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.

@AutumnLover1990

Yes, they could have told me the name of the fragrance, but I don't think they could realistically help with which childhood memory of mine it was trying to evoke. It was so strange that it gave me such an intensely happy feeling, but I just couldn't quite "find" the memory in my brain.

Was it powder paint? I was lucky enough to have a really traditional art/educational supply shop a five minute walk from my house when my children were growing up, he sold powder paint in small bags for 45p. Reading your post I was transported back to my children’s childhoods about 25 years ago, then to mine!
Incidentally, I started school in the summer term when I was four, we had back-to-back easels with pots of gloopy paint and fat brushes. We had to paint something that happened at Easter. When I’d finished I realised others had painted what they did - picnics, Easter eggs etc - while I’d done the full-on crucifixion complete with a lot of blood.

@Pallisers @Dullmary
Woodleigh Green Apple Shampoo! My youngest sister wouldn’t have anything else - when it was discontinued, everywhere we went we had to stop off at chemist and grocery shops to see if they still had any. Even got my cousin doing the same. That’s when we weren’t hunting for every different Smurf for her 🤣

Body shop Apple Blossom perfume oil. I would love to be able to smell it again. I wore it through my uni years.

Newsagents! I think it must have been all the magazines but there was a lovely smell. I went in one in an old fashioned seaside town recently and it took me right back.

A less nice smell but still nostalgic was the smell of the holiday park bar in the morning after it had been cleaned. I’m not sure what with but possibly some sort of bleach still mingled with beer soaked carpets and cigarettes!

Butlins Bognor had a similar smell.

Aviation fuel! It meant we were at an airport about to fly somewhere. Very exciting in the 1970s.

Yes, I do remember them. Looked huge but were just average sized after the thick skin had gone. We used to have a little pile of sugar on a plate to eat sliced fruit with - usually an apple or an orange. It was still considered a healthy snack though 😆

The roses in my garden still have that lovely strong smell but they are very old rose bushes must be atleast 50 years old. love the smell of them and ive never smelt roses as nice.

Are you talking about the evil Spangles in the black packet? The flavours in those were nasty little buggers. Seem to recall a liquorice-y one that would creep up on you and make you cry!

Yes! That sound.

Oh my good god, I read that and could smell the paint!

I don't remember the thing being called Banda machine at our school, we knew it as the Gestetner machine. Circa 1975.

Yes OP I remember Smitty. Smitty did it was the advertising slogan. And Coty Lamont. My mum used to wear Tweed and my dad Old Spice. I assume people still have bonfires in gardens, but no one round here does. I used to love the smell of the bonfire in my grandparent’s garden.

The original pink Johnsons baby lotion as it was in the 80s & 90s before they ruined it.

love the smell of TCP reminds me of primary school.

The smell of egg&bacon cooking and roast dinners on Sundays. my area is now very multicultural so we no longer smell these traditional british foods cooking. I miss the sunday food smells wafting from neighbours windows.

Omg me too, bloody loved that smell.

🤣🤣 That’s hilarious, but also slightly alarming!

It could have been powder paint. I just remember it being in individual pots with the brush sticking out of the centre. This was the 1970s. We had to wear aprons and you got a big whiff of the paint as you pulled the apron over your head.

Yes, I am 😀 I loved them, but, then I loved Winter Mixture sweets, some of which were super-strong!

This sounds like the notes from a dream fragrance that I would buy in gallons. Perfect! 👃🏼

(Your username cracked me up because it's one of my favourite ever TV moments. BB5 was full of Michelle gems but that was one of her best. I used that as a phone notification at the time and got a row from my boss because it was "inappropriate".)

@Linenspots - LOL at your parents renaming TCP ! It does have a particularly ……. unique smell, doesn’t it .

Our local community hall still has the malted milk biscuity smell that it had when I went to playschool there 53 years ago, it’s so weird.

DD and I were once in Primark looking at their scented candles, and one of them smelt exactly like the ladies' toilets in the holiday park we'd been going to for years. I said to her 'smell this' and it reminded her of the same thing!

We didn't buy it.😂

loved that creosote smell, reminds me of childhood summers when everyone would be painting their fences with it on a nice sunny day. why did they stop selling it?
And yes to the new catalogue smell.

the old paper bank notes.

I used to go to Mass every Sunday and the smell of the church, the candles and the incense on high days was incredible.