Why do some people find the smell of gasoline pleasant?
What crash and Hildago said. Most people I know who find the smell of chemical fumes pleasant usually associate it with memories of a father or grandfather or other relative. Same as making an old recipe of your mom’s does. My grandfather was a carpenter and a farmer, so I positively adore the smells of cowshit, turpentine, mineral spirits, and sawdust. Open up a can of poly around me and suddenly I’m five years old again and “helping” him in his shop. I still have (and use) the miniature carpenter’s toolbox he made for me when I was six. I like gas too, but only when it’s on my hands mixed with the smell of grass clippings. Then I think of my dad, and I realize that I’m a man now. It is, to me, the smell of honesty. That woodstain-and-poly smell is the smell of art.
