Thursday 2 May 2013

Aeroflot Smells like Mr Men Soap

Have you ever noticed how a smell can immediately to transport you back to an event, place or circumstances where you first encountered it?  I think that it has long been recognised that out of our five senses, smell is one of the most powerful - particularly in evoking memories.  


I had such an experience of this effect last night when I was washing my kids, when I opened a tube of soap i've not used before.  It was Mr Men soap - and it had a peculiar fruity smell. It immediately reminded me of my first flight to Russia on an Ilyhshin 76 Aeroflot flight in 1988. I can't recall exactly what the source of the smell was on the plane (because I don't think I knew at the time), but I attributed it to the smell of the free fruit drink served on the flight - it was billed as "lemonade" but it neither looked nor tasted like lemonade - it was a dark colour which made it look more like apple juice.   It was either that or the fuel smell in the fuselage, or perhaps both. I dunno, but I was immediately taken back to that flight as soon as I smelled this soap.



2 comments:

  1. I used to work at JFK and Pan Am serviced Aeroflot. I know that smell. I never did figure out where that smell came from but thought it was some Soviet cleaning fluid.

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  2. Thanks for you comment. Thinking about it, it probably was Soviet cleaning fluid, although some might have unfairly compared the "lemonade" with cleaning fluid

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