Demystifying The Scent: Squash

Squash is a quintessential scent of Japanese car fresheners and featured prominently in New Car Scents’ catalogue. While fragrance names may often be ambiguous, confusing, odd-sounding (stay tuned for another blog post all about "musk"), squash is evocative of a vegetable rather than something to put in your car.

Before delving deeper into the origins of squash: What does squash actually smell like? Squash is not a singular scent, but encompasses a classification of scents that are fresh, citrusy, and slightly sweet. Different manufacturers have interpreted squash differently, hence formulating their squash fragrances with a unique balance of these notes. It’s reminiscent of a citrus soda, with an effervescence combined with a blend of lemon, orange and/or lime. If you’ve ever had a ramune soda, this would be the closest approximation to what squash car fresheners smell like. Ramune is a classical Japanese soft drink flavoured with lemon or lime, and sold in its signature bottle containing a marble to seal in the carbonation.

Looking up squash in a Japanese dictionary reveals that it is a soft drink made from carbonated water, sugar and fruit juice such as lemon or orange. Squash in the sense of a beverage, has fallen off the North American vernacular, but in the U. K. and other commonwealth countries, exists as a concentrated fruit syrup used as a drink mixer. The original squash sold in the late 1800s was lemon flavoured. Thus, these overlapping components explain the similarities between how ramune and squash car fresheners smell. Despite being based off a soft drink, squash car fresheners never reach the territory of overwhelmingly sweet, and its tarty freshness lends itself as a unisex scent. Simply put, think of it as a scent that plays on the popular Japanese citrus soda, ramune. 

Interested in checking out squash for yourself? Click here for New Car Scents’ current selection of squash fresheners. We stock everything from the original citrus squash, to squash with a twist, such as the light, neo, marine and lemon squash by Poppy.  Happy squashing!