How Fragrance Connects to Memory and Emotion – All Good Scents

Have you ever wondered why a certain fragrance can make your heart skip a beat or bring a sudden smile to your face?

At All Good Scents, we believe perfume is more than a product it’s a feeling, a moment, and sometimes even a portal to the past. Our sense of smell is intricately tied to emotion, often unlocking memories we didn’t know we’d tucked away.

To celebrate this powerful connection, we’re sharing a personal story from fragrance enthusiast Saumya Sheth, who captures beautifully how scent becomes a storyteller in our everyday lives:

When I smell jasmine, I’m instantly a child again walking through the garden with my sister on a summer morning, picking fresh blooms. We’d run home to our parents, proudly showing off our garden treasures, wrapped in the heavy, sweet scent of jasmine.

Have you ever caught a whiff of perfume in the air from a passerby or a hug and suddenly felt like you’d travelled back in time? A rush of déjà vu, your heart racing, and your mind reaching for a memory buried deep within?

That’s because our sense of smell is directly connected to the brain’s emotional centre: the amygdala. It’s the only one of our senses wired this way. That’s why fragrance doesn’t just smell good  it feels good. Or sometimes bittersweet. Or even heartbreakingly nostalgic.

Every scent carries a story often one we don’t even realise we’re holding onto, until a familiar fragrance triggers it. The smell of sunscreen can transport you to beach holidays. The scent of freshly brewed coffee might remind you of cosy rainy afternoons. The fragrance a loved one once wore can bring comfort, even when they’re miles away. In a way, perfume is a time machine in a bottle. One spray, and you’re back.

Here’s a story. I was cleaning out my closet when I stumbled upon a small box tucked away in a drawer. As I opened it, I was met with the scent of old paper, dried flowers, printed photographs and a nearly empty perfume bottle. I sprayed the last drop on my wrist, and in an instant, I was back in middle school. Crushes. Scribbled notes. After-school hangouts. For a few moments, I felt like a child again.

Fragrance doesn’t just bring back memories  it helps us create them too. The perfume you wore on a first date. The scent of the book that changed your life. The flowers at a wedding. These smells become woven into the memories themselves. It’s something perfumers keep in mind while creating fragrances playing with notes that feel comforting, familiar, or emotionally stirring.

So next time you spray your favourite perfume or catch a scent drifting by, pause. Notice how it makes you feel. What memory it unlocks. What part of your story it brings back.
Fragrance isn’t just about how you smell it’s about how you feel, what you remember, and how scent connects us to ourselves and others.

The scents we wear are more than fragrance they’re memory, emotion, and little time capsules we carry on our skin.

—Shared by Saumya Sheth