What did people smell like in the 60/70/80s?

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MickRolley@reddit

Baddidas the conker bubble bath was around back then?

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RufusBowland@reddit

I bought some of that retro delight in Home Bargains a few weeks back. Smells like my nan’s bathroom circa 1983.

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_scorp_@reddit

60s Old spice

70s still old spice - some brut

80s - blue stratos / denim / joop! And lots and lots of eternity

That’s for men anyway

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BigBunneh@reddit

Yeah, that was mine, but only because my girlfriend at the time said she liked it. The relationship failed, but the Insignia had a longer shelf life than three weeks 😂

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boobiemilo@reddit

Also did splash on aftershave. I always remember Christmas gift sets having shower gel/ splash on combos…. Boxing Day family gatherings would reek of it

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_scorp_@reddit

I was trying to remember all the Superdrug box sets - blue denim and the like

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boobiemilo@reddit

Hai- Karate, Tabac, the Insignia Rio was particularly pungent.

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_scorp_@reddit

Yeah it was there more like savers is now - so much less food and stuff plus lots of stuff used to appear just at Xmas specific “gift sets”

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mhoulden@reddit

Strong aftershave. Hai Karate was one. Barry Sheen and Henry Cooper advertised Brut. Lynx was introduced in the UK in 1985 but Lynx Africa wasn't introduced until 1995.

I remember TV shows in the late 80s advising people that huffing deodorants wasn't a good idea. "Warning: deliberate concentration and inhalation of this product may have harmful or fatal effects." wasn't the most snappy so Watchdog got the Plain English Campaign to come up with "Do not breathe this product in. It may kill you."

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BigBunneh@reddit

I'd forgotten about Hai Karate! I remember my first aftershave in the 80's - Insignia. Man I was cool 😎

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Flowa-Powa@reddit

In the 80's, boys smelt of Brut 33

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boobiemilo@reddit

You mean Insignia

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MelodicAd2213@reddit

Insignia’s got everything, shampoo to shower gel

Deodorant, after shave, one all over smell

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Flowa-Powa@reddit

And girls smelt of Opium

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Kittygrizzle1@reddit

I smelt of Opium and Ysatis in the 80’s

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Wild_Young_1@reddit

Brut... so much Brut.

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ghostlight1969@reddit

Germalene or Calamine Lotion. At least I did.

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Thestolenone@reddit

Men wore a neroli scented hair cream. Brut aftershave. Foxfire Avon perfume. People used roll on deodorant in the 70's like Mum. You had a bath Sunday night for the week ahead. Clothes washing powder didn't have much of a smell like it does now. Everyone smoked everywhere so you didn't really notice the smell. People's houses smelled of the food they cooked, they didn't use scented candles etc. Alternative types would burn incense, mainly to hide the smell of cannabis. Back in the 70's cannabis smelled like herbs not the bitter rank smell it has now.

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Competitive-Fact-820@reddit

These days cannabis smells like BO to me, really bad BO. Used to be such a nice aroma when it was about mellowing out and not getting stoned out of your gourd.

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_mister_pink_@reddit

That’s so accurate. I’m so curious as to why that is

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isotopesfan@reddit

Majority of weed in the UK now is skunk which has been sprayed with lord knows what. In the 60s it was mainly just hippy grass. Or so the elderly stoners I know tell me.

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_mister_pink_@reddit

What’s the difference between weed and skunk? Presumably the skunk is cheaper?

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completefuckweasel@reddit

Skunk is far more powerful than the bit of green you’d grow in your garden or the likes of Red Lebanese, Durban Poison or squidgy black. As for price, half a quarter (8th Oz) used to be £5 but that was well over 40 years ago 😳

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lewkey123@reddit

Skunks just a slang term for stronger weed, the people who grow it bred the plants to have a higher thc content and more terpenes (what gives weed its smell / favour)

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kiradax@reddit

i wish washing powder had very little smell these days - i hate the strong fake tropical/floral scents

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Loud_Fisherman_5878@reddit

I buy a lot from vinted and sometimes I almost get knocked back as I open the packet because the washing powder scent is so overwhelming (fake floral scents). And this is in baby clothes!

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prplsmth@reddit

Can you order Nellie’s laundry soda to the UK?

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LionLucy@reddit

Daz is a good "just smells clean" one

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kiradax@reddit

That’s what I use 🥰 its the only one for me!

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LionLucy@reddit

I quite like Fairy as well. Everything else is just too..perfumey

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completefuckweasel@reddit

My Mother smelt of Avon (because her sister used to sell it) and cooking. My Dad smelt of Old Spice and Piccadilly cigarettes .

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anotherangryperson@reddit

I was a child in the 50s/60s. People would bathe once a week. We didn’t have shampoo or deodorant in the 50s, however women had hairspray. Smoking was normal. I guess we just were used to the smell of tobacco although my mother didn’t smoke and I’ve never smoked. Clothes were washed and dried outside but we didn’t have a lot of clothes. I remember the smell of oil from men tinkering with car engines.

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Phyllida_Poshtart@reddit

Course we had shampoo and deodorant. Vosene was the usual in our house and mum roll on which left yer armpits sticky as fuck unless you wafted yer arms around like a helicopter for a few mins. We had no inside toilet though and no bath and showers were a thing of the future :)

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WanderingRice@reddit

Vosene! I'd forgotten about it entirely but can smell it now. My dad was born in the 50s and used Vosene for a long, long time.

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Phyllida_Poshtart@reddit

Awful smell wasn't it? Like some sort of medicated cough medicine

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jiminthenorth@reddit

I quite liked it as a kid.

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tjjwaddo@reddit

I don't know where you're from, but we most definitely had shampoo and deodorant in the UK in the 50s - and earlier. I remember a roll on deodorant called MUM ('because MUM really works', was the jingle). Yes, everywhere, and every thing, reeked of tobacco smoke.

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anotherangryperson@reddit

Perhaps I should have said we as in my family. I remember shampoo appearing in little sachets in the mid 50s and certainly Mum deodorant was a thing but I don’t remember this until later. There was still rationing from the war until the mid 50s. My grandmother used to hoard soap and sugar ready for the next war when it came off rationing.

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iCowboy@reddit

Stale tobacco, coal smoke and damp wool with a hint of BO in the 1970s.

The 1980s arrived and it was cigarettes, hairspray and Lynx.

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JavaRuby2000@reddit

60s BO, Hairspray and Cigs

70s Brut, Hairspray and Cigs

80s Either Lynx or CK1, Wet Look Gel and Cigs

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ARobertNotABob@reddit

Old Spice, then Brut.

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Glittering-Round7082@reddit

Brut 33.

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nj-rose@reddit

In the 80s, Chanel no 19, Anais Anais, White Linen, Opium was a big one.

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pricklybampot@reddit

Anaïs Anaïs, Poison & Lamont

Can recall them so viscerally that I want to gag

"I don't know why she gets so car sick...." - My mum, who used an entire bottle a go

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MelodicAd2213@reddit

Don’t forget Poison by Christian Dior

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turdinabox@reddit

My mum absolutely drenched herself in poison. It's a really heavy smell as well.

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MelodicAd2213@reddit

My mum had it too, along with Rive Gauche and Opium. I hated Poison it was a real powerhouse frag.

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nj-rose@reddit

My mum liked those too.

At one point she wore Tweed. We'd take the bus to the city to see relatives and sit on the top while she smokes. There's nothing like the smell of diesel, cigs and Tweed in the morning. 🤮

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MelodicAd2213@reddit

Just gave me a reminder of Martin Sheen’s quote from Apocalypse Now! I’m pretty sure that Tweed, cigs and diesel combo could outdo napalm any morning

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MelodicAd2213@reddit

Ugh Tweed😱! That one was horrific, my auntie thought my mum a bottle later in life but mum never touched it.

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Beginning_Tour_9320@reddit

Lots of 80s goths had the fragrance of Harmony hairspray. I can still conjure up the smell quite easily.

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Oldrandguy1971@reddit

Spray-on Right Guard dominated in my gym classes. To this day I never again want to smell it.

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JannerBird@reddit

A liberal spray of LouLou perfume and hairspray..I must have stank to high heaven.

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CartographerWhich743@reddit

Hot popular girls smelt of Charlie Red and Cigarettes and tasted of Cigarettes and Chewing Gum when you kissed them. UK. 90’s.

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RonnyReddit00@reddit

I was a kid in the early 90s late 80s and I remember distinctly the smokey smell of people, especially men. Also hair spray! Everyone smelt of hair spray!

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TheTwinSet02@reddit

CK One was the perfume, techno and ecstasy was 90s clubland

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tinyfron@reddit

Smoke, hairspray and chip pans

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BigBunneh@reddit

Late 80s I remember a lot of girls wore Poison perfume, and breath on a night out smelled of Malibu. Luckily I was the part of Gen X that were hit hard at school with the no smoking message, so none of my mates smoked, but nights out at uni invariably meant dumping the clothes in the wash when you got in as they stank of cigarette smoke.

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catsaregreat78@reddit

It was a reason not to wear a jacket for going out as it was too hard to wash.

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ComprehensiveAd8815@reddit

Regal king size or benson and hedges. You couldn’t smell anything else as everything and everywhere just stank of fag smoke.

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Delicious-Cut-7911@reddit

I never smelt cigarette smoke because we were all nose blind. In the 60's I was a child and old people homes smelt of lavender polish, brass polish. Smoke from coal fires. Brylcreme on men's hair. Hairspray, perm solutions. Tweed perfume, brut aftershave, lynx. Talcum powder . People were clean and washed themselves properly. Bath night was Friday night in the 60's. Showers did not appear until 80's in many houses.

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Soppydogg@reddit

Patchouli Oil, Old Spice, Brylcream & the great smell of Brut (splash it all over) Showers were not common, bri-nylon was, so mix in body odour & cigarette smoke and you have recreated an era.

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Hour_Basket7956@reddit

Brut, Jean Nate, Aquanet and cigs.

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PowerApp101@reddit

Old Spice, splash it all over

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I_am_John_Mac@reddit

While we laugh about it in the UK, the Old Spice brand is still massive in the US. It has reinvented a few times and it is prominent in men’s deodorant isles in the supermarket. Over here we only seem to associate it with late 70s/early 80s, alongside Brut

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ZachMatthews@reddit

They had a great ad campaign a few years ago. I am 44 and have used Old Spice all my life. The little aftershave bottles seem to be gone though.

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CentralSaltServices@reddit

My dad was partial to Hai Karate

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Cleveland_Grackle@reddit

Can't stand the smell of Old Spice, however I love the snell of Brut.

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ollieballz@reddit

Cigarettes, leather and Brut

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No-Ice6949@reddit

Brut, Old Spice and for the ladies, Charlie.

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Caledonia_68@reddit

When I was little in the 70s and my parents weregoing out my mum would always come in to my room to say goodnight before they went. She always wore Tweed perfume and the smell would transfer to my covers.

She's been gone almost 5 years now, but I found an old bottle at my dad's recently and that smell took me right back to when I was 7 years old again

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Terrible-Group-9602@reddit

Most people did stink of fags, as did pubs, restaurants, cars, incredible to think about now

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mEmotep@reddit

Fags

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Embarrassed_Web5182@reddit

Charlie perfume

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namenotprovided@reddit

Lynx Oriental

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Nara74@reddit

Vosene, Imperial Leather soap, Impulse body spray, Old Spice aftershave or Kouros if you were a younger chap, Lulu perfume or L'Air du Temps, Nivea blue tin hand cream, and of course cigarettes.

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Interesting-Tone-183@reddit

Tweed perfume

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WanderingRice@reddit

Slightly off topic, but I once met a woman who was celebrating her 100th birthday and she reminisced about her childhood for a while. One of the things that struck me was how she described how things used to smell - before cars or planes were common, the smell of horses and the streetlamps. It's just strange to think that you can't replicate that smell, and once that generation has died off, those memories are just gone.

I was born in the 80s and I agree that cigarette smoke was prominent! And hairspray. The smell of incense or CK One can transport back to my bedroom in the 90s.

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Violet351@reddit

Mid 80s uk either the body shop’s white musk or their Dewberry. Later 80s poison

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FletchLives99@reddit

Well, in the 90s, we smelled like teen spirit...

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surreyade@reddit

My granddad and great uncles always smelled of brylcreem.

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BugAdministrative683@reddit

In the 80s I remember my great grandparent's house (born 1900's decade) house smelling of boiled cabbage and coal fires.

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No_Promotion_65@reddit

Cigarettes mostly

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MMH1111@reddit

Brylcreem, fags, hairspray in the late 50s/ early 60s. Lots of hairspray...

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SLIMaxPower@reddit

old people smell

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mr-seamus@reddit

patchouli, coal fires and fags.

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ChinaPlate-Mate@reddit

Brings back memories!

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doloresfandango@reddit

Oh I can smell my childhood home.

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No_Bodybuilder_3073@reddit

Lavender, old spice and oil of ulay

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Cleveland_Grackle@reddit

*Oil of Olay as it was...

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jaynoj@reddit

Ulay mate, Ulay.

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pullingteeths@reddit

Other way around, it was Ulay then but Olay now

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Training_Chip267@reddit

It's Olay now, isn't it?

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National_Actuary_666@reddit

1970s = pipe tobacco which smelled like ice cream. Quite nice.

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doloresfandango@reddit

Avon perfumes.

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Hamking7@reddit

Men smelt of leather, st bruno pipe tobacco and ford capris. Women smelt of hairspray.

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non-hyphenated_@reddit

Jazz mostly

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EmFan1999@reddit

My granddad smelled of coal fires and engine oil. The other one smelled of fags

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Bum-Sniffer@reddit

Old Spice!

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Talentless67@reddit

Old spice, brut 33 and brylcreem

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MelodicAd2213@reddit

Impulse body spray, popular ones in the 80s were Chic, Impressions and On Fire

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EdmundTheInsulter@reddit

Hai Karate aftershave

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elreydelespana@reddit

Brut.

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AnTeallach1062@reddit

Like a tart's window box

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Snout_Fever@reddit

From my memory of the 70s and 80s, it was mostly cigarettes, with added layers of perfumes and colognes which would probably be classed as chemical weapons these days due to having to strong enough to overpower everything else smelling of cigarettes.

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No-Agent3916@reddit

Brut

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Unable_Obligation_73@reddit

Brut for men or Old Spice

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Ok-Bowl-6366@reddit

in the 80s -- like cigarettes, cheap cologne, and air pollution

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Mountain_Flamingo759@reddit

Hai karate, bryicream and old spice.

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MolassesInevitable53@reddit

80s Paco Rabanne and Rive Gauche

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Ruff_Magician@reddit

YSL Kouros

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RevolutionaryPace167@reddit

My favourite perfume too

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RevolutionaryPace167@reddit

YSL my perfume a Boots cucumber facail products. Baby oil

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Electrical-Ad-6161@reddit

Avon made products that smelled exactly like yellow honeysuckle. I loved it.

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alamoman4sure@reddit

60s and 70s smelled like a lot of bush..

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Aspirational1@reddit

Paco Roban was everywhere on men.

Patchouli had me walking 2m behind women in the hope of diluting that smell.

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HeriotAbernethy@reddit

Yeah, fag and pipe smoke. A lot of my female rellies wore Ma Griffe perfume. Kids smelled of fresh air and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo.

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Fabulous-Wolf-4401@reddit

my god, I thought it was only me who remembered Ma Griffe! (that was my mum's perfume) I've still got some. How interesting, I thought it was so exotic-sounding!

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WoodElfWitch@reddit

Cigarette smoke is a definite for what I remember of the 80s. I once bought a deodorant from Donna Karan and it had the exact smell of the mums at my primary school - I attended from 1987/1988 until 1995. It was called Cashmere Mist.

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Mossy-Mori@reddit

Cigarettes, hairspray, sandalwood / musky / spicy cologne, extremely floral perfume, chip pans, but mostly cigarettes because literally at least one person in every single household and/or workplace smoked. For context, I just came back from a weekend at my dad's, who still smokes indoors. I washed my entire suitcase, even stuff I didn't wear. I'm also an ex smoker. It's fucking gross. No amount of perfume or opening windows or closing doors masks that stench. The whole world constantly reeked.

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