I am aware of the fact that the concept of perfumes and colognes already exists, but there are few scents so personal that I doubt I'd ever find them in pretty little glass bottles to decorate my vanity with.
1. The scent of my classroom in the winters.
It just has this different slightly humid air mixed with the scent of books, wood and old curtains. It reminds me of the fact that the year is almost at its end and how much I've grown and learnt in the past year and how things are going to be very different next year.
2. Steel mesh.
I spent a lot of my childhood with my face pressed against mesh windows just to get the criss cross pattern on my face and It has this distinct smell that I love.
3. Just when you put tea leaves in boiling water.
4. A freshly lit matchstick.
5. My grandparent's house, it smells so different and homely.
6. Rubber ear phones.
I used to secretly chew my sister's earphones' chord when I was younger.
7. Ink.
Especially ink from a ball point pen, it reminds me of that proud and content feeling you get when you've finished writing your project/story/notes/huge math assignment.
8. A piece of wood that I broke off of one of my school chairs.
9. Coins.
My dad has a collection of all sorts of different coins, and together they all have this scent that reminds me of all the times that we sat to sort them out.
10. Freshly ironed clothes. Reminds me of my sister and my mom's obsession with ironed clothes. Also, order and perfection.
11. Chart paper. Bundles of them.
12. My hair after I've spent too much time with candles. It smells slightly like smoke because knowing me I most likely have singed my hair from the fire.
13. Envelopes. Letters. Stamps. I write letters for people and I always make really pretty envelopes with them, I usually write these on people's birthdays so it is basically me sitting recalling all of the great memories I have with them, so its a really important scent for me. Also, I tried collecting stamps when I was ten, I don't know where that went.
14. Very very dry leaves.
The sound of them crunching and the smell throws me back to the times when my friends and I used to throw dried leaves at each other and sit in piles of them.
15. Newspapers and magazines.
They smell like knowledge(?)
16. Booksales.
You know, when the 'old book musty smell' meets 'new book crispy smell'. That.
17. Cassettes. We used to have an entire carton full of cassettes I have no idea where it went. My favourite cassettes were the mixed tapes, there was a dance mix, a sad songs mix, a really jumpy happy peppy songs mix (no these weren't the actual names of the cassettes but this is what six year old surmayi called them).
18. Old photographs and camera rolls.
Majority of my childhood was spent getting stupid pictures clicked through my mum's silver Olympus camera and the rest was spent sitting on the carpet with my family making collages out of them.
19. Carpets.
There was a maroon carpet in my parents' room in front of the television and I remember whenever we would order food from outside we would sit on the carpet with newspapers spread out on which we kept our food while we watched television. (I remember watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the first time during such an event, it had been dubbed in Hindi).
20. Sweaters, gloves, scarves - woolens in general, especially when my mum takes them out of the boxes, gives the 'winter is coming' feeling you know (see what I did there?)
There are many more scents that hold importance in my life but for now, these are the 20 scents that I would bottle up.
The Contra game