to Ask your terrible advice from the 1990’s - early 2000s

[MyKingdomForACaramel]

Aibu to ask you to cast your mind back and give the advice you would have in the late 90’s

Here’s mine...

Want to lose weight? Eat what you want during the week and take recreational drugs at the weekend, it’s like the 5:2

Have frizzy hair! Not to worry, some John Frieda, and iron, and a brown paper bag will sort it.

Worried your dp has been faffing you around and cheating? If he says @you were on a break” all is ok

If you didn’t want to use oil, no suntan lotion was the way to go. Go bright red, wait to peel and voila! Lovely brown tan.

@Nellienamechange MSN Messenger!!! Oh the DREAM! I was SO desperate for Vans but had a pair of basically weird Camden shop own brand trainers that looked vaguely like Vans to match my TK Maxx PE trainers. It was a hard time for me.

Is dream matte mousse definitely 1990s? I’m sure I remember it being a ‘new thing’ in early-mid 2000s?

Don’t want your CD to skip whilst listening to your CD player? Walk everywhere like Mr Soft.
Meeting friends in town but only have enough money for a cheeseburger and medium fries? Pop into the Body Shop to inhale the fruit shaped soaps, it’s a worthwhile experience.
Flared jeans getting wet up to the knee and crabby round the edges? Cut the tassels off with kitchen scissors .
Want to attract the fitty at the bar?
Request Salt-n-Pepa Push It and start grinding with your mate!

Spray bottle on of Sun in for your highlights.

Shelleys shoes/boots

Crimpers! Make your hair look like ridge-cut crisps...
And everyone wearing Poison perfume.

Easiest way to look the business when you can't afford Tom Ford/Gucci, is to clear Warehouse out of their faux satin/silk bright shirts to go with those flat fronted black flares.

the pills and whizz diet works a charm for keeping thin. unfortunately the tuesd. comedowns will bring you to your knees.

The discovery of beauty flash balm so that you can make it into work on Monday morning. that one is still relevant tbh, although due to babies and children rather than clubbing.

Lol! I bought 3 aged 4-5 t shirts from Gap and wore them in my early 20s - one of them had Thomas the Tank Engine on - forgot about that

Hair - Clairol 001 Palest Baby Blonde, about 30 tiny plaits to help keep you from overheating and because you could tip an entire bottle of water (£2 dearer than a bottle of Hooch) over your head when the DJ wound it back a bit around 3am without looking like a drowned rat. Vast amounts of silver glitter spray over the top.

Glow in the dark body paint and glowsticks.

Cropped top, pure white, over a black Wonderbra. Massively loose combats. Vans or Adidas Superstars if you were actually intending to dance, rather than pill up and cop off with a random in the blue room. Net tutu and fairy wings if you felt like being 'girly'. Although I had bat wings, just to be different.

Black cherry extended wear matte lipstick. Silver glitter eyeliner over about half an inch of black. Possibly more glitter.

Sitting in the bogs of whatever railway arch club you were at, watching the steam rising from your palms and thinking 'fuck, I've overcooked it' and religiously counting the time between water and red bull so you didn't make your brain burst. Or, occasionally, getting it just right so that you came up just as the DJ was leading into dropping the tune of the night. And then coming out to find it had snowed, buying the homeless guys coffee and a hotdog from the burger van but not feeling cold or hungry yourself.

And Sunday afternoons. Oh, god, Sunday afternoons. Still too buzzed to sleep, but the fear, the teatime 'nobody loves me! I'm all alone in the world!', best experienced in a random person's flat above some shops somewhere in West London.

Then having to navigate your way home with Sunday services, fuck all money because you spent your last fiver in a petrol station you don't remember walking to on a million Chupa Chups at 5am, and no way of finding out where the train station was or if it was open.

But if you were lucky, you'd see a picture of yourself in Mixmag later on when the DJ wanted a break and let you run it for half an hour.

God, I miss those days. Now I feel like I've done an entire weekender just waking up in the morning. And I get hot flushes for free. along with the tinnitus

Can still knock up a fucking bangin' mix, mind.

I had a Mr Messy child's t shirt I wore with baby blue flares, black platforms and a tan tartan patterned coat with sheepskin collar. I though I was so cool!!

Don't have an army supplies rucksack with tributes to Kurt Cobain scrawled in Typex all over it??
Go to River Island, buy the cheapest thing going, and reuse the carrier bag as a school bag......for eternity!!!!! The more faded, the better!!

Hooch is for kids and blue WKD is for culchies (they don't call it West Kerry Diesel for nothing). Smirnoff Ice will make you look so much more sophisticated when you are sitting on the kerb outside Bective. Or perhaps the occasional Moscow Mule.

You will look much hotter with your belly button pierced to offset your crop top/see through blouse from Next/wonder bra combo said everyone.

There is nothing more unique to make you stand out from the crowd than a tribal tattoo round your arm or offset by your g-string said everyone.

If Rachel Green can look that good with a Rachel haircut, so can I. Said everyone.

It’s summer! You must have a long spaghetti strap dress in ditsy print over a white t shirt with a denim jacket tied round your waist.

It’s winter! You need a lumberjack shirt and Timberland boots.

Definitely buy one of those brilliant new TV's with an in built video slot. They will be so useful for years to come.

Very specific to Manchester but it was student night at the Ritz on Mondays they didn't care of you were barely 15. With "dance your docs off" flyer you were in free and your first pint of pissy Hoffmeister beer was 20p. Once inside we all sat in the corridors next to the cloak room till our mates came then bagged th same seat every week. No one nicked your stuff. Drank the Hoffmeister then hit the Watermelon Breezers. Check make up then dance till 2 am. On kick out.... no fear if you kick the shutter to the business below it the taxi rank above would have you home in minutes complete with kebab. Baggy pants skate shoes lots of space buns like Raynor from Coal Chamber each with it's own daubed of glitter gel....good to go.

I feel so nostalgic reading this!
I had Heather Shimmer and also Birthday Suit (nuder!).
If it rained when you were out the bottom of your flares sucked up all the water within a 10 ft radius expanding them to elephantine proportions and leaving you soaked from the knee down.
A trouser suit with just a wonder bra underneath on a night out if you wanted to look "classy" and a bottle of Metz.

And so. Much. Body. Glitter

Oh my god, Metz.

Beware the Judder Man, my dear...

My favourite TV ads of the era

Rimmel's earth star suits everyone (it doesn't)
Acupuncture trainers are the tits
Buy your skater jeans, which are already huge, two sizes up so they have to be belted to dangle off your tiny boney hips.
Wear the smallest top you can find with the largest hoodie.
If you get frizzy hair buybacks million tiny glittery hair clips and whack them all in.
Glitter gel highlights your collarbones
Going out on a friday night means coming home on sunday in time for the antique road show, having not been to bed for two nights.
Wonderbras can hide a surprising amount of MDMA

Taking advice from magazines.

Everyone female interviewed in magazines like Cosmopolitan weighted 7 and a half stone. I fretted about how I'd ever weigh that little.

It genuinely took me to my late 20s to realise this was made up.

Clear bra straps with glittery shit in them. Clear bra straps in general (I had no boobs to keep strapless bras up and wonderbra didn’t make them small enough for me )

God I’d forgotten Metz!
Downing shots of Smirnoff and lime cordial - the soapy lime cordial being more preferable to the taste of Smirnoff.

Being a technological god because you had a writable dvd drive in your PC. Iomega ZIP drives.

I remember making a belt out of ring pulls thanks to an article in something like Jackie. Picking up skanky ring pulls from the gutter to fashion a hazardous accessory?, yep I'm in.

Also tie die tasselly skirt plus leather jacket, black t and leggings and DMs will absolutely make you look like the individual you know yourself to be and not remotely like every other bloody goth girl in Hemel Hempstead.

I still have 7000 songs on my ipod downloaded from Napster in 2001. It was courtesy of the free 30 days internet from AOL.
The sound of a 56k dial up modem.....

Black kick flare trousers look excellent with anything, so buy lots of pairs and wear them with different tops on every single night out. Even if you're 5 ft 2 with an enormous arse.