum.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? A canary bird singing.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? Dark yellow.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? A cotton shirt.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? It would tell me to focus on the things that really matter, and to leave the noise of the world in the background. Also, keep your heart open, be cheerful, and do the things that you have to do.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

When I was a child growing up in Beirut, Lebanon, my older brother and sister were always joking that I had a dog’s nose; I would smell everything. In fact, at certain times of the year, the orange blossoms would fill the streets of Beirut and I would say “Can you smell that? Can you smell that?” And they would say “What, what?” And we would go back and smell the blossoms together.

Our home in Beirut was always filled with wonderful smells, which was mostly because we always had family and friends over. My parents loved to host, especially my mom. Most of the time they would sit in our large living room; a space with high ceilings, lots of paintings on the wall, and large windows that welcomed the natural light in. And the sound of their shared stories and laughter filled the air.

My mom is a beautiful, smart, outgoing, and elegant lady. And she is also very creative. When people came over they knew they would be discovering and tasting something different every time, and I think they were fascinated by that.

Whether it was the pastries or the meals, even our house decorations, it was always different. With each season, my mom found new ways to create; even with the same furniture! It was like living in a very warm and enchanted place.

Some things, however, never changed and were consistently present. Like the "white coffee," or "café blanc," as we called it, which was served either after meals to soothe and aid in digestion or in the afternoons for "tea time”. My mom always asked, “Would you like black coffee or white coffee?” White coffee has nothing to do with coffee because it’s not made of coffee, and it doesn’t have milk or cream. It’s simply warm water with a few drops of ma zahr, a hydrolat of orange blossom. Ma means water and zahr means flower.

The whole experience is very ritualistic. The café blanc is served in either a small porcelain coffee cup or in a small clear glass that has a golden ring around it to help you hold it. And there was a specific way my mom gave it out. She would pour just a few drops of the ma zahr into the warm water in each person’s cup. The smell of the orange blossom would fill the entire kitchen with its warm and sugary aroma. And I could smell it for quite some time after. I just loved that smell. I was always amazed at how a few drops could make simple water into perfume. It was like magic to me.

What was more magical was that my mom didn’t put the ma zahr into simple glass bottles. Instead, she put it into a small, engraved copper vile. It looked like a small still with its rounded base and long neck. And at the top were just a few holes where the aromatic drops would come out. It was incredible to see that copper vial releasing the aroma of the ma zahr into the air as you sat around and had conversations.

But, as a little girl, I was always very sad that my mom would just put one or two drops in. I really didn’t like that. So, one spring afternoon, when I was around 6 or 7 years old, I decided this was my time with the magical ma zahr. My mom was busy serving café blanc to her friends in the living room, so I went into the kitchen to get the magical copper vial. I still have an image in my head of where she kept it; close to the door where you enter the kitchen, on the right-hand side in the cupboards down below. I went there, opened the door, and grabbed, what to me, was Aladdin’s lamp.

I thought this is my moment. Now I’m going to experience this ma zahr. I’m not going to just have one or two drops. I was expecting something big, you know. So, I took the vial and shook the drops into my mouth.

Now, you should know that if you have a spoonful of ma zahr the taste is very bitter. This meant that instead of me expecting to be flying, I had this sudden bitterness in my mouth and I didn’t understand why. It was like being in a tornado! I was more than surprised, I was bewildered. It was like getting a slap when you were waiting for a gift. I thought, how could something that smelled so good and beautiful be so bitter?

It was at that moment, I think, that my mom came over and saw me with this bitter expression on my face, sitting on the floor, holding the vial. She said, “What’s the matter?” I just cried that it was so bitter. My mom laughed and said, “Yes, this is why I only put one or two drops in the water.” It was my first encounter with something that can, on the one hand, be so beautiful and subtle and, on the other hand, be so terribly bitter. It was all about the dose. It took me a long time to really understand how to handle something so precious. Since then, I always treat my beloved ma zahr with care and respect.

Today I can make myself a café blanc and immediately be transported back to my childhood in Beirut. I don’t live there right now, but I order the ma zahr from my village and enjoy the drink as much as possible. The scent is very gentle and warm, like a very light blanket. It’s warm enough to give me what I need but light enough to let me be. It stays with me and is always there. It makes me feel protected, and also as if I was touching an enchanted world. When I smell it, I’m transformed. I can forget my sadness and imagine myself back in this enchanted world that I used to be in as a child.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

A subtle wind.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

Yellowish-white like a warm afternoon sun.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Velvet.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would say “Follow me. Follow my path.” Don’t forget me. Whenever you smell me, keep remembering where you came from, and I probably have something to show you. Remember it’s so good when you smell me.

We always tend to pass by the smell and ignore it. We don’t have time. But it’s very important to stop and smell. I can hear the smell telling me this.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

When I was a little girl, I’d spend the days at my grandmother’s house while my parents worked. She lived in the northern part of Mexico City, and we lived in the southern part. I remember it would take ages to get there.

My grandmother’s house was a very square house. When you came in there was a patio with lots of plants. She loved her plants. She had many pots with violets and other plants. I can see her using her hands pruning the plants of dry leaves, with her glistening polished nails.

It was a two-story house. On the left-hand side, you would come to the kitchen. On the right-hand side, you would come to the living room. Then there’s another patio in the back. That’s where the lavadero was; a large stone on the wall that has grooves and a basin attached. That’s where she did all the hand washing.

It was like there were two different worlds in the house, in a way. The living room and the dining room on the right-hand side were always clean and tidy. All the activity took place on the left-hand side, in the kitchen where they cooked. And then through a door that opened up to the backyard, at the lavadero, where the washing took place.

The thing that was constant in my grandmother’s house was the smell of soap. In Mexico we use a particular bar soap called “Zote” soap. It’s a pale pink soap with white paper wrapping. And we use it to wash everything. It’s a staple in every Mexican home.

There is a cultural thing in Mexico about being very clean. We have this saying “I may be poor, but I’m very clean.” When you don’t have much, the little things that you do have mean a lot. And those things in your hands actually show that you care, that you love someone. They show your values, I guess. And being clean shows your values. So that’s a big thing. Having a clean house also showed that you had pride in your home. People knew you cleaned, and the basic bar soap was what you used.

My grandmother would wear an apron to cook, and she’d wash it every day. And she’d wash the clothes that she wore to clean with, every day. And all the cleaning rags, facial cloths, everything we used, she would clean with this soap. And she’d clean her hands with it too.

So, if she had any dirty clothes, she would first finish cleaning the kitchen, and then immediately go outside and wash them. There was a lot of scrubbing with water, even if there isn’t a lot of water in Mexico. We use the dirty water from washing laundry to flush the toilet or to wash the floor on the patio: water is precious, and we are always trying to not waste it.

At my grandmother’s I never saw a pile of laundry because everything was cleaned immediately. The same with the underwear. As soon as you wore it, it was handwashed, scrubbed and hung out to dry. And I was always around watching, observing, asking “what are you doing?”

To be clear, it wasn’t a sterile clean. There was a liveliness in the home. We were able to touch and move things. We could be free. My grandmother had lots of canaries who chirped, and she sang a lot, so beautifully. There were also a lot of women around. Four of my aunties still lived at home, at my grandparents’ home, some of whom worked, or were finishing school. I remember when they would come home, they’d always bring the sweet Mexican breads. Most of the time, though, it was me, my grandmother, and one maid I remember fondly.

My grandmother was a very elegant woman of the 50’s. Even in the 1970’s her hair was well coiffed. She had beautiful hands and well-manicured nails that had sparkly pink nail polish. She was so beautiful. Of course, when you’re little you just think it’s your grandmother.

My grandmother never worked outside of the home. She was always a housewife. She had 8 children. My aunts and one maid always helped. My grandmother was in charge of the cooking; she kept things going. And she was in charge of the shopping. We would go to the market together, which I loved because it was noisy and lively, and we always came back with fresh tasty fruit.

We’re a very affectionate family. My grandmother always hugged everyone. And my aunts, when they came home from work, they’d scoop me up and start kissing and squishing me. A couple of my aunts often wore perfume, it felt heavy and clung to me after they hugged me. But my grandmother’s scent was different; it was always that very subtle soap smell.

Every time my grandmother hugged or caressed me, I could smell soap, especially on her hands. It was a clean, loving, soap smell. But also, when she washed my food-stained clothes. I’d return home with the clothes smelling of this soap and this was a lingering memory of the love I was given at my grandparents’ house, my second home.

The soap smells completely soapy. It’s a traditional type of Marseille soap; rosy, oily, and waxy from the base itself. The smell is fresh, lively, creamy, and rich. And it’s always mixed with fabric; that dry, dusty fabric. Or the smell was mixed with my grandmother’s hands, and the warmth of her skin. But it was also fresh because of the green, metallic notes. It was very reassuring.

I can still get that smell today because those subtle nuances are in all soaps. In fact, I’ve gone back to using soap because I love the smell and the tactile feel.

But it’s not just the scent itself. There are other sensory elements blended in as well. Like the tactile feel of the creaminess, which appears as you add water, and the bar starts to disintegrate and soften.

When I smell soap today, it evokes care for me; and also love. A gentle type of care and cleanliness. This “clean” smell feels like safety, like a sense of home, and also pride. It’s always very emotional to wash with this soap, and to also clean my hands with it.

When my grandmother hugged me, it was love, but there was also that sensorial cue coming from the scent of the soap to reinforce the love. That was the nice thing about my grandmother. I could be sitting on her lap watching television, eating yummy bread, and I would be embraced by this very subtle, clean soap smell. It was the backdrop. It wasn’t strong, assaulting you. It was really subtle. A subtle clean backdrop, always in your nose.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

A soothing hum.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

Shimmering, pale pink.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Undulating, soft and creamy.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would tell me to cherish the simple things of everyday life. To honor the day-to-day things that we do for each other. Because, although they may seem like chores, we're doing them with a purpose; we're looking after others and showing people we care.

It would also tell me to pay attention to the here and now. We’re so focused on creating these big memories, like going to Disney World. But it’s actually about the day-to-day constants in your life that weave time together. I reflect on that with my son, for example. What am I doing today to create those bonds? It’s not about the amazing holiday that we had, but rather the day-to-day cleaning I’m doing to show my love.

My grandmother was doing the same for me. She wasn’t creating any special games as far as I can remember. She was simply in the house, being there, and including me in all the things she had to do. And it was that routine that gave me a feeling of safety. There was no fear because there were no surprises. There was just unconditional love. I’m so grateful to have experienced that.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

As a child growing up in Manila, Philippines I lived with my parents. But they were away working a lot, so my sisters and I spent most of the time under the care of my grandparents, especially my grandmother. I loved spending time with my grandmother and was always her shadow, following her around wherever she went.

My grandmother was a great cook and she did all the cooking, not only for us, but also for her elderly father. She also did all the housekeeping and everything else, so I’d try to help her as much as I could.

I remember, one time, when I was around 9-10 years old, my grandmother was preparing to cook and chopping garlic, so I asked if I could help. Not everyone would want to do that, including my sisters, because they didn’t like the smell of garlic.

The two of us would sit at the small kitchen table where she did all of her chopping. She’d get everything prepared around 11am before she went to the dirty kitchen to cook lunch, the main meal of the day.

In the Philippines we have the kitchen and the dirty kitchen. The dirty kitchen is always outdoors with better ventilation. That’s where the cooking is done. We just prepare the food in the kitchen and then eat in the dining room. I didn’t really go to the dirty kitchen because I didn’t like cooking.

I always sat with my grandmother as she was preparing everything so I could eat some of the food. I’d be right next to her, looking, as she was chopping and preparing the ingredients. I would ask her, what can I do? What can I eat? She would tell me “You’re such a smart girl because you always sit beside me. You get to eat whatever I’m cooking.“

My grandmother always made sure I ate a lot because I was so thin growing up. She fed me more than the rest of my sisters. She would say how happy she was when she saw me eating well. She loved how I ate deliciously. She loved to see that I enjoyed all of her food. She would tell me that when she was young she wasn’t given much food. I really enjoyed hearing her stories. It was always while sitting at that table, chopping the garlic, that she would tell me the stories of her life.

My grandmother is a second generation Chinese living in the Philippines. In her generation, the women weren’t allowed to study so she never went to school. Instead, she was raised as a homemaker. Her family was pretty well off because my great grandfather owned a mini shopping center, but still she was a female and women at that time didn't get as much opportunity for education as her brothers did. In fact, all of her brothers were college graduates, but she wasn’t. Even when it came to food, she wasn’t allowed to get equal portions of food because she was a girl. She told me her grandmother would sneak fruits in to her at night so nobody would know that she was eating something.

My grandmother’s mother died early due to complications from giving birth to one of the brothers, so she was raised by her father. She would tell me she was never sent to school by her father because the women were meant to take care of the family. Maybe it was also because she was the only girl in the family, and her mother had passed, so it became her obligation to be the homemaker.

She told me how she had to work secretly and take in laundry jobs from her neighbors so she could earn a few cents. She ended up saving enough to send herself to a tailoring school to learn how to sew. She did so well. She was the top of her class. Hearing her stories made me really diligent as a student.

One day, my grandmother said I could help her peel and chop the garlic for the first time. In the Filipino culture we use a lot of garlic, so it’s in every food. Of course, the juices from the garlic got all over my fingers and it smelled a lot, but I really enjoyed smelling it on my fingers. In fact, the next day the skin of my fingers actually peeled because the garlic was so strong. I remember my grandmother poking fun at me saying “You’re such a princess. You have onion skin that peels.”

I peeled the garlic with my fingers one-by-one. My grandmother would say, “You’re so slow!” She had this fast way of doing it where she pounded the garlic with a butcher’s knife and that lets you easily peel it off. I didn’t like doing that because it made the work faster. I liked doing it slowly and having all the juices on my fingers. I still do it that way to this day. Everyone else hated the chore of preparing the garlic because they didn’t like the smell sticking on their fingers. But not me.

It’s an exotic, very pungent and sharp odor and I love it! It’s invigorating for me. Philippine garlic is stronger and has more punch than Chinese garlic. But it’s also smaller and stinkier. Even 3-4 days later the smell can still be on your fingers. Everyone else would say that it stinks. But for me it’s a positive thing that gives me life. I relish that smell.

Just the other day I was preparing guacamole and I had the smell of garlic on my fingers. I thought, oh wow, this makes me feel so happy. It makes me excited. It uplifts me and immediately takes me back to my grandmother. It’s impossible for me to chop garlic and not think of my grandmother. Every time I do that activity, I think of my grandmother, no matter how old I get. For me, if I ever have a bad day, I’ll chop garlic.

Now I’m older and I don’t live with my grandmother anymore. I live 20km away, but I try to visit her as often as I can. She has dementia, so when I visit her I bring her flowers from my garden. She loves flowers and they bring her wonderful memories.

If the scent had a sound:

A fun, uplifting, melodic piano piece.

If the scent had a color:

Orange.

If the scent had a texture:

Velvet or cashmere.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

Get to know your grandparents. Spend more time with them. Hear their stories because it’s very wonderful. When you spend time with them, it makes them feel good, and you learn from them. It’s one of those memories that you’ll cherish forever.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

I grew up in Cairo, Egypt, which is a city rich with sensory experiences, especially the smells. You don’t realize that you’re absorbing all of these aromas when you live there because it’s just normal. But visiting these days, I can recognize certain places in Cairo simply by their scent.

To get a rest from the bustling city life, my family and I would spend the weekends and some of the summer months at my father’s family farm in Beni Suef, about 1 hour south of Cairo. It’s a beautiful farm surrounded by old citrus trees, and we had many farm animals and dogs running around. I remember my sisters and I would spend the whole day outside playing with the animals, so happy, but smelling completely filthy at the end of the day.

I can clearly recall the season when the citrus trees flowered and the scent of neroli filled the air. We’d open our windows in the morning and that lovely smell would welcome us to start the day.

But the smell that reminds me the most of my time on the farm is the scent of orange zest. I must have been around 6 or 7 years old, visiting on a winter weekend. My sisters and I would be playing outside all day, and in the evening, after washing up, we’d have a nice big family meal with my parents, sisters, aunt and grandmother all sitting around a big dining room table on the second floor of the farmhouse. My mother always cooked these amazing meals using whatever was available from the farm. And we’d happily eat the food and catch up on whatever happened that day.

What I remember most distinctly was my grandmother. You should know that she was always nicely dressed at the table in her house robe. Her hair was perfectly curled and silver with a little blue tint that I remember would always catch the light. She was never not elegant. She would sit at the table after dinner and have whatever fruit is in season, whether it was oranges, apples, or whatever. She’d insist that we had to finish the meal with something sweet. You know, I still do until now!

On this occasion it was winter, so she would eat oranges for dessert. As a kid, for me, fruit wasn’t dessert. To me it had to be sweet like chocolate or cake or something. That’s what sweet was to me. To me fruit was a snack, not a dessert. But my grandmother would still say if it’s sweet then it’s dessert, it just happens to be good for you.

Sitting at the table I’d watch her peel the orange with her hands, creating a perfect spiral peel, and then putting the pieces off to the side and not throwing it away. I was fascinated by that. I thought, you’re not supposed to play with your food, so what was she doing?

As she peeled the orange, I always remember the orange zest smell. Because you get that little snap of freshness. To this day I still love that smell of orange zest.

I recall the orange always being very juicy and really messy to eat. The juice flowing down my hand, getting all sticky. And that smell was a really strong smell. You’d bite into the orange and it would pop with juice and you’d get a little bit of the white pith too. It’s a happy little explosion for the senses.

While we were eating, I’d watch her take the orange peel and rub it over her skin, over the top of her hand. It was such a little thing, but I was fascinated by it. Because, first of all, you’re not supposed to be playing with your food. But if my grandmother is doing it then it’s fine. And second of all, I was thinking why is she putting food all over her hands? She’d say that it was to keep you smelling fresh and looking young.

You know, when you’re a child, your grandmother always looks and feels very old to you. But she always had these really super soft hands. She had arthritis in her hands, but her skin was always very smooth. So, she was definitely onto something. In fact, she would occasionally talk about her grandmother being this beauty who had flawless skin and amazing hair. She only washed her face with neroli or rose water. It sounded very exotic and sophisticated to me.

There were clearly threads of beauty tips being passed down through the generations, but just visually. You just observed and followed along as your grandmother did. It was using simple and available ingredients that were mostly local. Hearing her stories I saw my grandmother had an openness to her, which I always admired.

If I think about the smell of orange zest today it makes me really happy because it's related to her, and I loved her. And because it was related to a time when I was just a kid running wild with no care in the world. That smell is connected to all of those good times.

And if I peel an orange today, it makes me feel comforted and reassured. I’ve smelled a lot of the other citruses and I like them all. I just love the element of citrus. But I always go back to the orange. There’s something about the orange that attracts me the most. To me it’s happiness, freedom, comfort and no responsibilities. It immediately takes me back to a time when the only thing I had to worry about was when I was going to feed the dogs and what to name the new puppy.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? Loud, sharp and piercing, but in a nice way, with a pleasant, melodic rhythm.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? White light. It’s bright and luminous.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? It’s the feeling of running your fingers across embossed paper, like an expensive wedding invitation.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? In one word it would be embrace. The scent tells me to embrace the day, to embrace the moment. To put yourself out there. The scent reminds me to be open to new things and, at the same time, receptive to receiving new things. It’s both an inward and outward message. The advice doesn’t feel like fear. It’s a safe openness. There’s no element of fear in the embrace. It’s a completely safe feeling of being open because you know that there’s always someone who has your back.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

When I was young, every summer in August, my family and I would leave the city and spend a month in the small village of Mira to take part in the lavender harvest.

Every house in the village was painted white with a lime wash to keep the interiors cool and provide protection from the hot summer sun. But I remember, in August, when I was there, I’d see older women repainting the base of their houses so that the dogs and cats didn’t urinate on the house. That sharp, disinfecting, penetrating smell kept the animals away.

We were city people who lived very differently when we were in the village. The house that my father owned in the village had a horse stable on the ground floor, and up above the stable was where we lived. It was a simple village house. In fact, there was no indoor bathroom, only a water wheel next to the stable. I remember there was a huge patio and my mother would wash all 4 of us kids on the patio. She’d throw buckets of water on us and we’d take the soap and wash ourselves. We were probably bathed this way every couple of days, not every day.

My father always had this relationship with horses, so we would bring some of our horses to the village in the summer. We had 2 horses and a donkey at that time, which I would ride when I was little. Not everyone had a house with a stable like ours. In fact, most people didn’t have horses. We were called “the horse people.” A lot of people had mules, but no horses. It was a very poor village, in fact.

Surrounding the village were farms with fields of lavender that the local people harvested while we were there. We would ride 1½ hours out from the village on my father’s horses to get to the fields and help out with the harvest. I remember those riding on the tractors only needed half that time.

My father was always there supervising everything. It was a very romantic thing. It was my grandfather’s business. When my grandfather died, my father decided to keep the land especially from this village because my grandfather had a great relationship with the men who managed this land. All around, the farms were already doing the harvest with machines. But my father knew that the whole village was living off of this month of harvesting.

That’s why it was always strange. We were these city people that owned this farm. But at the same time my best friends were these gypsy guys from the village. My father has always been very romantic so we were always dressed like gypsies and my mom was dressed like a southern woman. But we were all from the city, you know, from Barcelona. But during that month we were all dressed up like somebody else.

The farm was called “Casa Blanca” which means white house. That was one of the farms growing lavender. It was kind of like living in a movie because we were going to the lavender fields with the horses. Everybody who was working the fields went by car or motorbike. But we were the romantics going by horse and carriage. The family was in the carriage and my father on the horse. Honestly, it was really like living in a movie.

I remember many times coming back to the village on top of the tractor that was absolutely full of lavender. I loved that sensation of lying there and feeling the movement of the tractor, being embedded in the freshly picked lavender. When we’d arrive in the village, I loved throwing the packs of lavender to the other men, from the top of this mountain of lavender. In the end, there would be these big piles of lavender right up against the white walls of the houses ready for distillation.

For me, the smell of the combination of the harvested lavender and the limewash on the outside of the house was the smell of Mira. And it was also the heat of the sun hitting the outside walls of the house, causing the limewash to evaporate, mixed with the evaporated steam of the lavender distillation. It was a constant fabric of these smells together. This was how the whole village smelled. There was no way for anybody to avoid this smell. In fact, I remember the hot afternoons during the siesta time, suddenly through the open window would come this very particular smell.

It’s a strange smell because on the one hand it’s disturbing since limewash is a disinfectant. And like any disinfectant it has something that’s the opposite of healing, almost wounding. It’s very sharp and penetrating. It goes deep and is itchy.

Then you have the calm, softening effect of lavender that puts you into this very relaxed mood. And both things to me were together. To me, the combination is fantastic, even though I know consciously that it’s not a really nice smell. I wouldn’t make a perfume out of it.

For me this smell has to do with the idea that sometimes things can be rough and not too beautiful. But, on the other hand, you have the lavender putting this kind of elegant softness on top of this very hard and rough thing.

The smell makes me feel centered. For me it’s home. It’s the smell of home. It also reminds me of who I am.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to smell that smell anymore today. I tried to find it when I had phantosmia. I thought I smelled it then, but it wasn’t really that. I wish it was. There was this acetone aspect that reminded me of the limewash. And so consciously I was trying to grab onto this scent memory. But it wasn’t really that one.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

It would be a water wheel. The sound of the water and the cracking of the wood as the wheel turns.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

White. It’s bright. It’s lively. It absorbs all the harshness.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Powdery. In a way it’s rough but it also has something smooth. I think about the feel of talc, or the feel of powdered sugar on a cake. When you touch the cake, it’s slippery, but you get the roughness of the cake itself.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would tell me to stay honest and true. To just look to who you are and don’t betray that. Go back to your roots and feel comfortable with that. Tell yourself, “ok, this is who I am.” The scent would say “Who are you trying to fool? This is who you are. Accept it.” Because, in the end, it really has to do with home and being centered.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

My mother was getting her degree in anthropology when my family and I moved to Kenya for a period of time in the 1970’s. One of the things she did was move out into one of the villages about 40 km outside of Nairobi up in the highlands before you get to the Rift Valley. There she was unofficially adopted into the Kikuyu tribe and lived as a Kikuyu person. She learned to speak their language and cooked, ate, and slept as the Kikuyu did. Meanwhile my father, brother, sister, and I lived not too far from the village in a typical expatriot environment.

Even though we were apart, we would go visit my mother in the village all the time. We loved to visit her. She lived in a very small, one room, unfinished, wooden hut with a dirt floor. It was always really dark inside because there was no electricity. There were just these two cutout windows with shutters on a hinge that would close. I remember that it would get really cold at night so she’d close the windows. In the daytime there was some sunlight coming through those tiny windows, but she also had these small tin cans that were crafted to be little paraffin oil candle burners, which served as her form of light. There was always black soot on everything. But the soot always made it warmer and it smelled good.

In one corner there was a little handmade wooden cot. The cot was very low to the ground and not very wide. The frame was made of rough-hewn wood with ropes that went from side to side. She had a thin bedroll that served as the mattress and rested on the ropes. Across from the bed was a small counter, also handmade. She had a couple of enamel porcelain coffee cups that were chipped and speckled. And she had an iron hibachi grill, a little “gico” they called them. You’d put your charcoal in and your clay pot on top. Every morning three young girls would go down to the river, about a quarter of a mile away, and they would fill the pots with water and bring them back to the village. And they would always bring one to my mother. My mother always had water in a pot.

She cooked on the grill, mostly vegetables, occasionally there’d be chicken or something. She ate a lot of ugali, which is a maize that you boil in water until it firms up. We’d eat the soup or stewed vegetables that she made with our hands using that bread to scoop it up. There was always the smell of cooked foods, but really earthy smells. And there was always the smell of burning wood. I have memories of sitting with her in that hut, sitting on the little wooden stools, eating and drinking tea almost in the darkness. It was absolutely wonderful.

It’s the scent of that experience in my mother’s Kikuyu hut that’s imprinted in my memory to this day. It’s a very complex smell, almost ancient in its natural, deep earthiness. It’s a combination of the smell of the charcoal that’s embedded and infused in the clay pots, with the smell of the old rough-hued wood that has absorbed the aromas and the smokiness over many years. It’s a deep, woody, smoky smell. Like the smell of a house that had been on fire over a year ago. It wasn’t fresh. It was old. It was a warm, wonderful smell.

And because my mother would often cook when we were there, you always smelled the cooked vegetables; the hearty, thick greens that were slow cooked for hours along with the onions. That smell would blend in with the smokiness of the charcoal and the smoky clay pots the food was cooking in. It combined to give this aroma that is definitely the fragrance of my life.

But within that smell was also the ambient smell - the smell beyond the hut. You could smell the garden outside and the red soil. And that was mixed with the smell of goats and cow dung. You could smell the outside inside because there was no insulation. The outside smells seeped in. The scent was grassy, woody, and smoky all at the same time.

Overall, I’d describe the smell as really earthy, woody, smoky, and a little grassy. That smell makes me feel safe and comfortable. It’s calming. It slows me down a little bit. It grounds me. It brings me back to the essence of who I am and away from the artificialities of everyday life. It reminds me of a time in my life, and a feeling in my life, of safety and warmth. And that brings me back to who I am at my core.

The smell was enveloped in a blanket of generosity that I felt from the Kikuyu people. I especially saw it at Christmas when we’d go to the village. You see, for the Kikuyu people, the holiday was all about people. It was about walking around the village and visiting with people. Going from hut to hut and someone boiling a cup of tea for you. Occasionally, someone would make a really big, generous gift of slaughtering a chicken and cooking it. But overall it was about being with people and moving around and just being together. You would shake someone’s hand and you wouldn't let go. You’d hold their hand as you’re talking. It’s a kind of closeness I don’t find anywhere else. That was the real essence of Christmas. It had nothing to do with wealth and gifts. That feeling of the Kikuyu people wrapped around the smell of my mother’s hut is something I’ll remember, and treasure, forever.

My mother passed away many years ago. I remember, as she was dying and I was spending the last days with her, we were talking and I would ask her for advice on things. She said “You already know what I’m going to say. After I’m gone, I don’t know what my situation will be like, but if, wherever I am, in whatever form I am, if there’s an ability for me to contact you, just to let you know that I’m ok, I’ll do that.”

Every now and then I’ll open a box that will have some of my mother’s things in it. Or I’ll grab the wooden stool that I’ve kept from her hut. If I put my nose right up against it - right where the bowl meets the leg of the stool - when I get a whiff of that smell, it’s all encompassing. It just fills me with this feeling that just immediately transports me back to her Kikuyu village hut.

It’s something that I smell rather than something I think of. It creeps up when I least suspect it. Even the faintest smell, just a wisp of it, feels so big.

In fact, it happened years after she passed away. I opened a box of her things we had in storage. I was looking for something, I don’t know what. All of a sudden I smelled it. The scent instantly took me there and put me right with her, in her hut in Kenya, as if we were sitting there live. At that moment, I had forgotten that she had said she would try to contact me. But then I suddenly knew that it was her contacting me and saying that everything was ok. That was as real as anything around me. It was amazing. It came when I least expected it. I didn’t ask for it. It just came to me. I hadn’t thought about it at all.

The smell immediately takes me back to my mom. Every time. It helps me rediscover who I am, or rediscover things about me. It really does define me. I thought a lot about why this smell is so important to me and I think to me that smell represents the discovery of what matters to me in life. That smell is why I like street food as opposed to restaurants. That smell is why I like to be in the woods, or why I like things a little more fringy. I like to go to places that are a little unfinished or rough around the edges. Not so much the modern, the sleek, the industrial. Don’t get me wrong, I like all that, it’s fine, but it doesn’t make me feel like I belong. That smell makes me feel that this is where I belong. I feel like all of those values stem from the experiences I had when I was exposed to those smells. The smells gave me the values. Those smells help define to me why I am the person I am. Smells can tell you a lot about yourself.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

A low, deep and hollow sound that would resonate in a soft, rich tone. It would be gentle on the ear, like a thick hollow log or old wooden drum thumped by a heavy wooden stick. If I had to compare it to the sound of a musical instrument, it would be to an Australian didgeridoo or a low-toned Brazilian berimbau, but with a slow, steady, African rhythm.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

A deep, rich brown, but not completely solid brown; more a mixture of brown shades that would both absorb the light around it and also reflect it outward in occasional glints of light and color. Like petrified wood mixed with dark chocolate.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Slightly rough-hewn; not smooth and slick, but a little coarse and fibrous, like a very old piece of wood, weathered to a texture beneath its aged, dark patina.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would remind me that patience and steady tenacity is important in all I do. Of avoiding taking extreme positions unless it is truly what I feel, and following a balanced, middle path. The advice would be old and wise and proven by the passage of time, as if given to me by an old man with deep insight and nothing to prove.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

Growing up in Parsippany, New Jersey in the 1960’s, my younger brother and I would spend the summers at the community pool in our apartment complex. It was a very functional set up, the kind of pool environment you’d find in most places around the world. It was your typical rectangular shaped pool, surrounded by concrete and plastic lounge chairs, and enclosed by a chain link fence.

My brother and I would spend hours in the pool, splashing around, entertaining ourselves during the hot and humid summer days. The truth was, I hated swimming. Unlike my brother, who was an athlete and did laps and elegant dives, I did cannonballs and just goofed around. I think it was because I wore glasses, and couldn’t see in the pool. For me swimming was a nightmare and I ended up spending most of my time under water. I liked having a diving mask on because I didn’t have to hold my nose, and I could see because I could keep my glasses on.

As far as I was concerned, being in the water was always a visual experience. I would go into the water, and immediately go under. I’d look at the light coming through the water. And there were the different aspects of how long I could hold my breath, as well as how long I could be under water, more than on the water. I didn’t so much swim, as much as I used the water for therapeutic purposes, mentally or physically, in the submersion space, not in the physical activity space.

But it was coming out of the pool that has had such an impact on me. It’s the experience after splashing in the pool which evokes such strong feelings. The water was always cold and refreshing, and when I’d get out, I’d always be a little chilled. I’d take my pool towel and, instead of lying on the lounge chair, I’d take the fresh, dry pool towel and place it down on the hot concrete right next to the pool. I’d lie face down on the towel, totally wet, and I’d close my eyes and just be still.

Right at that moment, there was always this amazing scent that would appear. It was a combination of lots of different smells converging into one - the steaming hot concrete, the fresh, fluffy pool towel, my own body with the chlorinated water, and the sun baking it all together.

The first thing you really pick up on is the chlorine on the cotton towel. The pool wetness, the marine notes, on the cotton towel with or without the notes that might be there in terms of fabric softener. Usually the beach towel doesn’t have that typical laundry note. It’s not your everyday towel so it doesn’t have that laundry smell.

And then there’s this richness that comes from the mineral notes of the hot concrete. There’s that smell of wet concrete that’s another level of the scent experience that you wouldn’t expect. It’s a dichotomy of the hard and the soft coming together. You’ve got the hard, the soft, the wet, and the hot because you’ve got the sun element. You wouldn’t think the sun would add a fragrance note but it does in the steaming part. The steaming of the water on your skin, the steaming of the water on the concrete, and the steaming of the water on the towel. The three of those coming together - that’s the fragrance. That scent has the layers of concrete, skin, fabric, all of it. And your face is right in it.

Part of the scent experience is also the sounds that you hear. They’re always exactly the same. They’re not any different, no matter where you are in the world. It’s always the same muffled sound. There’s the splashing that’s happening in the pool, there’s laughter and joy, there’s conversation, and there’s so much going on. And, it’s exactly the same, no matter where you are. It doesn’t matter what language it’s in. You’re hearing the same sounds around that pool. And the smell is the same. The sound is the same. And you meld into your own childhood memory. You become neither here nor there. You disappear in that space. It’s so wild.

I wouldn’t call it a summer smell. It’s not summer to me. It’s not always summer when you’re at a pool lying on the hot concrete. In fact, the beauty of that smell is that when you close your eyes, you could be anywhere you’ve ever been, at any point in your life, at any time of year. You’ll always have that same experience. That scent experience never changes. It’s exactly the same no matter what pool I’m at in any part of the world. All you need is a combination of those 3-4 things together and the scent is always the same. When you close your eyes, you can be that little kid again. It takes you right back to the first time. It’s so fascinating to me to think that a smell can do that.

What’s incredible is that this smell is the ultimate in relaxation. It’s totally calming because you just lie there. You don’t have to go anywhere, you aren't doing anything. It’s so meditative because you just let the sun bake you dry. And you use the towel to keep you from burning on the hot concrete. It’s like a spa experience. It’s totally calming.

What I love is that it’s a scent memory that has always stayed with me. A few summers ago I was at the pool here in my town and I did the same ritual as always. Now I’ll swim my laps, I’ll get out, and I still don’t want to lie on the lounge chair. Instead I'll lie on the concrete, on my towel. I’ll have that same exact experience I had when I was a kid.

I always wonder why everyone isn’t lying on the side of the lounge chair on the concrete. I mean, it’s way better. In fact, it’s even better when you cross your arms and make a pillow for your head. Then you’ve got that sort of humidifier going on in your headspace. It’s fantastic. It makes me salivate. It’s so intoxicating that you almost need it. You just need it. It’s totally meditative.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

The sound of dropping a pebble in a well. There’s an echo. You can hear the silence of it falling down the hole and there’s an anticipation of waiting for it to hit the water, and then it goes “plup.” It echoes and comes right back up at you.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

Rust color. The brownish-red color that you see when your eyes are closed and you look into the sun. I don’t know what I’m seeing, but I see light through my closed eyelids.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Boxed bucatini pasta. It’s hard on the outside and hollow in the middle. it’s not until you heat it and wet it that it becomes limp and malleable.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would tell me to not lose the child within. Even though that memory is distant, it’s familiar. It’s a calming and happy place. And the beauty is that you can always go there. Remember to not forget that place, hang on to it. The fact that I can always go back there is incredible. The peace that I find when I get there is the peace that I advise myself to remember to have.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

As a little girl growing up in Zlín, Czech Republic my mother had a ritual for me and my little sister whenever we were sick. We’d get to spend the whole day lying on the sofa in the living room watching TV. And then when it was time to go to bed, my mother would lovingly tuck us under our fluffy forget-me-nots decorated duvet, turn on the humidifier, and rub this special natural thyme cream on our chests to help relieve the cough.

I slept on the bottom bunk with the humidifier right next to me on the floor. I remember the humidifier would make this lulling sound and the watery mist would fill the air. And the scent of the cream on my chest would gently drift to my nose, helping me to breathe and soothe my cough. I always felt taken care of, safe, and protected under those fluffy covers.

Years later, I was visiting a dear friend of mine who had just had a baby. We were sitting in her kitchen, which was a very warm, wooden space with an old wooden floor and a wood-burning stove, which happened to be on this cold November day.

My friend and I have known each other for a long time, well before she had a child. We met when we were both going through a very transformative time in our lives. When she had the baby, on occasion she would stay with me, and trust me to babysit this tiny little human when she went out. Needless to say, our friendship is dear and the conversations with her in that kitchen that day felt intimate and dear, as always.

On this particular cold winter day, we were sitting and chatting, when suddenly this warm, taken-care of feeling came over me. It was an intense, very emotional feeling. I noticed that my friend was rubbing her baby’s chest with a cream because she was coughing, and the scent was wafting over towards me. I asked her what cream she was using and she showed me this thyme cream. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I had a strong emotional reaction to it.

You know, sitting there together with her baby, in the kitchen, was already a wonderful moment. But when I smelled that scent, it was an extra layer. I got this feeling that was so much deeper than the nice moment sitting talking with her and her baby daughter.

It immediately brought me back to being the 8 year old girl in Zlín feeling cocooned and taken care of by my mother when I was sick. It was a strange feeling remembering something that I couldn’t put my finger on. But the scent triggered something for me.

Later I called my mother and asked her if we ever used a natural cream with thyme when we were little? She replied yes, when me and my sister would get terrible coughs. And, when she said that, it immediately clicked that it was the moment of being in bed when I was sick, snuggled in, cocooned under the duvet, the humidifier on, and being taken care of. I realized that’s what I was feeling when I smelled that cream in my friend’s kitchen.

The cream itself doesn’t smell much like your typical pungent thyme scent. It’s very mellow and soft, slightly medicinal, but more gentle than thyme itself. The odor is strong enough just to let you know it’s there. I wouldn’t have connected the smell to the herb thyme, if it weren’t for the fact that the name was thyme cream.

I haven’t smelled the cream recently. I understand the scent hasn’t changed. It certainly smelled the same 20 years later in that kitchen. It made me feel completely taken care of. I don’t associate it with being sick and feeling bad. I have a positive feeling. To me it’s a “now my mom is taking care of me” smell.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

A melodic, soothing lullaby.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

Baby blue.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Freshly laundered cotton linen sheets.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would tell me that everyone needs pampering and should have that feeling of being taken care of. There’s always a part of us that needs cocooning. And it’s ok to need that. Look around and see who needs a little TLC, and tell them “it’s ok.”

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

Growing up in Queensbridge Houses in NYC, my four siblings and I always loved Christmas. We lived in the projects, in a really tiny apartment. We even had an upright piano in there. Come Christmas my mother would make that place feel magical. She was an icon in our family, larger than life, even though she was quite petit. Around the holidays she’d become fanatical about cleaning. All the brass had to be shined, and the criss-cross curtains were starched and ironed. Everything had to be squeaky clean. Christmas Day was very important in our house.

We always had a fresh Christmas tree every year. But, tradition was that we never got the tree until Christmas Eve. It was my father’s task to get the tree, and he always waited until the last minute because the trees were really expensive, and he’d wait for a sale. One year we didn’t have a tree because my dad was looking for that cheap tree, and couldn’t find one. Needless to say, my mother wasn’t pleased.

My father would bring the tree into the living room and we 5 children would get so excited. My father did all of the trimming at night after we went to sleep, so when we woke up in the morning it was all set up and decorated.

The first time I have a memory of the scent of pine, the Christmas tree, was when I was around 9-10 years old. That smell is deeply connected to good times for me. It’s a time when the house was going to be pretty. Mind you, the house was always well kept throughout the year, but at Christmas time everything was really going to be pretty. And the food was especially delicious. Plus, there was going to be candy around, and we were going to be surprised. My father worked really hard to make things special, even if it was just one gift. All of that is connected in that scent memory.

So, now, when I smell a Douglas Fir or a Balsam Fir, and my husband brings the tree home, the memory of my childhood Christmases come back. My mother is instantly there when that tree comes into the house, even though she’s been gone for 37 years now. That’s how strong that memory is for me. Always at Christmas time, she’s here.

The smell of pine makes me feel safe and cared for. It makes me happy, and connected with my dear, dear mother. It just makes me feel good. The smell let’s me know that I’m in the right place.

In fact, occasionally I diffuse Balsam Fir essential oil and I absolutely feel that I’m in the right place. Sometimes you have a yearning for a moment in time, to touch a moment. You can touch that moment by smelling a scent. The smell of pine makes me feel like a child again.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

Jingle bells

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

Neon green

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Sharply smooth, like a porcupine. It’s got sharp needles, but those needles are smooth.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

Life is Cyclical. Although we experience sadness, in time we can look forward to experiencing happiness again. Life is renewed in the way we choose to embrace it.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

I had this ritual as a little girl, growing up in Oaxaca, Mexico that was very special to me.

I remember it starting in preschool when I was around 4-5 years old. Every day I’d come home from school and retreat up to my parent’s bedroom. My parents worked all day and my three siblings, who are much older, weren’t at home either. So I was alone in the house with a lady that took care of me during the day.

We lived in a really big house with lots of rooms. As soon as I arrived home, I would go up the stairs to the 2nd floor, and walk down this long hallway to the back of the house where my parents had their Master bedroom. It was a big room that had a king-sized bed covered with a dark blue satin bedspread, and a big TV. Because we lived in the south of Mexico, it was always very hot, so I’d sit on the left side of the bed where there was a big window that was open to let a breeze in.

Before I sat down, I’d shout out of the window, into the inside courtyard, to the lady who took care of me, and I’d ask her to bring me some chocolate milk. In the meantime I’d turn on the TV to watch cartoons and sit waiting with my baby blanket. When the chocolate milk came, I’d take one corner of the blanket and dip it into the milk. I remember the blanket was very cushiony, and made of white cotton, which meant it absorbed the liquid really well.

But this wasn’t just any dipping - there was a process. I would let the blanket dry for days. It was a long, like weeks, process. What I liked, after weeks, was when the corner was saturated with the chocolate milk. You see, I’d sit on my parent’s bed watching cartoons with the corner of the blanket over my nose.

I loved that smell of chocolate milk dried, over days and weeks, over my nose as I was watching cartoons. That relaxed me the most. I spent a whole afternoon watching cartoons with this corner of my blanket under my nose. Of course, the smell would change over time. It would actually get better and better, more intense. It would absorb all of the chocolate milk smell. And I loved that. I didn’t like the smell when it was fresh chocolate. That was too normal. I liked it dark and rotten.

Since I was very alone - there was nobody in the house - I used to watch a lot of TV. I I would watch Winnie the Pooh, Barney, The Little Mermaid cartoon, and The Muppets. The texture of the Muppet characters reminds me of the smell of the chocolate. Thinking of the Muppets makes the smell that much clearer. I think I really related that texture with watching that show and smelling my blanket.

It was a tragedy when they took my blanket to be washed. They didn’t understand that there was a whole process behind that blanket. For them it was just “oh, this blanket is obviously dirty.” Of course, my parents needed to wash it because it wasn’t very hygienic to keep it that way, but it was a tragedy for me. My mom would listen to me - she knew I liked it - she was wonderful. She’d try to balance my obsession with basic hygiene.

I remember I would come home from school and I’d see the blanket all washed and it was the worst day because I had to start the process all over again. The whole process of dipping, drying the corner, waiting for it to dry, then dipping it again another day, waiting for it to dry, and so on. I loved the texture of the blanket - because it was dried milk it was a little stiff. It was crispy, crunchy, but not wet. I always smelled it when it was dry.

I spent a long time doing this. I don’t know how long exactly, but it was a long time. At least until I was probably 6 years old. I did it every day, always this same process.

The scent was divine. It was chocolate with milk, but imagine dry milk, so kind of rotten. It was sweet smelling. To me the smell transmitted something cozy, something warm. Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe it had to do with the milk of a mother. I know the first weeks of my life my mom couldn’t breastfeed me because I was put into an incubator for the first 2 weeks. Maybe that smell was a way to bring me closer to my mom.

Right now the smell is very abstract in my mind, but what remains is the feeling. I can think of the chocolate milk, but what really sticks is the coziness of being protected.

These days I don’t drink much chocolate milk. But for some reason last night I got a craving to have a chocolate milkshake. And I got it at night. And I definitely felt this kid thing. This very safe feeling. It just happened. And I had it just before bed, so it was very much this same moment. It brought back the emotion.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

Cartoons talking softly in the background. Calm, soft, childish and melodic.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

Light brown.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Simple, worn cotton.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would say “you’re not alone.” Your family loves you and you will learn to love yourself.

Because that smell was my way of taking care of myself. It was a way to feel protected and accompanied and it was my friend. You are loved. These are just situations where your family can’t be here, but they love you, and you love yourself.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

As a little girl, I spent July and August with my family at our summer home outside of Boston. My grandma would always join us, which I loved. I remember driving down to the house with the windows invariably rolled down because my grandma would be doused in this heady perfume called Shalimar by Guerlain, which I found comforting and didn’t mind, but my mother was very sensitive to.

My grandma is very special to me. She’s 103 now, and when I think of our time together as a child, I’m reminded of her unconditional love and warmth. She was such a provider, and she let us do everything we otherwise weren’t allowed to. We’d get to eat the foods I wasn’t allowed to have at home, jump on the bed, and watch TV late into the night. All those permissible things. It was a release, and very freeing. My mom was never the one who let me play with the jewelry or put on make-up and stuff. That was my grandma. My grandma and I would put on her high heels and make-up.

At the summer house, the two of us had this wonderful ritual of taking walks into the woods to collect bouquets of lily of the valley flowers. She’d hold my hand as we walked along a path nestled between tall trees sloping upwards to the right, and a field of bright white flowers sloping downward to the left.

I can clearly remember when we’d approach the field of flowers. The dappled warm light from the forest above revealed a beautiful tapestry of white, bell-shaped flowers, their stems reaching at least a foot high. As a kid, when you saw that you just wanted to dive right in.

When we arrived, my grandma would let go of my hand and we’d begin picking the flowers. I was so excited at that age. I was a collector and I just wanted to pick everything! I remember my grandma would always create this really thick bouquet, made of long green stems with a bright white top, accented with green leaves to make it look just right. My little fist couldn’t hold as many as hers, so I focused on collecting the white flowers only. I’d look for the most perfect ones, the little white bells with curls and ruffles just so. I used to shake them because I thought they would make a noise like bells because they looked like bells to me.

But really what I remember most about being in that field with my grandma is the scent of the flowers. The scent was so uplifting. It has this upward movement, as if it was coming to greet you. To me it’s a fresh, bright, clean, green, sweet, feminine smell, like my grandma. It’s a smell that reminds me of happiness, of freedom, and love.

The freshness for me isn’t active, but it’s almost bursting. It’s so strong and yet so soft. It’s a very powerful scent when you’re surrounded by so many flowers. I feel like it knocks out the other scents, but not in a bad way. More like in a clearing the slate way. And it’s just for a little while, for a moment.

It grabs your attention and makes you focus on it, but I would never say it’s overpowering. It just wipes the slate clean, then gradually allowing other scents to come in later. It’s as if the scent was saying just for this moment we’re going to wash out everything else. Just clean, just clear, just free.

Today when I smell a lily of the valley flower, I try to savor the moment. I breathe in deeply and take in its intoxicating scent. I’ll actually take the time to pick the flower because my grandma and I always made bouquets with it. Maybe I’ll even put it in my hair. I don’t like picking flowers. I like them to grow in nature. But these flowers I’ll pick because I have that memory. It’s part of the memory, picking the flower, making the bouquet, and spending the time with my grandma.

All the best times as a child were with my grandma. And the scent of the lily of the valley flowers embodies that time. It’s all the parts I want to keep of her. Her joy, her love, her generosity, her warmth, her caring nature.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

The sound of taking the husk off the corn, it makes a waxy squeak.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

Bright white, but the warmth of white, like a light bulb.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Smooth, slightly waxy.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would tell me to appreciate the small things, and to feel the joy. Appreciate nature and moments together. Live your life to the fullest. Remember the beautiful times because they’re not going to last forever.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

I remember, as a kid growing up in Los Angeles, my mom would buy mangoes in the summer as a special treat after dinner. I would get so excited when she’d bring some home. We didn’t have them often, maybe 2-3 times during the short summer season, which is what made them so special.

All my memories of mangoes are with my mom. I don’t remember anyone else in the family eating them. I don’t think it was intentional. Mangoes weren’t that available back then. And those that were available were a little pricey. So it was this special little thing that my mom wanted to share with me because she only had one or two. It was just the two of us in the kitchen enjoying the mangoes.

I remember my mom peeling the mango over the kitchen trash can, so beautifully. She was such a good fruit peeler and she had great technique. I can visualize the peel falling into the trash can and being really excited because I felt like she was unveiling this thing. For a child, it’s a very seductive fruit. It’s luminous and sweet. She’d hand me the whole peeled mango and I’d eat it like an apple. Eating it felt really indulgent and I just devoured it. I was such a messy mango eater. It was a slippery, slimy experience, with juice running down my face, but that was half the fun. I always took my time to enjoy every bite, all the way down to the pit.

But it’s the smell of mango that I find so intoxicating to this day. I have clear memories of the scent all the way back to when I was 8 years old. To smell a mango at the peak of ripeness was the best scent ever. Sweet, but not too sweet. Complex, but totally accessible. And captivating to the point where it could grab a child’s attention from across the produce section. For me, I think the smell of the mango was half the experience of eating the fruit, if not more.

Unfortunately, at the age of 19, while on a trip to Paris with my mom, I ate my last mango. Apparently I’d developed an allergic reaction to mangoes because I broke out with an awful rash around my face. I was devastated to find out I had developed an allergy to my favorite fruit. The following year I tried the tiniest bite of mango and again, the rash came back. I haven’t had a mango in decades now, but I am still obsessed with its aroma and it will always be my favorite fruit.

So today, even though I can’t eat mangoes, I can still enjoy the scent. Just looking at a mango now, my mouth waters. When I see a mango, I’ll always smell it. It makes me feel warm and relaxed. And it gives me a fuzzy feeling inside where I’m so happy.

More than anything, the smell gives me a sense of longing as I try to remember the taste of mango. It’s like replaying a song on a cassette tape that gets a little more faded and worn out each time. But it still brings me happiness because it reminds me of my childhood. I haven’t had a mango since I was 20, so it’s a part of my childhood, and it takes me back to a time when I was more innocent. Most importantly, it’s those moments with my mom. It’s a warm spot in my heart because those were moments together. She introduced me to the mangoes, and we had them in Paris.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

Soft, gentle waves washing up against the shore on a sunny day.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

A perfect coral, kissed by the sun.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

Smooth, like warm water passing gently through your fingers.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

Whatever brings you joy, embrace it! You never know how long you will have with someone or something before it’s gone. And even if you can’t enjoy the fruit anymore, hang onto the aroma and the memories because those are everything.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

My family owns this old house which we call The Old Home Place. It’s an old white house built in 1898 that sits outside of a small town in rural East Texas called Carthage. Several generations on my dad’s side lived in that house over the years, including the most recent resident, my great-aunt Charlie Fay, who passed away in the 1970’s. After she passed away, someone went into the house and just put a bowl of mothballs in every room and locked up the house and that was it.

This old house sat there uninhabited for years. Until one day sometime around 2007, when we were having a family reunion, the family decided it was time to go in. I think I was in middle school at the time, visiting from Dallas where we lived.

I clearly remember walking into that house for the first time. The first thing that hit me was the smell of the mothballs, sitting in glass bowls in every room as if they were white buttermints. I remember thinking how surreal and uncanny it felt because, you know, basically someone walked out one day and then no one went in for decades. There's dust all over everything, it smells like mothballs and things are deteriorating.

And the quietness of it all. It felt to me like what it must have felt like when people discovered the Titanic. It’s this place where there used to be people living their lives, and then it’s been completely quiet and untouched for so many years.

I remember there being so much stuff. It was the era of people not throwing anything away because they might need it later. There was one room, it was a small room, but it was floor-to-ceiling packed. We didn't know how big the room was, or that it was really even a room, until all the stuff came out of it. There were a lot of blankets and newspapers and bags of clothes. Everything was dusty and it all smelled of mothballs and pine wood.

For me, the biggest treasure was the clothes. My great-aunt Charlie Fay left behind a lot of dresses and some were still in great shape. So I started wearing them—even though they smelled like mothballs, though that faded over time. She mostly wore shirtwaist dresses, knee-length on me, though I’m taller than she was so they were probably mid-length on her. Short sleeves, some kind of cotton fabric, button-down with a little matching belt. I loved them and wore them in high school all the time.

Those dresses in particular, it felt very intimate to be wearing them. Intimate and a little intrusive. For example, as she got older, my great-aunt got a little bit of a hunched back, especially on her right side. Which meant that when I put on her dresses, the hemline in the back would dip on the right side because it had been tailored to compensate, to fit the shape of her body. I would still wear them, even with the little dip. In some ways it made me feel close to her, and some of my older relatives who knew her said she would have loved that I was putting her clothes to good use. But I never met her, and she never met me, and I didn’t ask her permission. Maybe she would have been embarrassed or uncomfortable. I can’t know. She died before my parents even met.

My grandfather was the youngest of 10 siblings, and my dad was the youngest, and I’m the youngest of my siblings. So I’m on the tail end of all of these generations. I missed out on meeting all of these people when they were alive. But because of the Old Home Place, I met them through all the things they left behind—things that they didn’t think anyone would be searching through so carefully.

In some ways it was like a treasure trove, and the things we found in the house did make me feel connected to my family across time. But there was a limit to that. There were no diaries. No letters that went into detail about their emotional life. No real pathways into their interior lives.

After a while, the feelings of uncanniness and discovery and potential connections to my ancestors started to fade. In fact, the feelings of meaningfulness seemed to have an inversely proportional relationship to the amount of stuff we sorted through. The more blankets, and newspapers, and books, and hats, and knick-knacks, and clothes, and receipts, and pictures we sorted through, the more it felt like a burden, or a waste of precious time. Early on, we thought that all of our other relatives would be equally as fascinated with the house as we were, which didn’t turn out to be true. So we had to ask ourselves, if we’re not doing this for anyone else but ourselves, is it truly important to us?

I realized more and more that these ancestors of mine are strangers to me, and if we met, I would be a stranger to them. They lived a different lifestyle and had different values. They’re just people, and they’re dead. But they had loomed so large in my personal mythology, eventually they had to shrink back down to life-size.

The smell of mothballs brings all of this to mind for me. People’s faces often scrunch up in disgust when they say “mothballs,” but I enjoy the smell. It brings to mind my memories of walking through the Old Home Place for the first time, discovering artifacts from my ancestors, and the simultaneous feelings of intimacy and trespassing that came with wearing Great Aunt Charlie Fay’s dresses.

Sometimes I smell it indirectly, too, because there are scents that have a kind of mothball undertone to them. For example, the indolic scent of jasmine flowers, to me, sometimes has that “Old Home Place” smell. And it makes me feel that duality of being connected to something larger, connected to my family across time, but also disconnected, reminded of the fact that we will never meet.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be?

A sound that no one hears. It makes me think of what the sounds must have been in the house when it was empty.

If the scent had a color, what would it be?

Faded aged paper. Something that was white once and is now discolored and beige, like parchment. One of a handful of historical treasures that we found was a war ration book, and that’s the color of this smell: an old, dusty paper color.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be?

The scent has some space to it. It’s a smell that you can walk into. It's not a hard surface. I would say it’s like walking into a space with very still air, heavy with dust, where there's no airflow—that feeling on your skin.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you?

It would tell me to hold things with the weight that they’re worth to you. I guess it would take me through the process of shedding my expectations. When we first started sorting through everything in the Old Home Place, when the smell of mothballs was overpowering, I created narratives in my head about the role this house would play in my life, and how connected I would be to the great-aunts who had lived there, and how other people would find it meaningful, too. Eventually I had to negotiate for myself what role I wanted the house to play in my life. Like I said, I had to bring my ancestors back down to life-size.

So that’s the advice that mothballs would give me: don’t project too much onto someone, whether they’re alive or dead. Let things be what they are. But it’s fine if that still feels a little bit like magic.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

I remember, as a little girl growing up in Norfolk, Virginia, around six or seven years old, sneaking into the living room and picking up my parent’s pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. I would be all alone, and I’d sit on the couch and just sniff the pack. It was a divine smell. I could smell the tobacco oozing through the package, through the cellophane wrap; it was the smell of raw tobacco before it’s burned. I just love that smell.

It was a secretive thing going to smell that pack when nobody was around. Cigarettes were a grown-up thing, an adult thing, children didn’t handle or play with cigarettes. Not even my brother or sister was around. It was only me, that pack of cigarettes and that beautiful smell of tobacco.

I have no idea what made me pick up the pack of cigarettes. Maybe I got a whiff of them when my mother opened them. I’m not sure. Whatever it was, I remember enjoying that smell of the whole pack of cigarettes - the combination of the menthol and the tobacco. It felt like inhaling extra oxygen, something that opens and refreshes your mind. It was refreshing because of the menthol, but then it had the earthiness of the tobacco. It’s a rather layered and complex scent, a base note, so it’s very grounding, but it has a little lift to it as well.

Today when I think of the smell of tobacco, it immediately takes me back to that living room. It was a place where people gathered. It was where my mom had her girlfriends over. Where they’d sit and talk and smoke their cigarettes. It was a cozy place. A place where I opened my Christmas gifts, and where we hung out when there were parties. It was the fun room in our home.

The smell of tobacco reminds me of comfort and family. It’s that cozy feeling of being wrapped in a warm blanket. I have my own line of perfumes now and, because I love the smell so much, I’ve put tobacco notes in three of my perfumes. Yeah, I just love it! I am appreciative that I have the option to create perfumes that are formulated with tobacco. What a treat, that tobacco comes in a bottle.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? A jazzy base note.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? A rich, dark brown.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? Cashmere

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? It would tell me to slow down and relax. To enjoy the moment and take the time to reflect on life.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.

When we were kids growing up in Tehran, every spring my family and I would go visit my grandmother's sisters on the other side of the mountains in Gorgan not far from the Caspian Sea. My brother and I loved hanging out there because we lived in an apartment in the city and this was in the countryside where we could run free.

One of the things we did every spring was to make this homemade jam called Bahar Nāranj (Seville Orange blossom jam), from the nāranj citrus trees that grew in their backyard. The smell of that jam is amazing. Once you smell it, you never forget it.

I remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old, some of the family would get together to make this jam. During the day, we’d all work to collect the orange blossoms from the nāranj trees. We’d take the ladies’ head coverings and place them under the trees. And then we’d shake the nāranj trees to release the blossoms. Often we’d use these big sticks to help us get all the blossoms off and collect them in the tarp. The smell of those blossoms was unforgettable.

After we collected the blossoms, we’d take them inside and put them in these big pots to cook them. My grandmother and aunts would heat the blossoms with water and sugar to make this incredible jam. The smell of it. It’s simply amazing. In the evening the whole family would come around, more than 50 people. I remember it being such happy times, all of us eating and laughing.

The smell of that homemade jam takes me back to my childhood and nature. It takes me back to everything good. The feeling itself is of fleetingness. The flowers are only there for a short time and then you have to wait for them to bloom again. It’s rare and precious. I feel like I need to stop in time, take the moment to enjoy because I’m not going to get this again for another year.

When you capture the smell in the jar and you open that jar again and again it’s there. It gives you the same effect over and over again. It’s divine. Recently I was at this restaurant here in San Francisco and we had this napoleon with figs and this orange blossom essence, and I was dying. I got completely transported back to my time in Iran. The scent memory reminds me of family, of nature, of happiness, abundance and all the good stuff.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? Vivaldi’s Summer

If the scent had a color, what would it be? White

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? Handmade cashmere

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? It would tell me to live a little for today. Live a little for tomorrow. Take the time to slow down. There are moments in life when you’re going to want to stop and enjoy the moment just because. You’re going to want to prioritize it because you’re not going to get the moment back.

SHARE YOUR SCENT MEMORY

Write me and bring your scent memory to the project.