What tastes, sounds and smells do you miss from yesteryear?

How did that post half way through?!

Californian Poppy was a fragrance from my youth, as was Apple Blossom - would I find them too sickly now?

At Christmas we were allowed a Babycham or a Snowball to drink.

I loved the dark wooden counters at Woolworths with the little partitions between the separate items.

Downstairs at the Nottingham Co-Op there was a 1950s style milk parlour and I loved a Knickerbocker Glory. Also the little booths where you could listen to the latest pop records.

I simply miss 'taste' nothing is the same now.

My gran always had Imperial Leather soap in the bathroom, and every time I smell it somewhere it immediately reminds me of her.

I lived in a brewery town years later. A bit like the Macintosh factory, you could tell from the smell what part of the process they were at! Yeasty.

Apple Blossom perfume by Helena Rubenstein.

The sound of a manual lawn mower.

Instant Whip.

Papermonster I was going to say exactly the same thing - the smell of what I think was coal tar soap in my grandparents' bathroom.

My granddad used to bring me chocolate covered honeycomb on a stick wrapped in polka dot waxed paper

The smell of fresh bread. We had a local bakery near where we lived and the smell sometimes filled the air in the morning. Then we bought its produce at the local grocers shop,it smelled (and tasted) delicious. Bread doesn't smell (or taste) Like that any more.

An odd one, but the smell of rain on dry roads after a long hot spell.

Isn't that rain smell called petrichor?

GagaJo

Isn't that rain smell called petrichor?

Is it?

Ah, I've looked it up, but it applies more to rain on vegetation covered ground. I'm thinking of the smell when light rain hits a very hot road... I wouldn't call it pleasant, t's just somehow reminiscent of childhood.

The other day, at a bridal shower, I ate a small almond cake. The taste transported me back to my childhood, as our mom used to make all our birthday cakes and she always put almond extract in the frosting. DELICIOUS.

felice

4711 Cologne, last year when DGS and I were out walking an elderly lady smelt nice as she walked past.
DGS said she smelt nice, she heard him and smiled saying 4711.

4711 was my gran’s answer for anyone not well. It came in hard form like a round stick as well as in cologne in a lovely bottle. We use to buy it for her and we liked it too. For perfume at home where money was short there was Evening in Paris or my mother talked about California Poppy from Woolworth’s.
Then we moved upmarket to Primitive and Mugaet (my favourite and probably spelt it wrong).

Estee Lauder 'Youth Dew' is a perfume I can't stand, primarily because it's so strong and musky but also because it reminds me of when I was engaged at the age of 18.
My then fiance's mother gave me a bottle of it one Christmas, which was nice of her, but she disapproved of me marrying her son (quite rightly as it turned out, we broke up six months after that, thank goodness) so I was always a bit anxious around her and just a sniff of it can make me feel anxious all over again.

I remember my mum buying me Hartnell "In Love" talc in a pink plastic heart and also a tin of talc in a bright green and yellow tin. I wish I could remember who made it as I really liked it

PaperMonster

Greyduster I really should buy some! (Coal tar soap!)

It’s really good for mild psoriasis.

I also loved the smell of tar, and poking a stick into melting puddles of it at the edge of the road.
The aroma from men’s pipe smoking or cigars.
Hearing men whistle as they worked ?and women singing as they did the housework.
Potted meat ( as others say) bought from the butcher, also beef dripping .
Crisps with little blue twists of paper containing salt, and scraps from the fish and chip shop.
Lily of the valley bath cubes.

The sticky fudgy caramel sauce that was served to go with the ice-cream at school.
Biting into the Mars bar when the chocolate was a 1/4 inch thick and had a generous layer of caramel.
Two missing molars. ?

The smell of a grocers shop. That mix of cheese, bacon, biscuits, lose in a box, and all the other things they sold that contributed to that unique aroma.

Mitsouko scent, my late mother’s favourite.
I still keep an empty bottle in my tights drawer, but the smell is fading now.

Caprice and Sea Jade perfume by Yardley. My first perfumes. Also Kiku and Aqua Manda

The smell of tomatoes growing in my granddads greenhouse.

They also had Pears soap which I still use although it doesn't seem to smell as strong as it used to do

GrandmaRosie

Aqua Manda - anyone else remember it?

Yes, me. I didn't realise this had been posted. I smelled of oranges. I think they brought it back a few years ago but I haven't seen it recently.

Morny Sandalwood. My grandmother used it.

Wild mushrooms picked fresh from a local field and then fried in butter over an open fire by my mum.

I don't think I have actually 'missed' any tastes, sounds or smells until I have unexpectedly encountered them again.
Sadly, when that happens, it's as often unhappy memories that are evoked as happy ones.

This happened yesterday when walking past an old primary school in a place that I have never visited before. There was something in the sounds from the playground that brought back very unpleasant memories of my first infant school, and actually made me feel quite upset!

The smell of warm, newly-mown grass always brings back good memories though ?

GrandmaRosie

Aqua Manda - anyone else remember it?

Yes I remember it.. there was a citrus version too I think.

Bellanonna

Does anyone remember ZamBuk?

It’s still available

Sunday morning when I was a kid. We’d all pitch in to prepare the sunday lunch and then we’d have a late breakfast of bacon and eggs whilst listening to one of the great radio comedies of the day - The Navy Lark, Hancock’s Half Hour or Round the Horn. I’m also instantly transported back to my childhood by the theme to The Archers, as my mum was an avid follower of that and Mrs Dale’s Diary. And yes, GrandmaRosie, I do remember Aqua Manda - although I can’t recall the smell exactly, but I remember the bright packaging.