I find it rather depressing that the word "smell", which is technically neutral in meaning, has negative connotations for so many people. I remember my mum seeing me with a bunch of flowers when I was a kid and asking me "are they smelly?" - what she meant, of course, was "do they have any perfume?" and I replied accordingly, but with hindsight, the question sounds wrong even though it shouldn't.

Not least because as a writer, it really annoys me when I want to describe something that has a pleasant or positive smell, especially when I'm trying for quite graceful prose, and can't think of a good word to use without sounding too poetical. What are good, positive synonyms for "to smell of", anyway? Help, anybody?