Smells of yesteryear.....

[Linenspots]

My most prominent ones are:

The delicious smell of the bottle of Coppertone that Mum used to plaster us in for our annual holiday at one of the many Pontin's sites. Does anyone else remember Coppertone?

I also have really vivid memories of the smell of the turkey cooking at the crack of dawn on Christmas Day, right after we opened our presents, and being excited for the arrival of various family members. Am I imagining it, or does the aroma of turkey cooking these days not seem as strong as I remember?

Mum's perfumes - for best, she wore Estee Lauder's Youth Dew or White Linen (although she always called it Dirty Sheets). For everyday, it was Coty L'Aimant. My first bottle of perfume was Smitty...I felt so grown up!

Those smells...treasured memories.

Almond Vidal Sassoon
Blue tin Nivea
Parma Violets

But most of all…
Putty! My Dad had to replace a broken window pane and I thought the putty smelled amazing.

Oh yes to creosote, hot melting tar on the roads, Vidal Sassoon and Revlon Flex - all gorgeous smells!

Bergasol tanning oil and lotion was fab - the only time I had a really decent tan!

New books and magazines
The original felt tip pens (literally a wick inside a tube of liquid ink)
Quink ink
The smell when opening a new box of chocolates - nothing like the same now
Carnations and freesias when they had a strong fragrance
My mother's lovely blackcurrant pie made from fruit from the garden
New crisp bank notes straight from the machine
The smell of summer on the air in the early morning which we never seem to get now

Warm engine oil (always had old cars and dad would fix them, even went to school in a car with a starting handle - in the 80’s 😲) freshly cut wood and putty (grandad was a carpenter/shop fitter and him and dad worked on our house). There was also a certain Christmas wrapping paper in the 70’s with a slightly bobbly texture and a lovely smell I’ve never smelt since. Also Avon Pretty Peach. Reading this back I sound all Enid Blyton but this was East London.

Cross post! Were you tempted to have more broken windows for your dad to fix 🤣 My dad and grandad built a whole wooden “sun room” so plenty of putty for the very young me!

brasso
Imperial Leather soap - my nan had one with the magnet in so it stuck to an arm that came out over the sink. I loved it as a child.

We had a friendly robin who would peck at a freshly puttyfied window frame! Apparently it's the linseed oil which adds the smell.

This is amazing - love how you write about your dad. I just posted similar (but not as movingly).

Read that twice as I first read mice and onions 🤣

Woodleigh Green Apple shampoo. Smell of my tween years. I wish they still made it.

Anais Anais - smell of my late teens (I bought this for my dds when they hit their teens - I still love it)

I can still remember the particular smell (nice small but distinctive) of each of my aunt's houses. wish I could go back there.

Anaïs Anaïs perfume by Cacharel

Vosene shampoo and TCP.

Got to the end of your list and the smell of perm lotion went right up my nose - the power of recall!

born and grew up in Glasgow but have lived in London for a long time. I still miss the lardy smell of a Scottish chippy. They just don’t smell the same down here (that’s probably a good thing)

Nice
Hot tarmac being laid.
Roast dinner cooking
The smell of the earth after rain- petrichor.
That Friday night smell of fried food or Chinese takeaway, mmm!
Pipe tobacco. My Grandad kept his in a stone jar which I now have, sadly the smell has now gone.
Curry, any kind.
Oil of Ulay, Mum would always use this.
A bath being run with favourite bubble bath, I loved Badedas.
Seaweed
Candy floss
Perfumes I like most, don’t have a favourite.
New books

Not Nice
Milk
Cat food
Porridge cooking
That school smell
Bonfires
Most room fresheners
Boiled cabbage
Dental surgeries

Outspan oranges, my nan used to buy them for me
Ajax powder, long before the days of cream or liquid cleaners, mum used to clean the bath with it.
Vosene shampoo
4711 Eau de Cologne
Gingham, my first perfume when I was around 16-17, smelt a bit like Brut, by Innoxa.
Garlic bread, home made. Used to make it a lot in the early 90s for our barbecues and parties, reminds me of some really great times and friends, some of whom are no longer around

Pink windowlene does still exist - and yes, the smell! I love the original Windolene liquid, it makes windows feel sort of 'soft' if that makes any sense 😂

And Vidal Sassoon, yes yes yes! My Mum bought me a bottle as a treat for my first trip away from home with my Grandma. In a plain brown bottle with silver writing as I recall, and the shampoo itself was luxuriously creamy. I remember wanting to eat it.

More great memories, thank you for the prompt.

I used to go home for 'dinner'. I lived fairly close by and my Dad used to start work at 4am and finish at midday, so we'd have our hot meal at lunch dinner time. It was then jam sandwiches and cake for 'tea'.

I do remember the primary school hall always smelling faintly of cabbage when we had assemblies or PE though!

Kiku perfume, Opium perfume. My granny.

Creosote and privet hedges in the hot afternoons on the way home from school.

Old fashioned hair setting lotion that was lime green and came in little bottles, I can't remember what it was called but it was so strong and chemically and lovely.

Golden Virginia pipe tobacco - very much associated with my grandad. No one smokes in public anymore, I haven’t smelt it for years, but I’d recognise it instantly.Also coal tar soap.

Johnson’s baby powder - another thing that’s fallen out of use for the sake of our lungs, but that it the smell of my GM.

cKOne - a bad boy ex

Fresh cut grass - the smell of the 1970s - now usually overwhelmed by the smell of a diesel mower.

Impulse spray! The green one or the limited edition spice girls one

Eeek, creosote! My friend and I biked about 10 miles to her aunt's house in the summer holidays one year. We were about 11 years old, and it was our first time being allowed to do such a grand adventure. When we got to Aunty Frans, we helped her to creosote her fence, but nobody told us that it was toxic, dangerous stuff. Halfway on the long bike ride home, Sharon complained that her face and arms were hurting, and a quick bike break and inspection showed her to have spotty lesions all over her. It seemed it wasn't just the fence she'd treated.

Poor Shaz, she was a spotty, sore mess for weeks!

My Grampy always had a pipe on the go, and quite often when sitting on his knee, us kids would get hit by a rogue speck of hot tobacco jumping out of his pipe!

Another one that's just made my heart skip 🙂

Our school's paper was blue, and never did a letter make it home without the corners having being sucked or nibbled at! It tasted divine. I think they were called photostat machines?

Thank you for the flashback!

It takes me back to my first school trip to a village called Church Langton, staying in a big old Victorian house which apparently was haunted by a ghost called Claude. I was far too happy to have a bar of Pears soap in my washbag to worry about Ghosts.

I thought I was so posh, we only had Lifebuoy or Shield soap at home!

Tweed perfume.
Impulse Musk. They brought it back and it's so evocative to me.
Bunsen burner gas.