Small things that were meant to be exciting that became depressing?

[JeanPaulGagtier]

Today I tried a perfume I used to wear as a late teen, imagining that, as smells so often do, I would be transported to a time of BonJovi and teen crushes. Instead I sniffed an insipid limp excuse of a perfume that reminded me of a grandmother's bathwater. I am now realising I will never be able to recapture the real smell of my 1990s. Depressing.

Have you had anything similar?

Possibly not the most uplifting thread, but maybe we can warn each other to avoid future shattered dreams?!

I recently reread my favourite childhood book to my own kids. In my memory, it was exciting, heroic, romantic...in real life it was such a disappointment. I was really sad!

Instead I sniffed an insipid limp excuse of a perfume that reminded me of a grandmother's bathwater. I am now realising I will never be able to recapture the real smell of my 1990s. Depressing.

or to flip it and see the positive… now you have a much nicer collections of perfumes that aren’t insipid limp affairs

Not had anything similar but I miss the late 90's/early 00's and wish I could go back! 😢

It’s films from my teenager years that I get really excited about sharing with my teens…. And they’re bloody awful!

Lynx Africa. As a teen it was a smell of exciting possibility (as the lad I liked wore it.) Now it is rather cheap and nasty.

I am fairly sure they have changed the components, it's a smell that was probably full of animal anal glands or something banned these days. Much as I love animals keeping anal glands intact, I still miss the OG smell.

Thanks for the sentiment though!

OP, something very similar. I was in the Body Shop yesterday and fancied buying some White Musk, which is reminiscent of my 80s childhood. It cost a bloody fortune and the smell was just….weak. Weak and insipid and nothing like it used to be.

Our Body Shop shut down last year 😭 I am sure the smells were punchier and less sweet though? I think BS is now Garnier though so that might be why?

Maybe it is just a yearning for the 90's that has me a bit 'meh'. Trying to recapture my youth/midlife crisis, perhaps.

I used to love Fry’s Five Centres bars when I was young; they would be my first choice of chocolate bar for a revival. Yet part of me deep down thinks that, if they did come back, all five of the centres would taste exactly the same (and that taste would be sugar rather than anything resembling fruit!)

Exactly this with YSL Rive Gauche 🥺

Please tell us what it was!

Was it Jane Eyre by any chance? I loved it as a teen but as an adult I couldn't believe I'd ever thought that the manipulative, grumpy, misogynistic twat Rochester was heroic.

I had the opposite with Rive Gauche, my mum used to drown herself in it for special night out and if we were all in the car together I'd have a splitting headache by the tome we got there. 40 years later decide to give it a sniff in a shop, it is a classic and boom, straight back to 80s headache time, I nearly threw up.

Findus Crispy Pancakes for me, loved these in the 80s, found some in Iceland a couple of years ago, awful, tasteless floury pap.

Aged about 19, I doused myself in Rive Gauche and my mum asked where the smell of cats was coming from. Never felt the same about it after that.

DD has been reading Jilly Cooper and says that all the characters are forever drenching themselves in scent or gifting it or spraying around huge clouds.
I guess it drowned out the cigarette smoke.
Doesn't seem to crop up in the same way now.

I think she very much used fragrance to define her characters!

Yes, ds pissed himself laughing when we watched The Shining together , he said he couldn't believe it was meant to be scary !

DH had a night out in the weekend so I was quite excited at the thought I could have a bowl of coco pops for dinner. Used to love being allowed to do that as a childhood treat. They were rubbish! So disappointed and was still hungry.

It wasn't - I was younger than that - it was the Deptford Mice series by Robin Jarvis. I used to adore them!

As a counter view - I watched the Sound of Music with the kids, and that is sooo much better than I remember, and Captain Von Trapp...🔥

Mine is Disneyland Paris - always wanted to do Disney, worst holiday ever

Oh no. I loved those books, and have been meaning to reread them.

Oh Lego was like this for me. So many happy 70s memories of real creative energy as I designed and built my own houses, or cars or spaceships (80s).

Then my kids got into it and it was all stupid kits and bits everywhere and the noise of the Lego box was like fingernails down a blackboard.

I loved Cherry Ames books as a child. I think they contributed to me becoming a nurse.
Tried to read one recently and couldn’t get past the first few pages,Too much handmaiden .

Had a Creme Egg for the first time in 30+ years at Easter. It tasted nothing like I remembered and did not “take me back” to revising for my GCSEs around Easter 1988 before going out to meet my new boyfriend, whom I was besotted by.

I should’ve expected it really, because I eat other Cadbury’s chocolate fairly regularly and know it’s not the same as it was.

Butterscotch Angel Delight. Just tastes of artificial sweetener now.