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July 2007 That Reminds Me
Essential Scents
 Emily Schilling
Editor
This month’s showcase of reader-submitted classic car tales should interest even those who aren’t car enthusiasts. Memories of teenage years, recollections of families restoring their beloved cars together, amazing tales of being reunited with that first car or one just like it … all seem to strike a universal sentimental chord with us.
One of the entries even sent my mind off along another path. As a teen, Tom L. Brown made the interior of his ’39 Chevy smell good by sprinkling Old Spice After Shave in the heater, then turning it on. Tom’s air-freshening trick got me thinking about how powerful our senses of smell are, and how much they affect our perceptions and how we think.
Studies have shown our brains actually respond to certain scents in specific ways. There’s even a research facility, the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, that’s devoted to learning more about this phenomena.
For years, I’ve heard that boiling a pot of water with cinnamon and cloves sprinkled in it will make your house smell nice and homey. This trick is supposed to be helpful if you’re trying to sell your home and have an open house scheduled. Visitors will subconsciously associate your house with pumpkin pie, hot apple cider and food-based fun times even if the only pie you’ve ever baked came from your grocer’s freezer section. If they don’t actually buy your home, your open house visitors may be inexplicably drawn back to your kitchen for years, especially in October.
Other scents make your home, well, homey. Vanilla works wonders. So does the smell of baking cookies or baking bread. (I prefer the cinnamon and cloves trick since you get the same effect with a lot less effort.)
Though the smell of baked goods may make you happy, they will also make you hungry. However, the scent of peppermint or bananas supposedly suppresses appetites.
If you don’t feel like eating, you’ll have more time to work off some excess weight. Despite what movie theater owners think, the smell of buttered popcorn gives you more energy to exercise. (Strange, but true.) So does the aroma of strawberries.
And ladies, here’s a little factoid to throw out to your loved ones — a bouquet of flowers actually does more than beautify a room and make you feel special. Its smell encourages your brain to learn faster. Talk about flower power!
Written By: eceditor
Date Posted: 6/26/2007
Number of Views: 382
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