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mags.lavenderin Welcome to the Club · Norwich ·

Memory

What was on your nan's dressing table?

Orange sunrise over a Valensole lavender field with hills in the distance

Morning all,

A few of our new members have mentioned a grandparent, so here's a lovely gentle one for everybody. My nan's dressing table had a cut-glass bottle of something violet, a powder puff that left clouds everywhere and a little dish of lavender from her garden. I've spent alot of years trying to find that violet again.

What was on yours? A gran, a mum, an uncle's shaving mug, anything counts.

Mags x

Violet Lavender Orange blossom Orris Tobacco

14 comments

rafa_azahar

On my grandmother's table in Seville there was always a bottle of orange blossom water, for the cakes and for her hair.

aunty_val

Rose and face powder, my mother's, in a tin with a lady on the lid. I still look for that smell.

hamish_heather

My granda's was a shaving brush and a wee tin of tobacco. Dreich mornings, that smell.

trudy.lilac

Lilac from the bush by my mother's kitchen door, and cold cream. I always read that smell memories never fade, so maybe that's why.

frankie.incense

The research is a bit more careful than "never fade". Rachel Herz's review on odor-evoked memory finds smell-cued memories are rated more emotional than ones cued by words, images or sounds, come up more rarely, and tend to date from the first decade of life. [Which definitely explains every gran in this thread.]

ambrose_leather

Right then. Grandad's bench: neatsfoot oil, a good hide and pipe smoke. I would have been six or so. Cheers, Ambrose

first.sniff

Gran again for me: roses, tea, and a hairspray I can't name.

ingrid_berlin

My mormor wore the same orris powder since forty years. Nothing else, all low frequencies. /Ingrid

mags.lavender

Ambrose, the neatsfoot oil made me smile, and Ingrid, orris powder sounds lovely. I've had a lot of happy memories back already.

dex_in_brooklyn

my grandma didn't have a dressing table, she had a stove. cinnamon and burnt sugar. your all making me homesick

amara.oud

My nani's room: oud on the coals at Eid, rose on her scarf.

maeve.moss

Here's a thing. My nana kept her good soap in the hot press with the linen and the whole house smelled of it the day the sheets came out, and I'd give a lot to hear that particular chord again.

joon.yuzu

TL;DR: my grandmother's green tea tin. Basically my whole personality now. That's my two cents.