Sixth Scents: A Zine

 "Sixth Scents" is a zine that I and five of my other classmates created as a passion project, with its central theme being our favourite smell.

Smell has always been important to me - I want to smell good; I sniff my food before eating it; I use products that smell nice to me so that I add little bursts of joy to my everyday life (just to name a few examples).

I think, also, that a lot of us can agree that we associate specific memories with a particular scent. And that was the focus of my chosen subject for Sixth Scents:-

When I was younger, on some weekend mornings, my mum would gently wake me up and ask if I wanted to bake something with her. A smile would spread across my face and I'd excitedly ask what we'd be making.

Sometimes it'd be a chiffon cake with some strawberry and cream filling. Other times, it'd be a sinful tiramisu. But my favourite thing to bake has always been chocolate chip cookies.

We'd take out our trusty mixer, and get to incorporating the dry ingredients with the wet ones. The recipe was simple to follow and soon enough, we'd be adding scoops of batter onto a tray, and then popping the tray into our warm oven.

I love the way the smell of butter would fill the house as the cookies turned golden brown. And with a "ping", I'd be bouncing to get the yummy tray of cookies out of the oven. The most difficult part was giving the cookies time to cool.

That memory got locked in my brain as a pocket of happiness in my childhood - one of the many that I share with my mum.

And now, when I feel nostalgic or miss my mum, I bake a tray of chocolate chip cookies. The smell of warm butter offers me a glimpse into a simpler time when I was a child - a snapshot of joy that I hold close to my heart.

What is a scent that makes you think back to a happy memory from your childhood?