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20 smells that will take you right back to the 1970s
Time for your daily dose of nose-stalgia.
It's a question that younger generations always ask: What did the 1970s smell like?
Well, kids, we're here to help. Fair warning: scratching and sniffing your screen will not produce the desired effect / odor.
However, if you grew up in the decade, the mere mention of the following items will bring back olfactory memories.
Take a whiff and see if these trigger any feelings for you. Are there any other scents from that decade that linger?
1. Musk
It was a musky decade, overall, whether you wore Jovan, Old Spice or English Leather.
2. Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific
The greatest shampoo name — if not product name — of all time. The floral scent still lingers, perhaps because it's still sold somewhere, somehow.
3. Lemon Up
Or, those who wanted a bright, citrus scent washed with this brand.
4. Body on Tap
Or, if you wanted that fresh "I hang out at the bar" feeling, there was Body on Tap, the shampoo made with beer.
5. Fondue
Molten cheese, with a strong undercurrent of Sterno can.
6. Leaded gasoline
Gas stations never smelled the same once we all went unleaded.
7. Naugahyde
Whether it was wrapped around your dad's favorite chair or covering the interior of your Chevy Caprice, it had that not-really-leather smell, not to mention sound.
8. Super Elastic Bubble Plastic
This gummy Wham-O toy smelled like science and health hazards.
9. Creepy Crawlers
Speaking of toys with a distinctive scent, there was this particular plastic odor, to balance out the sweet, light-bulb brownies of the Easy Bake Oven.
10. Hai Karate
The smell of men who take action. Or, well, live in their first bachelor pad.
11. Love's Baby Soft
The counterpart to Hai Karate.
12. Herbel Essence
We're talking the original shampoo formula. Don't go huffing the stuff in drugstores now thinking it'll bring back memories.
13. Rubber cement
We loved how the little brush was attached to the cap.
14. Ditto machines
Ah, that purple ink.
15. Polaroid film canisters
Touching your phone screen just isn't the same.
16. Aramis
Leathery, woody, with a hint of cumin and gardenia… Or so Estée Lauder claimed. It was introduced in 1964 and took off in the Seventies.
17. Charlie
Charlie aimed at the new city woman. It was like Mary Tyler Moore in a bottle.
18. Card catalogs
Musty, papery and redolent of book reports.
19. Vanish crystals
Keep toilets minty for decades.
20. Linoleum
The rubbery smell of kitchen floors.
19 Comments
Boy, that takes me back to the 60s...
Led Zeppelin had a song out about "squeezing" their Lemon, until the juice ran down their legs!
#8- Super-nauseous-caustic-bubbles!
#19- Takes the prize for worst smell of the decade!
Vermont Country Store sells Lemon Up (which I tried) & "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific" (yikes what a name!)
#9 - Remember the Thingmaker? Basically a hot plate.
#11 - That was a creepy ad campaign...
#13 - We used to make rubber cement balls and bounce them around the classroom.
#19 - Nothing got the toilet cleaner...
#20 - Things just haven't been the same since they went to vinyl.... And, of course, the adjunct to linoleum: floor wax, another distinctive smell...
