It smells like Spring. We're only at the beginning of February, so this is a fleeting experience. When we smell soil, what we smell is bacteria. And more specifically, Geosmin.
Scientific America tells me this: Two of the chemicals responsible for that earthy perfume are geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB). Geosmin is made by many organisms — including, unsurprisingly, beets — but particularly by bacteria in the genus Streptomyces. Author Jennifer Frazer says: "One of the most exciting and unexpected discoveries I made in college occurred the day I opened a Petri dish of soil bacteria. There was no soil in the plate — just opaque patches of bacteria called colonies — but it smelled just like a cave. I had discovered that dirt doesn’t actually smell like dirt. It smells like bacteria."
"Perfumiers have found geosmin an irresistible component of some of their concoctions, either as a purified commercially available product (as a 1% solution) or, as in the case of a more traditional potion, Mitti Attar, by distilling sun-baked earth with sandalwood (it is said to resemble the smell of the first monsoon rain on parched soil).
For example, in the perfume The Smell of Weather Turning by the cosmetics company Lush, “geosmin is supported by oak wood, hay, beeswax, nettle, English peppermint, mint and Roman chamomile”.
What would you think if this perfume was on the retail shelf? I would say that is true retail therapy.
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