vermicomposting and growing my own mushrooms have made me finally realise that the thing i’ve always thought of as one whole “rainy northern forest” smell is like, 1/3 that freshly shed worm castings smell, 1/3 that living mushroom smell, 1/3 everything else. in mushroom growing forums/tutorials you often get told “you’ll know it’s healthy mycelium when you smell it, it smells like the most intensely alive mushroomy smell you’ve ever smelled” and people go “how the hell am i meant to know what ‘alive mushroom’ smells like, that’s such a weird description” but then they get some growing well, and sniff it, and they go ‘oh!’ because we have all smelled it before, just never so intensely and in isolation. it’s so immediately reminiscent of a freshly rinsed summer forest, and you realise that you’ve actually been casually aware of how full of mycelium the world is this whole time, even before you read anything about it, just unable to isolate and put a label on that information. anyway, i guess that’s why “forest scented” beard balms never smell even a tiny bit like forest, even if they make a really good effort at all the pine needle and sap smells. Lacks Mushroom