Ask Lemmy

I love the smell of mothballs

Cooking chicken and cooking fish just immediately makes me want to gag

Might have ARFID for those things, but I've also got a really weird social anxiety about food in a social context, so it just compounds how put off I am when I smell fish or chicken cooking

I like the smell of skunk.

That distinct office smell. I can't describe it, but so many offices smell very similar

Not sure if it's unpopular or not, but the smell of peanut butter is disgusting. The taste is fine, but the smell 🤮

isopropyl alcohol smells amazing

I agree with you on gasoline. I also enjoy the smell of the blue liquid you put in your car and then spray on the windshield (I don't know what it's called).

Like: Chlorinated water smell, so yes bleach, there was a chlorinated water fountain in a building I used to work in and I would just go sit by it and smell it, so relaxing. Pot and tobacco both smell so good before they are burning, too, but the smoke, no, yuck.

Dislikes: I have trouble with rose, lavender.

I remember liking the smell of diesel exhaust as a kid but now, at least here in Japan which may have different emissions, it makes me feel like I can't breathe.

Petrichor is fantastic as is the smell of the ocean. Cow manure is super nostalgic to me. I was driving my motorcycle to do some paperwork in the city and smelled them putting it on the fields. An ocean away, but still felt like my childhood home.

Cilantro/coriander leaf (and whatever thing in my property smells oddly like it when I cut grass/weeds) is like bug spray to me. Can't stand the smell. A tiny bit in something doesn't put me off, but it quickly gets unbearable and chemically to me.

I like the smell of other people. We work so hard to scrub ourselves clean, but I like to smell of people, even sweaty. I ask my spouse not to shower too often, lol. (Not trying to ask them to be super stinky... just a little favor.) I sneak a little smell every time I hug my kids.

IDK if this is popular or not, but I never hear anyone talk about it, so *shrug*

Asafetida. People call it horrible unless cooked but imho it just smells like garlic++. It's sulfurous, but so is garlic and a lot of food really. Sulfur isn't necessarily an unpleasant smell to me. As far as I can tell the smell of asafetida doesn't change when cooking, it just gets milder.

Healthy compost also smells kinda nice, rotting meat is awful but if you're not getting putricene and co from anerobic nitrogen decomp decay mostly smells damp and warm and spicy.

Durian also smells amazing, but that's a pretty popular opinion given the wild popularity of the fruit. Potentially more sulfur not aversive stuff there.

In the hate camp peanut butter. It is overpowering and early in the day makes me throw up. My wife adds it to coffee sometimes which makes the entire house smell of peanut butter for hours. It's a very powerful and cloying smell.

Popcorn. I hate the smell of popcorn. It permeates everything and takes so long to go away.

Interestingly, I do not dislike eating popcorn. Just the smell.

I like the faint smell of cigarettes from a distance.

Geraniums

I hate the smell of coffee, as well as the powder/beans.

Banana

I generally feel like my sense of smell is quite bad. There's not really a lot of smells that I hate abnormally, probably due to the reduced sense of smell. I do like gasoline smell just like you, but honestly I thought that that was normal.

I love the smell of first time firing up a brand new toaster. I've only experienced this like 3 times in my life but it's immediately recognizeable and very pleasant smell. Some protective oil on the coils I assume.

Another is suede or something similar. I can't quite pinpoint the exact source of it but I remember my cousin's doll house having this kind of "electric" smell to it and now few years back I bought this used leather jacket that smells quite similar.

Also the battery compartment of most remotes.

EDIT: This isn't even answering the question but whatever

I grew up in a post-Soviet European suburb where almost everyone kept some kind of farm animal. The smell of chicken manure gives me the good kind of nostalgia.

On the negative side, both the smell and taste of strawberries is offensively generic.

I love the smell of basements. The humidity and the green, decades old moss on the wall gives off this refreshing yet mature scent. As a plus, it's also often cooler than the air at ground level. Mmmm.

Tea tree smells like mouldy mint to me.

A bagel covered in cheese and toasted is a heinous smell. I love cheese and I love bagels but for some reason it makes me gag.

In college, I worked at a little aerospace manufacturing place running an NC milling machine, and I really like the smell of the cutting oil/lubricant they spray on the rotating cutters. I now work in software engineering at a company that makes rocket engines, and I like walking through the shop and smelling that smell.

Not a fan of sandalwood

I am absolutely repulsed by the smell of cucumbers