Nostalgia scents are thing, obviously.
Everyone has an association with a longtime famous perfume or cologne– maybe it was your mom’s go to, your 3rd grade teacher doused the classroom in it, or a reminder of the way your best friend’s car always smelled. In my case, nostalgia scents mostly boil down to Ms. Montana’s 4th grade gifted and talented mock trial… for whatever reason she spritzed frequently (maybe she was sweating a lot from the stress of me vs David Goldberg). Whatever. Memories.
- Davidoff Cool Water. You know what the internet just taught me about the #1 holiday gift set of 1996? It’s still available. I have no actual idea, but I assume Courtney Cox wore this stuff to her audition for FRIENDS.
- Curve. Remembereth Curve by Liz Claiborne? I do. I remember the ladies who came into my mom’s store smelling like Curve, and I thought they were pretty fascinating with their pearls and teased hair and such.
There are a few varieties still out there and the men’s version is particularly cutesy still for dudes into their beards and that relaxed woodsy kind of look. Also, famous people like Ali Fedotowsky are still into it. - Exclamation! WTF, I need to know if people bought this? Remember the perfume testers that came in every single print magazine in the 90s? They were always pretty bad, but in a good way.
- Tommy Girl. You can lie to yourself, but why? You spritzed this all over your baby tees right before loading your white girl cornrows with tiny butterfly clips.
- CK One. You were into Devon Sawa and CK One. Those were your only interests aside from finding if Hard Candy nail polish came in glitter shades, too. This scent can still transport you to the set of Home Improvement in 2 seconds or less.
- Clinique Happy. To be fair, this scent never actually made me happy because it always had a soapy, astringent thing going on for me. But it made a lot of other people happy, and a lot of cutesy advertising was done, and a lot of girls in spaghetti straps wore this stuff. Maybe you.
- Gucci Rush. This was my mom’s scent sometime around 2002. She was single and ready to mingle and I will forever have a moms-on-Jdate memory associated with this one.
Good hustle, Gucci. - Love’s Baby Soft. Remember Drew Barrymore saying she wore this exclusively? I remember reading that in Seventeen or YM or something.
- Bath & Body Works spritzes. Stop it mall, go away. You made everyone in 1998 smell like Jolly Ranchers.
- Lancome Poeme. Ah, this one is near and dear to me. I traveled to some far off islands in 1997 for my bat mitzvah and picked up my first ever duty free bottle of perfume. If I smell this rich scent now it instantly takes me back to the end of 7th grade, training bras, and wondering why pizza wasn’t always a lunch option. Probably my fave of the nostalgia scents still in circulation.
