The truth about scent memory

Strong pongs and time travel.

Feb 19, 2025

∙ Paid

An advert for CK One fragrance from 1994, which features a group of models standing talking next to a large bottle of CK One and in the middle of them is Kate Moss looking peed off — I can smell this advert.

I’m not quite sure how to put this, but the top of the staircase in my flat smells like Grandma. Not Grandma herself, always fragrant, a faint hint of powder from her proffered cheek, or lipstick, or a recently extinguished B&H as we kissed goodbye. It’s her house. Upstairs. The top of her own stairs perhaps. I can only ever smel…

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