Best 69 quotes in «scents quotes» category

They drank from a spring which filled an ancient stone trough behind the ruin. Beyond it lay overgrown beds and plants John had never set eyes on before: tall resinous fronds, prickly shrubs, long grey-green leaves hot to the tongue. Nestling among them he found the root whose scent drifted among the trees like a ghost, sweet and tarry. He knelt and pressed it to his nose. 'That was called silphium.' His mother stood behind him. 'It grew in Saturnus's first garden.' She showed him the most ancient trees in the orchards, their gnarled trunks cloaked in grey lichen. Palm trees had grown there too once, she claimed. Now even their stumps had gone. Each day, John left the hearth to forage in the wreckage of Belicca's gardens. His nose guided him through the woods. Beyond the chestnut avenue, the wild skirrets, alexanders and broom grew in drifts. John chased after rabbits or climbed trees in search of birds' eggs. He returned with mallow seeds or chestnuts that they pounded into meal then mixed with water and baked on sticks. The unseasonal orchards yielded tiny red and gold-streaked apples, hard green pears and sour yellow cherries.

Too many "think" perfume from the head instead of "feeling" from the heart." Marian Bendeth Global Fragrance Expert Sixth Scents

Through perfume, I smell your soul" Marian Bendeth Global Fragrance Expert Sixth Scents

Through the window, I saw the beautiful world outside: the sky, the sun, the cacti, the rocks, and the dirt. How I longed to return to it! I licked at the air, trying to smell the desert's delicious dusty scent, but could not. How was I able to see it without smelling it? Did humans control scents as well as the temperature and the waters? Is that what windows were for, to keep out scents? Why did they wish to put invisible barriers between themselves and the world?

When she reentered the color-rich woods, she smelled human again, but not the farmer. No, it was surely Ashlynn Ella. Her scent was a mix of cypress tree, lily of the valley, lemon cleaning soap, and the crinkly paper that lines new shoe boxes.

When I pulled the tall, narrow door open, a barrage of smells assaulted me. First a sweet blend of cinnamon and cloves with earthy undertones of thyme and oregano, then a piney whiff of rosemary and a heady punch of basil. The pungent mix stunned me, and I stood still, letting it envelop me. Equally dazzling was the knowledge that many of those spices had come from remote parts of the world. They were previous commodities carried over deserts and mountains and oceans, too expensive for any but the richest kitchens.

While the indecisive customer hovered over an array of perfumes that Nettle had brought out for her, the American girls browsed among the shelves of perfumes, colognes, pomades, waxes, creams, soaps, and other items intended for beauty care. There were bath oils in stoppered crystal bottles, , and tins of herbal unguents, and tiny boxes of violet pastilles to freshen the breath. Lower shelves held treasure troves of scented candles and inks, sachets filled with clove-saturated smelling salts, potpourri bowls, and jars of pastes and balms. Nettle noticed, however, that while the younger girl, Daisy, viewed the assortment with only mild interest, the older one, Lillian, had stopped before a row of oils and extracts that contained pure scent. Rose, frangipani, jasmine, bergamot, and so forth. Lifting the amber glass bottles, she opened them carefully and inhaled with visible appreciation. Eventually the blond woman made her choice, purchased a flacon of perfume, and left the shop, a small bell ringing cheerfully as the door closed. Lillian, who had turned to glance at the departing woman, murmured thoughtfully, "I wonder why it is that so many light-haired women smell of amber..." "You mean amber perfume?" Daisy asked. "No- their skin itself. Amber, and sometimes honey..." "What on earth do you mean?" the younger girl asked with a bemused laugh. "People don't smell like anything, except when they need to wash." The pair regarded each other with what appeared to be mutual surprise. "Yes, they do," Lillian said. "Everyone has a smell... don't say you've never noticed? The way some people's skin is like bitter almond, or violet, while others..." "Others have a scent like plum, or palm sap, or fresh hay," Nettle commented. Lillian glanced at him with a satisfied smile. "Yes, exactly!" Nettle removed his spectacles and polished them with care, while his mind swarmed with questions. Could it be? Was it possible that this girl could actually detect a person's intrinsic scent? He himself could- but it was a rare gift, and not one that he had ever known a woman to have.

A great flood of aromas swamped the noise, thick as soup and foaming with flavors: powdery sugars and crystallized fruit, dank slabs of beef and boiling cabbage, sweating onions and steaming beets. Fronts of fresh-baked bread rolled forward then sweeter cakes. Behind the whiffs of roasting capons and braising bacon came the great smoke-blackened ham which hung in the hearth. Fish was poaching somewhere in a savory liquor at once sweet and tart, its aromas braided in twirling spirals... The silphium, thought John. A moment later it was lost in the tangle of scents that rose from the other pots, pans and great steaming urns. The rich stew of smells and tastes reaching into his memory to haul up dishes and platters.

And yet there is something oddly attractive about the crowded shop window with its piles of boxes and tins, and its Hallowe'en witches in darkest chocolate and colored straw, and plump marzipan pumpkins and maple-candy skulls just glimpsed beneath the half-closed shutter. There was a scent too- a smoky scent of apples and burnt sugar, vanilla and rum and cardamom and chocolate.

As if the whimsy of chugging through a gargantuan slice of watermelon wasn't enough, you can actually smell the mouthwatering scent of watermelon as you breeze through it. The box of animal crackers that you travel through smells of vanilla cookies-- always a soothing scent--and a giant gnawed apple exudes an apple fragrance as you pass.

A small silver-handled shaving brush... a folding-blade razor... an empty soap dish... a lidded porcelain box with a silver top. Unable to resist, Beatrix lifted the top and looked inside. She found three pairs of cuff links, two in silver, one in gold, a watch chain, and a brass button. Replacing the lid, Beatrix picked up the shaving brush and experimentally touched her cheek with it. The bristles were silky and soft. With the movement of the soft fibers, a pleasant scent was released from the brush. A spicy hint of shaving soap. Holding the brush closer to her nose, Beatrix drew in the scent... masculine richness... cedar, lavender, bay leaves. She imagined Christopher spreading lather over his face, stretching his mouth to one side, all the masculine contortions she had seen her father and brother perform in the act of removing bristle from their faces.

Clearings opened on either side. Familiar smells drifted in the air: fennel, skirrets and alexanders, then wild garlic, radishes and broom. John looked about while his mother tramped ahead. Then a new scent rose from the wild harvest, strong in John's nostrils. He had smelt it the night the villagers had driven them up the slope. Now, as his mother pushed through a screen of undergrowth, he saw its origin. Ranks of fruit trees rose before him, their trunks shaggy with lichen, their branches decked with pink and white blossom. John and his mother walked forward into an orchard. Soon apple trees surrounded them, the sweet scent heavy in the air. Pears succeeded them, then cherries, then apples again. But surely the blossom was too late, John thought. Only the trees' arrangement was familiar for the trunks were planted in diamonds, five to a side. He knew it from the book. The heavy volume bumped against his mother's leg. He gave her a curious look but she seemed unsurprised by the orchards. As the scent of blossom faded, another teased his nostrils, remembered from the same night. Lilies and pitch. Looking ahead, John saw only a stand of chestnuts overwhelmed by ivy, the glossy leaves blurring the trunks and boughs into a screen.

Damn, cher, you still smell like a blossom. Been so long since I've seen a flower that I'd nearly forgotten what they smelled like." He took a lock of my hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. "You're dressing up and using expensive perfume? Ole Jack senses a trap. Consider me snared.

He held the papers up to the moonlight. There was a little smudging, there, right where the chorus was supposed to come in with a D major triad. But it wasn't so bad. His eyes drifted from the pages to the moon, which shone clearly through his unglazed window. A bright star kept it company. A faint breeze blew, causing the thick leaves of the trees below to make shoe-like clacking noises against the castle wall. It carried with it whatever scents it had picked up on its way from the sea: sandalwood, sand, oranges, dust. Dry things, stuff of the land. Eric looked back at his music, tried to recapture the sound and feel of the ocean that had played in his head before waking, aquamarine and sweet.

Add orange peel and cinnamon to milk. Grate the chocolate.' The hard, round cake of chocolate was wrapped in yellow plastic with red stripes, shiny and dark when she opened it. The chocolate made a rough sound as it brushed across the fine section of the grater, falling in soft clouds onto the counter, releasing a scent of dusty back rooms filled with bittersweet chocolate and old love letters, the bottom drawers of antique desks and the last leaves of autumn, almonds and cinnamon and sugar. Into the milk it went. 'Add anise.' Such a small amount of ground spice in the little bag Abuelita had given her. It lay there quietly, unremarkable, the color of wet beach sand. She undid the tie around the top of the bag and swirls of warm gold and licorice danced up to her nose, bringing with them miles of faraway deserts and a dark, starless sky, a longing she could feel in the back of her eyes, her fingertips.

A great perfume will weave an emotional thread in the fabric of our lives." Marian Bendeth Global Fragrance Expert Sixth Scents

Although most humans don’t know it, scents are like colors to dogs. Faint scents have faint colors, like pastels washed out by time. Clear scents have clear colors. Some dogs have weak noses, and they read scents the way humans with poor eyes see colors, believing this delicate blue may actually be a gray, or that dark brown may actually be a black.

Ariel moved farther in, picking up and putting down the disgusting little pieces of bric-a-brac. Among all the horror was an ironically delicate vanity covered in mother-of-pearl- and, intriguingly, all manner of exquisite little glass bottles. Scents from the east, oils from the west, attar of roses, nut butter, extract of myrrh, sandalwood decoctions, jasmine hydrosols... Everything to make someone smell exquisite. Or to mask whatever it was she really smelled like, Ariel thought wryly. Or were the oils and butters for more medicinal reasons- for the cecaelia's skin? Ariel found herself looking at her own hands, rubbing them over each other lightly. Last time she had only been in the Dry World for a few days. Was it- literally- drying? Was it difficult or painful, for creatures from the sea to remain for months battered by void and air, despite their magic? Ariel shivered. Magic didn't make everything simpler. Crossing the thresholds of worlds was no minor thing.

As Lillian walked into the orangery, she was suffused in the scent of... oranges. But lemons, bays, and myrtles also cast their fragrance extravagantly through the gently heated air.

At the door to the shop, a bell tinkled, and moments later they seemed to enter the very flowering of lavender. The scent was all around them; it curled and diffused in the air with a sweet warmth and subtlety, then burst with a peppery, musky intensity. The blind girls moved into another room. There they arranged themselves expectantly around a long wooden table, Mme Musset welcomed them, and a cork was pulled with a squeaky pop. "This is pure essence of lavender, grown on the Valensole plateau," said Madame. "It is in a glass bottle I am sending around to the right for you all to smell. Be patient, and you will get your turn." Other scents followed: rose and mimosa and oil of almond. Now that they felt more relaxed, some of the other girls started being silly, pretending to sniff too hard and claiming the liquid leapt up at them. Marthe remained silent and composed, concentrating hard. Then came the various blends: the lavender and rosemary antiseptic, the orange and clove scent for the house in winter, the liqueur with the tang of juniper that made Marthe unexpectedly homesick for her family's farming hamlet over the hills to the west, where as a child she had been able to see brightness and colors and precise shapes of faces and hills and fruits and flowers.

Globe in hand, Grace slowly approached the big orchid, white and fragile and absolutely gorgeous. She very carefully slid the globe over it, and as she was doing so, she put her face into the center of the open flower, smiling as the breathtaking fragrance washed over her- luscious and nectared, candied apricots, airy notes of strange spice.

Her hand closed on a smooth, round object, something resembling a marble egg. It was a miniature bar of lotus soap, still in its wrapper, bought on their last trip to the 'hammam'. The public bathhouse had been a favorite spot of theirs, a place the three of them liked to go to on Thursdays, the day before the Iranian weekend. Marian held the soap to her nose. She took a deep breath, inhaling the downy scent of mornings spent washing and scrubbing with rosewater and lotus products. All at once she heard the laughter once again, the giggles of women making the bathing ritual a party more than anything else. The 'hammam' they had attended those last years in Iran was situated near their apartment in central Tehran. Although not as palatial as the turquoise and golden-domed bathhouse of their childhood, it was still a grand building of hot pools and steamy balconies, a place of gossip and laughter. The women of the neighborhood would gather there weekly to untangle their long hair with tortoiseshell combs and lotus powder, a silky conditioner that left locks gleaming like onyx uncovered. For pocket change, a 'dalak' could be hired by the hour. These bathhouse attendants, matronly and humorous for all their years spent whispering local chatter, would scrub at tired limbs with loofahs and mitts of woven Caspian seaweed. Massages and palm readings accompanied platters of watermelon and hot jasmine tea, the afternoons whiled away with naps and dips in the perfumed aqueducts regulated according to their hot and cold properties.

I dug wild mushrooms out of a jungle in Gabon, plucked 'Vanilla pompona' orchids from Madagascar treetops, tracked down Sichuan hot pot pepper in a seedy back alley in Shanghai. I've sniffed test tubes filled with scents that are not of this earth. But I have never quite been struck the way I have been struck by your apple.

I hugged Wes and inhaled the scent of his neck- a reassuringly familiar combination of coffee and leather and something sweet I always had trouble putting my finger on. What was it? Butter from his morning toast? A package of chocolates left over some hotel stay? Maybe a hint of the honey he liked to drizzle on apples. I smiled, allowing myself a moment to believe in the possibility of a shared life full of sweet things.

La cucina bears the scents of its past, and every event in its history is recorded with an olfactory memorandum. Here vanilla, coffee, nutmeg, and confidences; there the milky-sweet smell of babies, old leather, sheep's cheese, and violets. In the corner by the larder hangs the stale tobacco smell of old age and death, while the salty scent of lust and satiation clings to the air by the cellar steps along with the aroma of soap, garlic, beeswax, lavender, jealousy, and disappointment.

I listened, while the scents found their hiding places in the cracks in the floorboards, and the words of the story, and the rest of my life.

I look into the chocolaterie. It looks warm in there, almost intimate. Candles are burning on the tables; the Advent window is lit with a rose glow. It smells of orange and clove from the pomander hanging above the door; of pine from the tree; of the mulled wine that we are serving alongside our spiced hot chocolate; and of fresh gingerbread straight out of the oven. It draws them in- three or four at a time- regulars and strangers and tourists alike. They stop at the window, catch the scent, and in they come, looking a little dazed, perhaps, at the many scents and colors and all their favorites in their little glass boxes- bitter orange cracknel; mendiants du roi; hot chili squares; peach brandy truffle; white chocolate angel; lavender brittle- all whispering inaudibly- Try me. Taste me. Test me.

Inside, on a bed of black velvet, lay an exquisite perfume bottle designed from rose-colored glass caged in a silver overlay that twined about the glass like living vines. In the very center of the oval shaped bottle, the silver was formed into the image of a lily in full bloom. It was likely the most precious and expensive gift Lily had ever been given. She ran her fingertips over the delicate silver work before lifting the bottle from its velvet bed to allow the candlelight to shine through the rose-colored glass. She noticed then a folded slip of paper still in the box. Setting the perfume bottle in the valley of her lap, she lifted the paper and broke the tiny wax seal. In his precise, slanted script, Lord Harte had written: I was unforgivably remiss in not having a gift for you the other night. I chose the elements for this blend myself. It made me think of you. Lily brushed her thumb over the ink before setting the note back into the box. Then she shifted the bottle and removed the glass stopper. The scent wafting from the bottle was light, but heady. She noticed first the rich notes of clove and honey before her senses were claimed by the smooth, velvety scent of jasmine. Lily closed her eyes, allowing the aromatic infusion to settle into her awareness. There was another element hidden deep within the perfume. A layer of earthiness that warmed her blood. Sandalwood. Lily was enthralled. It was a complex and lovely scent. Floral and exotic, light and dark. Impossibly sensual. And it made him think of her. Something deep and fundamental spread through her core, and she understood why young ladies were warned so often not to accept gifts from gentlemen. It was a personal and intimate thing to acknowledge how he had wanted her to have something he chose himself.

I remember when Vianne Rocher first moved into town all those years ago. That window, papered in orange and gold, just like a Chinese lantern. That scent of spices, and incense smoke, like something from the Arabian Nights. So many things have changed since then: now Vianne and I are almost friends. But how I resented that little shop, with its brightly colored awning, and the scent of vanilla and allspice and the bitter rasp of raw cacao drifting out into the air. How I longed to step in, to taste the wares in those glass cases! Now, I tell myself, I could. But though I do not fast for Lent, chocolate still seems one indulgence too far.

I still dream in pictures and color, always the world of my childhood. I see the purple Judas trees at Easter lighting up the roadsides and terraces of the town. Ochre cliffs made of cinnamon powder. Autumn clouds rolling along the ground of the hills, and the patchwork of wet oak leaves on the grass. The shape of a rose petal. And my parents' faces, which will never grow any older. "But it is strange how scent brings it all back too. I only have to smell certain aromas, and I am back in a certain place with a certain feeling." The comforting past smelled of heliotrope and cherry and sweet almond biscuits: close-up smells, flowers you had to put your nose to as the sight faded from your eyes. The scents of that childhood past had already begun to slip away: Maman's apron with blotches of game stew; linen pressed with faded lavender; the sheep in the barn. The present, or what had so very recently been the present, was orange blossom infused with hope.

I took my time at the till, allowing the scent of my new batch of chocolate to filter through from the kitchen. Freshly ground Criollo beans; a dash of black pepper; a pinch of salt; then tamarind, vanilla and a generous measure of Armagnac.

It's been over a year since they've visited their son's market. As they walk through the parking lot they take in a number of improvements. Brian admires the raised garden beds made of cedar planks that flank the sides of the lot. There are stalks of tomatoes, staked beans, baskets of green herbs- oregano, lavender, fragrant blades of lemongrass and pointed curry leaf. The planter of baby lettuces has a chalkboard hung from its side: "Just add fork." A wheelbarrow parked by the door is heaped with bright coronas of sunflowers, white daisies, jagged red ginger and birds-of-paradise. Avis feels a leap of pride as they enter the market: the floor of polished bamboo, the sky-blue ceiling, the wooden shelves- like bookshelves in a library. And the smells. Warm, round billows of baking bread, roasting garlic and onions and chicken.

It was impeccably clean, and smelled like an old library might smell if someone was eating a Subway sandwich in it. Because someone was eating a Subway sandwich in it.

Look, Herb, I could keep you all here all afternoon, sniffin' and slurpin' pink Peruvian peppercorns and criollo cacao, and cinnamon and cascarilla and coriander, and caraway and carrot seed and so much climbing ylang-ylang you couldn't tell a cup of tea from a cup of turpentine.

Mahogany shelves lined the counters, stacked with glass bottles and jars, like something from a fairy tale. There were whole, plump roses steeping in honey; purple-stained sugar, thick with lavender, tiny jars of crimson threads, cherries and peaches suspended in syrup as if they had fallen there from the trees. The luxurious scents wrapped around him. 'Butter,' his nose relayed, 'cream, nuts, brandy, chocolate...

He looked up at the dark line of trees and breathed in slowly, smelling wild garlic, mulched leaves, a fox den somewhere and a sweeter scent. Fruit blossom, he thought. Then that small mystery was eclipsed by a larger one. A stranger scent hid among the blossom, sweet and resinous at once. Lilies, John thought, drawing the scent deeper. Lilies mixed with pitch.

I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so thin there was barely even skin to pinch, and every time I held them, I worried I would snap them in two. But for all of these: where they had merited my love was in their delicious smell. Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.

I put a handful of Criollo beans into the grinder. Their scent is very far from sweet. I can smell oud, and sandalwood, and the dark scents of cumin and ambergris. Seductive, yet faintly unsavory, like a beautiful woman with unwashed hair. A moment in the grinder, and the beans are ready to use. Their volatile essence fills the air, freed from one form into another. The Maya tattooed their bodies, you know, in order to placate the wind. No, not the wind. The gods. The gods. I add hot water to the beans and allow them time to percolate. Unlike coffee beans, they release an oily kind of residue. Then I add nutmeg, cardamom and chili to make the drink that the Aztecs called xocoatl- bitter water. That bitterness is what I need.

Isabel felt soft and yielding; her blouse felt soft. Everything about her seemed soft, and she smelled of dried flowers, rosemary, fresh baked bread. This whole kitchen seemed alive with a peculiar energy; in the old fixtures and furniture, Tess sensed a place where cooking and eating had happened for decades, where people gathered to sample life's sweetest pleasures.

It’s fall coming, I thought, I can smell that sour-molasses smell of silage, clanging the air like a bell – smell like somebody’s been burning oak leaves, left them to smolder overnight because they’re too green.

It smelled like sugar cookies as he walked through the door, though it was anyone's guess whether actual cookies were involved or if it was just candles made of lies and disappointment.

I wasn't exactly known for self-confidence, but I could taste the cake in my mind. Strong. Earthy. Fragrant. I remembered the nose-prickling aroma of cinnamon when it comes in fragile curls, and the startling power of crushed cloves.

Looking across the square at the chocolaterie, its bright window, the boxes of pink and red and orange geraniums at the balconies and at either side of the door, I feel the insidious creeping of doubt in my mind, and my mouth fills at the memory of its perfume, like cream and marshmallow and burnt sugar and the heady mingling of cognac and fresh-ground cocoa beans. It is the scent of a woman's hair, just where the nape of joins the skull's tender hollow, the scent of ripe apricots in the sun, of warm brioche and cinnamon rolls, lemon tea and lily of the valley.

My mother had been baking more often in general, but she took plates of desserts to the carpentry studio, where her boss, thank God, had a sweet tooth. He just loved the cheesecake, she'd tell me, shining. He ate all of my oatmeal cookies. Some charmed combination of the woodwork, and the studio people, and the splinter excising time with her son kept her going back to Silver Lake even when she hit her usual limits, and every night, tucked into bed, I would send out a thank-you prayer to the carpentry boss for taking in what I could not. But this morning I was the only one, and it was the weekend, and carpentry rested, and the whole kitchen smelled of hometown America, of Atlanta's orchards and Oregon's berry bushes, of England's pie legacy, packed with the Puritans over the Mayflower.

Notwithstanding the pressure in the room, this was always an emotional moment for Grace Lyndon, when someone was experiencing a scent she had created. When Grace was a little girl, her mother became very sick and lost her ability to hold down food, and in her final days lost her sight. But her sense of smell remained, strong as ever, and young Grace would bring to her mother's bedside fresh cut flowers, lilac and iris and tea rose, the sweet scents infusing the room with light and earth and memories long forgotten, and Grace brought in special foods to smell, like warm orange-ginger rolls, glazed and fragrant as winter holiday mornings, and cotton linens, laundered in lavender water and line-dried so you could smell the sun in them, and slices of ripe apples, a scent so perfect that in the end, it made her mother cry bittersweetly.

Oh, Séraphine," he purred, pushing his nose close to her jaw to inhale her righteous scent. "Who do you suppose sits in Parliament? Who makes the laws, runs the government of this great and lofty nation, hmm?" She hadn't bathed this morning, he could tell, and she smelled of herself: woman, sweat, sex. He licked across her cheek, tasting salt and pure saint, to her mouth. He bit her lips. Once, twice, a third time, wanting, craving.

Perfumery is the best imitation of the vibrancy and subtlety of nature's evolution. Marian Bendeth, Global Fragrance Expert, Sixth Scents

Perfume can instigate an instant intimacy with a complete stranger.

Roses and violets from summer gardens, sun-drenched Sicilian lemons squeezed of their juice and mingled with juniper from the frozen north. Saffron threads and gold leaf from the Indies waited to be turned into something magical. And contained deep within all of this was a smile that flooded him with warmth, a pair of blue eyes, and the scent of chocolate...

Roux flung a handful of dried shavings on to the embers of his fire; the scent was sharp and immediate, lemon grass and lavender, sage and applewood and pine, like the campfires of my childhood.