Gee, Your Museum Smells Terrific
Michelle Newman 0:00
I honestly feel like I have to take to my bed because of the whole scrunch spray, scrunch spray thing. So I might just have to down, exit the tour for just a hot second and go take to the bed and have a little lay down and try to wrap my head around it was always called scrunch spray. Yeah, hello world. Is a song that was World is a song that we're singing. Come on, get
Carolyn Cochrane 0:28
happy. A whole lot of love is what we'll be bringing we'll make you happy. Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who know that sweet honesty isn't a term of endearment for telling the
Kristin Nilsen 0:46
truth, we believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition,
Michelle Newman 0:58
and today We're saving the hundreds of distinct aromas from our generation by putting them all in a museum exhibit of olfactory delight. I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristin, and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists. Today's episode isn't just about memories, it's about smells, which actually could be the same thing, right? Those unforgettable aromas that whooshker Dude, I have to learn how to say that new word, those unforgettable aromas, yeah, those unforgettable aromas that whooshger Dude, you right back to your canopy, bedded bedroom, love or carpeted bathroom gross or even your beige institutional elementary school classroom. We're talking about everything from the perfumes and shampoos and perm solutions to the school supplies and toys and all those mall stores you're whooshed back into every time you smell heated plastic, as you so often do. These are the smells that anchored our generation, right?
Kristin Nilsen 2:10
And it and it's not something that you think about very often. When you think about your memories, you think about people and experiences and things that happen. But they're these are like micro experiences. The smells in your life are like micro experiences, and when you revisit them, just like you said,
Carolyn Cochrane 2:28
Dude, I have to have a sound effect for them. Yes, right to find one.
Michelle Newman 2:33
And I can't say whooshger, dude, without doing it like that, I would say, I would bet that about 50% of what we post on social media elicits a comment from someone of I can smell this
Kristin Nilsen 2:44
post, yes, yes, right?
Michelle Newman 2:47
Yeah. A few weeks ago, we actually asked our social media friends to share smells distinct to our generation and holy smell did they deliver? We had over 1000 comments across our social media platforms. Oh, my God, we read every one of them.
Carolyn Cochrane 3:07
Wow, indeed, we did.
Kristin Nilsen 3:11
How did that take you guys?
Carolyn Cochrane 3:13
Oh, it went by so yeah.
Kristin Nilsen 3:16
So fast scrolling along. The fact that we got that many comments is testament to the fact that the smells of our childhood are important to people, and they have so many memories. And again, I always want to compare. I always want to compare and contrast. Like if I asked Liam, what would his smell memory be?
Michelle Newman 3:34
I don't know. That's a great idea. Everyone ask your kids, ask her, because if you live
Kristin Nilsen 3:38
in, if you live in a more analog world, you have more tangible things that would emit smells where we live in a digital world, maybe not as true, not as much. Yeah, I'm just curious. Or what would our parents say? The same way? What would our parents say?
Michelle Newman 3:51
Also, yes and also, isn't it sad that our kids who didn't grow up in this analog world as much as we did, don't have a lot of these smells that we're about to list. Yeah, right,
Carolyn Cochrane 4:03
and what I loved when we were reading them. We won't get to share all of them in today's episode, but some people's were very specific to their life and their people in their family, or a specific situation that happened. And they were so descriptive in how they wrote about them, that even though I might not know what that smell was myself, I'd never experienced it personally. I felt it in what they were writing. Well, what, what
Michelle Newman 4:31
to do with all of these incredible olfactory memories? Well, don't worry, because today, we are officially opening the pop culture Preservation Society, Museum of Gen X memories, where we'll be adding exhibits every season or so. You guys look. I'm actually holding a giant pair of scissors. Those are the biggest pair of
Carolyn Cochrane 4:52
scissors I have ever seen.
Kristin Nilsen 4:55
Welcome to the ribbon cutting.
Michelle Newman 4:57
I'm ready to cut the ribbon because of. Our first exhibit, scratch and sniff smells like Gen X is opening today.
Michelle Newman 5:12
I want to describe to y'all how this episode is going to go, Carolyn and I will be your enthusiastic docents, and today, Kristin and all of you listening are our first museum guests. You have your admission ticket?
Kristin Nilsen 5:27
Kristen, yeah, I have, I have one of those little metal buttons that you put on and you bend it over onto your collar of your shirt. Yeah, that's how you know I'm part of the tour.
Michelle Newman 5:39
It has our flower on it. On the yes, it's round.
Kristin Nilsen 5:41
It has our logo, and you just bend over the little tabs. It also
Carolyn Cochrane 5:45
has a big shows on it for this thing, flower with the nose.
Michelle Newman 5:49
You know what we should hand you? We should be handing out a little jar of coffee beans so you can cleanse your your Yep. And let's begin our tour.
Carolyn Cochrane 6:00
Okay, eyes on me, Kristin, because I am going, we're walking okay? I am going to be leading you into our first part of the exhibit. We are going to start in the home wing. Okay? As we cross the threshold here, Kristin, into this curated Gen X home, you'll immediately notice that you're hit with a very specific cocktail of aromas, not like one cent, really more of like a situation that's going on. Okay? It's kind of a combination of lemon pledge cigarette smoke and whatever teeny dinner is heating up in the kitchen,
Kristin Nilsen 6:37
Salisbury steaks. You Jinx.
Michelle Newman 6:43
You got gravy, that gravy smell, that smells like gravy,
Carolyn Cochrane 6:48
but we knew you were coming, so you might also catch a whisper of potpourri scent. But it's not actually potpourri. It's that aerosol kind from the can that lived under your sink, and it said things like country garden or autumn spice, even though it is January right now.
Kristin Nilsen 7:04
Yeah, Country Garden. Everything was country, and sometimes it would be pink.
Carolyn Cochrane 7:09
It's the furthest thing from, you know, real potpourri. Let's just say, Well, I'd like you to follow me here to our left, because this is our den. Okay? I want you to notice that the furniture is very sturdy. It's very brown, and it's really chosen less for comfort and more for longevity, because this furniture has been around a while, I was gonna say for scratchiness. Yeah. And that too, our walls are paneled with a shade of brown. Kind of best can be described as colonial. That's the only way I want to describe this kind of brownial Brown. Yes. And you notice, you might notice the shag carpet covering the floor, and I have to tell you, that is a very important part of this exhibit, because it really helps to seal in the aromas that are washing through
Kristin Nilsen 7:53
this the shag carpet holds on to the smoke. Yes, and the color of our shag carpet, the color was the same as like, army men. That's what color our shag was.
Michelle Newman 8:04
Ours was that color, plus the color of Carolyn's sweater she's wearing currently, Orange. It was, like an orange, a harvest gold, yeah, ours was, try, like, every little thread was a
Kristin Nilsen 8:16
different and it held on to smoke. Like, Yeah,
Carolyn Cochrane 8:20
no kidding. Gosh, ours. You guys, the house that we bought that I remember the shag carpeting from was a spec home, so everything was like, already chosen, but no one had lived in it. And I do believe I remember my mom saying we kind of got a deal on it, because the carpet was so it was kind of lime ish green, not like fluorescent lime, but like kind of a light lime, ish green with white, like speckles in it. So ugly, basically. So I will always remember that they're aroma catchers. That's right, right? And those aroma catchers were catching things like the smell of real newspaper that ink and paper folded and refolded, you know, sections on the coffee table, which just helped elevate that scent throughout the room as we're folding and, you know, flipping through the pages, it kind of smells like slightly metallic and kind of weirdly sour, but it's a distinct smell. I think we could all
Kristin Nilsen 9:17
agree on pulp, pulp, the smell of pulp?
Carolyn Cochrane 9:21
Sure. Yeah. Kristen is going to be that kind of person on the field trip, you know, or on the tour that thinks she knows more than the docents and the tour guide. She's going to be like, you know,
Kristin Nilsen 9:31
okay, like, my I have a friend who says, you know, get pears from apple trees. And my mom is that person on the tour that is going to, like, raise her hand. I'm always like, put your hand down. Seriously. Oh, my God, any question. And then she always stays after too. She stays after.
Carolyn Cochrane 9:48
Yes, well, you can stay after, but you didn't pay the extra admission fee that you could have gotten the bonus parts Kristen, so I don't have an extra tab on that extra tab, the special people. I. On top of that newsprint smell, you also might get that smell of magazines that was kind of a little bit of a different smell. And those are also sitting on our coffee table. Maybe it's National Geographic or good housekeeping or Newsweek, and I can tell you on my coffee table which was one of those colonial shades of brown, it was a pine table, lemon pledge, liquid gold, all of that stuff on it, so things stuck to it, and so you pick up the Good Housekeeping. But you know, I don't know Doris day's face would still be stuck like on there, because it didn't come up. Oh well, right next to our magazines and newspapers and whatever else is collected on the coffee table. I want you to notice the ashtray. The heavy glass, possibly Amber, possibly ceramic that we made in elementary school, in
Kristin Nilsen 10:52
Sunday school, or something. Make your ashtray in church.
Michelle Newman 10:56
Happy Jesus like an ash receptacle.
Carolyn Cochrane 11:00
Okay? And an ashtray has such a distinct smell like cold cigarette smoke and burnt paper, and even when no one is smoking and have maybe even haven't smoked for days, that ashtray is still very much participating in the game here. And if you were lucky, like I was, you would be asked to empty and wash the ash. Praise on occasion, I'm so sorry. I can still smell that wet ash scent, and it still makes me gag. Oh, ish. Oh, my God, yes, I
Michelle Newman 11:34
know I didn't have my I didn't ever live with smokers. I think I've told you, my stepfather smoked a pipe when we lived with him, but my mom, like, never smoked cigarettes. Kristen, did your parents smoke?
Kristin Nilsen 11:46
No, my dad did smoke a pipe, but that was Yeah. And now he's smoking again, and he's, like, lighting up in the kitchen and stuff. I'm like, No, not in the kitchen. Don't do that. Oh, geez, I know.
Carolyn Cochrane 11:55
Well, interestingly enough, in our den, you will see over there, there's a pipe rack, because we do have a pipe smoker in this house as well. Okay, and it's kind of a sweeter, kind of almost a cherry note that you might Yes, detect robust. It's very robust. Something vaguely colonial about it too.
Kristin Nilsen 12:15
It was not ashy, yeah, pipe smoke. I don't hate it because still there are notes of something. And they would choose different ones. Like choosing the tobacco was a big deal. I would go with my dad to the tobacco shop, and that's how you bought it. You would smell it, and they'd put it in a little bag, like a little zip lock, and you'd stick your face in it and smell it. And they
Carolyn Cochrane 12:35
had, like, big jars of it that they'd like put on the counter so they could smell out and decide which ones that's crazy. And we have a story in our family, because I've shared before how awful it was that we went to school as little kids, and they told us how awful smoking was. And then I went home to parents that smoked, and so I, you know, once flushed them down the toilet or whatever, and got in big trouble. And so I asked Andy if he ever did anything like that, and he said, much like you guys, his parents didn't smoke, but his dad smoked a pipe. And one day, kind of after one of those lessons, he took the whole pipe rack and everything, and he threw into the
Kristin Nilsen 13:11
fireplace. That's
Michelle Newman 13:17
expensive, too. Yeah, it wasn't about pipe smoking? Because, like, think about it today. How seriously would it be if we just saw a person smoking up smoking
Kristin Nilsen 13:27
a pipe? I know we never thought that was like a thing of the 70s. We never identify it as a timely thing. But when did it stop? When did they stop smoking?
Carolyn Cochrane 13:40
Would get it started. Sorry. My dad would be sticking
Michelle Newman 13:49
No, I just remember, if you're watching this on YouTube, we're doing it, tap it down, and he'd go. But then, did your dad do this. John would talk to us with it just hanging out the corner of his mouth. And he had, you know, the kind that didn't stick straight out, but kind of went down. It goes down, yeah, and so it'd be out of the corner of his mouth, or I can still hear, like, the Smacky sound it made like, when, oh, thing that goes in your mouth, like the
Carolyn Cochrane 14:18
and they sound like, tap it to get this stuff out. And if you had like, the little pipe rack, there were different kinds of pipes, like, and there was, like the Sherlock Holmes
Michelle Newman 14:32
cherry wood. Yes, it's weird.
Kristin Nilsen 14:35
It was a big deal. It's okay. I have to tell you, there was one time in college where, you know, when you're at a party and you've got your eye on somebody, and then the whole goal is to, like, go someplace with that person. And so, you know, my all my dreams came true when this person that I had had my eye on for a really long time, I went back to his room. And so we're just, you know, sitting around in the dorm room, and you know what that you're like, God, what's gonna happen? You don't. Yeah, you're just waiting for something to happen. So awkward. Yes, it's so awkward. It's so, so awkward. And he pulls out a pipe. This is in 1986 he's 18 years old. He pulled out a pipe, and he starts doing up, and he's lighting it, you guys, so he's smoking a pipe, and then the most emasculating thing ever happened. He's smoking the pipe, and he starts. He talks to me with the pipe in his mouth, and the pipe fell out of his mouth and it tumbled down his chest, spilling ash.
Kristin Nilsen 15:34
Yeah, it was hot and it was embarrassing. And the date was over.
Carolyn Cochrane 15:39
He lined it out of there. I did. I
Kristin Nilsen 15:41
felt you guys, I wasn't. I felt bad. I was just so embarrassed for him. We were both embarrassed. It was not a good moment.
Carolyn Cochrane 15:49
And think, I mean, a pipe was only gonna lead to embarrassment, even if it doesn't go tumbling down your tummy. And I didn't
Kristin Nilsen 15:55
understand why he was why he thought that was making him cool. Maybe he thought it was avant garde, like he thought he was being artistic or Gothic. I don't know, Gothic goth, whatever. Anyway, I'm clearly not a goth. I don't know. Or maybe he was just being, like a creative like, maybe he was an English Lit major. But either way, it was just a moment where I just felt so bad. I'm like, I gotta go.
Carolyn Cochrane 16:19
Did he smoke pipes in high school,
Kristin Nilsen 16:21
like, did he ever there's no way. There's no way. I think he went to a thrift store and found it and thought it would be cool.
Michelle Newman 16:31
Strikes one, two and three would have all been combined when he pulled the pipe out.
Carolyn Cochrane 16:39
Where's this going? Oh my gosh, that was so funny. I feel like anything I'm gonna say now is gonna be just not fun. But finally, I want you to see if you notice something. I want you to listen very closely before we leave the den. You might hear this like soft electrical hum, because that's the television warming up. I just turned it on and remember, you didn't just have to turn it on, it prepared itself like there was, yeah, the Hama, and then there was also kind of a distinct scent of kind of burning dust and heat that came out of
Kristin Nilsen 17:10
that, yeah, yeah, that TV, and there was a.in the middle of the TV. And when you turned it off, the dot would get smaller and smaller, and I remain putting my finger on it, yeah, and you just stay there and wait till the whole dot disappears.
Carolyn Cochrane 17:25
Let's just take a moment. There's no social media for us. No one's on there. Like viral thing to do, stick your finger in the middle of the TV on the dot magazine article. It's not a dynamite you're not learning in school. How did we all do that?
Michelle Newman 17:40
What made us put our finger on that.it
Kristin Nilsen 17:43
was beautiful. It was multi colored, scopic, but still, somehow it was multi colored. It was all the colors. It was like, put my finger on it. It was like watching it was like watching a shooting star, you're like, it's going, Oh,
Michelle Newman 18:03
it's finally gone. TV,
Carolyn Cochrane 18:07
okay, Kristen, please follow me into the kitchen, because that's an exciting part of our exhibit, okay, but please watch your step. Okay, because the linoleum floor, it's cold, and it's also sticky, and I don't want you to fall and it's pebbly. It's kind of, oh yeah, it's kind of pebbly. It's all those things. And sometimes there's like seams that kind of start to roll up that you could trip over. So you really have to be careful in this kitchen. And really, when you come in here, you might even recognize this kitchen because it might have been one that you visited at your friend's house or at your own house, because it has lots of yellow and avocado coloring. Now at Kristen, I want you to inhale, okay, because the kitchen, it's full of layers of smells, kind of the underlying smell in this kitchen, there's just coffee. There's no coffee out there, just it smells a
Unknown Speaker 18:55
little bit coffee,
Carolyn Cochrane 18:57
yes, and then whatever is cooking for dinner. So we said maybe the stouffers TV dinner was heating up, or it could be some Swansons, or Swanson.
Kristin Nilsen 19:07
It could be, if the babysitter is coming, it could be SpaghettiOs. That's a good smell. I want spaghetti
Carolyn Cochrane 19:13
distinct smell that red sauce and SpaghettiOs. Yep. Okay, Kristen, here's a little interactive part of our exhibit. Okay, I'm gonna hand you this can of country time lemonade, and I want you to take it and want you to open it. Okay, now, Kristen, you probably smell that fake lemon scent, and there's that neon yellow color of the powder, but yet, there's that cloud that kind of comes up when you open it, that appears magically above the can of country time,
Kristin Nilsen 19:41
and it sort of engulfs me. It smells a little like lemon pledge. It makes you
Michelle Newman 19:46
want some lemon. It gets stuck at the back of your nose 100% of the time. You have to if you don't cough, you at least go
Kristin Nilsen 19:54
your lemonade should not make you cough like that. Seems wrong to me.
Michelle Newman 19:58
It's probably just a cloud of Carson.
Carolyn Cochrane 20:01
Jens, imagine all the carcinogens we have been into our bodies, between the aerosol cans and weird powders, and who knows what was popping. I think there was stuff coming out of our back of our TV when that popping salad was coming.
Kristin Nilsen 20:16
This is the same as like, you know, the pow kool aid would come in little packets, and you would choose what color you want, and when you ripped open that package, it was, it was the same as the country time canister on a smaller level, or the gel, like, yes and you're like, blue. Yeah. Smells blue.
Carolyn Cochrane 20:33
And another artificial scent that they wanted us to think was real would be when we would pop Jiffy Pop popcorn on the stove. Okay? There was like this fake buttery smell, and then if you went a little too far, then it burned. It gives you got the Jiffy Pop burnt smell that permeated the house for a while. Well, before we leave for the kitchen, Kristen, I want you to notice right there on the counter, it's mom's purse. Okay, I'm gonna grab it. I want you to take a whiff of Mom's Purse. Ah, it's a mixture. Can you smell it? A dentine of Pinaka, breath spray, wiggly gum, lot of gum, lots of gum. And as one of our benefactors, Katie, as she so aptly described, that aroma that's in a mother's purse, especially at the bottom the tobacco and the mint purse dirt, and oh my gosh, when she wrote that, I said, I am in charge of that exhibit purse dirt, my mom would give her dessert that were at the bottom of her purse, how it fell out of the wrapper or was never even in the shake it off, yes, with the sparkles, and then there would always be Kleenex in my mom's purse, but like free range cream. Yes, it's chrome, chrome, and so if I needed a Kleenex, you know, she'd hand me one of those full of purse stir that I would stick right to my nose to wipe my nose so I inhale the Purser. Yeah, it lives in me. So when Katie had that so perfect name for this aroma, I was like, yes.
Kristin Nilsen 22:09
And when you named all of those smells, I there's one that I have to layer on top of it, because all of those smells are wrapped in the aroma of leather. Oh yes, it's there's a tinge of leather in the mint. There's a tinge of leather in the juicy fruit, just a little leather
Michelle Newman 22:26
well, and especially, like my mom never chewed gum. She thought it was horrible. And I'm a I was huge gum chewer, as you guys know, by my gum Parker that I still own, but my mom hated chewing gum, and so she didn't have this. But I as I got older, this happened to me with Purser. My mom always had bananaca breath spray and certs. But I want to ask you guys this, if your parents, if your moms, did take gum, so like Wrigley, spearmint, big red, whatever. That's the long, you know, they didn't have the little, tiny pieces the long flap, but you'd rip it in half that. I don't know about you guys, but yes, my mom did have gum. She would never give me a full piece that's too much gum, but you rip it in half. Well, now this the other half that's at the bottom of your purse often comes out of its little foil wrapper. So then, when you get if I dig in my mom's purse or my own, my half a piece of Wrigley's would be covered in purse dirt, and I'd eat it.
Kristin Nilsen 23:19
It's free range. It's free range gum in there. And sometimes, if you found the half piece and it was still wrapped, like, the ends would be undone, and it would be a little dusty. There would be like, there's pursed on it, and gum dust on the outside. And my mom would give it to me, and remember,
Michelle Newman 23:34
sometimes I could have been in there a while that that half piece, the foil would have worn off a little bit. So it wouldn't be a shiny silver anymore,
Carolyn Cochrane 23:42
and it would sometimes just crumble in your mouth, depending on how long that's old, break into
Kristin Nilsen 23:48
old comperse dirt. Exactly, why mom can't I have a whole piece of gum. What's the deal? I think
Carolyn Cochrane 24:00
it went long.
Kristin Nilsen 24:02
It might be lasting. Well, it's two cents for a whole piece, but it's one cent for a
Carolyn Cochrane 24:07
high piece. And you have a sibling. So we all had a sibling. So it was like, rip it and half. One piece for you, one piece for your brother.
Michelle Newman 24:14
For my mom. It was more like, if you chew the amount of gum that's in a whole piece of gum, you're gonna look like a giant, like, you know, cow, you have to look like a cow. You have a little tiny, yeah. When I was old enough to buy my own gum, I would shove, like, four pieces of gum in my mouth, because I could
Carolyn Cochrane 24:33
well, that poor gum chewer holder thing, or whatever it's called the
Kristin Nilsen 24:36
gum burger, yeah. Can we talk about, um, can we talk about big red for a minute too? Because that was an overpower. That was the smell of all smells. And I think I told you this in a recent episode, I recently went out and bought Big Red just to smell it. I had no intention of chewing it. I just wanted to get that smell again, leather and Big Red.
Michelle Newman 24:56
Yeah, love it. I think the biggest gum smells for me, because. Like, I said, I'm kind of a gum connoisseur. Big Red, for sure, fruit stripe will take me right back. Oh, that was, like, yeah, a really strong bubble gum, and it's not Bubble Yum, because, to me, Bubble Yum was, or bubbleicious was always a little bit of a fake bubble gum. But, like, that's nothing, double bubble, like in the, you know, daddy, bub daddy. Double Bubble the yellow, yeah, like, as much bazooka also had that bubble gum. Yeah, the number one Bubble gum, bubble gum taste for me would be double bubble bubble gum. And it's like, in a little yellow, and it's twist, you know, like wrap. It's twisted so it's a little, it's not even a round, like sphere shape. It almost is kind of square on the ends, and then the little twists on the end, you know, are blue, and you have to unwrap it. And if you can get, if you can find yourself a soft piece of double bubble bubble gum in 2026 please let me know where, and ship me a whole bunch. That to me, it's you're gonna get five minutes, and I'm spitting out your house. Chew it for five minutes and spit it out.
Kristin Nilsen 26:01
Yeah? So what is the one in the stick? Is Bob daddy the stick, the big stick, take a bite off. Yeah?
Michelle Newman 26:09
I know what you're talking about. It's almost like a living rope,
Kristin Nilsen 26:12
like, Yeah, and you unpeel it over top and you take a bite off.
Michelle Newman 26:15
Yeah, that's good.
Carolyn Cochrane 26:16
Okay, Kristen, I am now gonna hand you off to Michelle, who's going to lead you into the next part of our exhibit.
Michelle Newman 26:22
Oh, fun. Okay, good, okay, perfect. All right. Follow me, Kristin and everyone. Yeah, we're going into the family bathroom where the toilet, the sink and the tub all match, because in the 70s, plumbing was a lifestyle choice. Now the wallpaper is doing a lot with its patterns. Somewhere in there is a hidden face.
Kristin Nilsen 26:43
Oh, God,
Carolyn Cochrane 26:45
or for it, I went, you guys, I would do that when I was sitting on the toilet for a little bit longer than, you know, average for the faces that looks like my dad. I mean, I would actually try to find like, who they look like. So I can totally relate to that.
Michelle Newman 27:04
Yeah, well, the shag bath mat is it's thick enough to lose a small pet, and it never fully dries, no matter how long it's been hanging over the tub
Carolyn Cochrane 27:13
and toenail clippings, though, I know, sorry, maybe not everybody.
Michelle Newman 27:21
Now I present you with a whole long list of mostly just hair products that our listeners provided us. But I want to start out with a few that really, really, who screwed you me, and the number one for me, I think, would be Aussie scrunch spray. Did you guys use Aussie scrunch spray and the purple, isn't it?
Kristin Nilsen 27:41
Sprunch spray with us. It's, I swear to God, we called it sprunch Spring.
Michelle Newman 27:47
Well, you were wrong. It's scratch spray. And if you want something, if you're at Walgreens or somewhere, open a bottle and take a whiff. It's that grape smell. And you guys, I think my hands are still sticky from scrunching my hair and trying to make it look like I had next scent a perm. Do you guys remember the smell of the home perm solution spray
Kristin Nilsen 28:11
I just put in? Sorry, you're like in the middle of a sentence? Yeah, it's brunch spray. I'll send it to you. Aussie scrunch spray. Sprunch spray. Yes, brunch spray, uh huh. Send it, wow. Okay, my whole dorm
Carolyn Cochrane 28:26
room smelled like Aussie springs. I hated that smell, believe it or not, I did. I loved
Kristin Nilsen 28:30
that smell.
Michelle Newman 28:31
Wait, I am seeing some that say, scrunch spray, that look like the one I'm thinking of. Oh, my God. I have never in my whole life.
Kristin Nilsen 28:42
Well, because scrunch makes a lot more sense. I mean, let's be honest,
Carolyn Cochrane 28:46
because it's a play on spray and scrunch and scratch.
Michelle Newman 28:50
Really, you guys, do you think this is possible, that it's one of those things that you just see the way you think it's supposed to be? Oh, totally possible. Yes, it was Aussie scrunch spray. I just pulled up an image of one I put in Aussie scrunch spray, 1980s and the can that looks familiar to me, if I zoom in on it, it has a P My mind is welcome. Welcome to Aussie scrunch spray. Up is down and down is up and and everybody smokes and nothing is real
Carolyn Cochrane 29:20
because you were scrunching your hair like that
Kristin Nilsen 29:23
was the whole Yeah. This was the era of scrunching, yes, literally, my dog, everybody, and every woman walking in the hallway smelled like grapes. Yeah.
Michelle Newman 29:32
It's great, yeah. And then the shampoo of choice in our house we went through like lots of different but I will the smell of agree, shampoo, and the green bottle is so delightful, and I love it. But here are some others, not just some others, a long list of others that our listeners gave us salon select hairspray or mousse. Gee, Your hair smells terrific. Of course, you can have it. Such a great bottle,
Carolyn Cochrane 29:57
yes. And then the font, yes. It
Michelle Newman 30:01
and the colors and the colors, yeah, it's so good. Aqua net flecks, shampoo pro Herbal Essence. That's a good yeah, I love it. What about Faberge organics? I didn't like the smell of that, and we would get it sometimes it was kind of in the beige, and it almost didn't look like it had a honeycomb on it,
Carolyn Cochrane 30:23
like a piece of like
Kristin Nilsen 30:30
that strengthened your hair. I remember Johnson and Johnson, no more tears, did anybody?
Carolyn Cochrane 30:38
That was the detangler? It
Kristin Nilsen 30:40
was the detangler. Yes, I'd sit on the tub and my mom would spray my hair and comb it out for hours,
Carolyn Cochrane 30:46
and felt like that kind of good hair. My hair, it was just even flatter than normally flat
Kristin Nilsen 30:53
detangle Yeah, and even just the Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo that alone, that smell is such a nostalgic theme for me.
Michelle Newman 31:01
I remember using it on my own girls. That's, of course, what I was gonna buy them when they were babies. And when that would take me right back, that would whoosh me right back. Smelling, yeah, it's kind of a sharp smell. The no more tears, I think it's not as mild as you would like. And also, right? So many of these products are still sold. So if you go to CVS, if you go to Walgreens, wherever you buy your you know, shampoo, just as you're walking down the aisle, unscrew the cap and smell it. But I will say Breck shampoo was listed, and that was also, I wasn't a huge fan of that one. What about lemon up? Lemon up? Shampoo that body on tap, yeah, that's the one that you know. You're like, don't drink it. You're in it.
Kristin Nilsen 31:47
That's right, it had a beer in it, yeah? What was the V? V? The video says, right here.
Michelle Newman 31:54
I was getting made. My mom used vid al Sassoon hairspray. So that one brings me right back. Vidal Sassoon hairspray. What about Alberto, VO five.
Kristin Nilsen 32:02
That was vo five. Yeah, it was a tube, I think
Michelle Newman 32:06
so, yeah, okay, here's some good these two I can smell, and I think I also, again, like with the sprunch spray, I still have the residue on my hands of dippity do or death hair gel. And it was, it was in a container that you unscrew the big top, and then you have, like, jar, like you had to, like, go with your fingers, and yep. And then you could
Kristin Nilsen 32:27
choose a color. You can choose a color. And so my mom would, when she would put my hair into ponytails, she would, she would dip the comb like an old black, you know, like your dad puts in his back pocket. She would take that black comb, and she would dip it into the dippity do, and then she would scrape my hair up into the ponytail, yeah, and then it would dry. It was like, Why do you want my hair to be hard? I don't understand
Michelle Newman 32:51
if you kept the lid on a container of dippity do? I think it had a shelf life of 84 years, because we would have one giant thing of Deputy do that with because we didn't use it for our hair other than to do what you're talking about. Kristen, like, yeah, get the flyer ways down. So I think we probably had one jar of dippity do or depth for throughout our entire child your whole life, like 74 to 80. Now it was just the one jar. It moved with us. Yeah, a couple of other hairsprays that we need to mention, so famously fragrant and not in a good way. I don't think we have Aqua net. Yeah, I don't like Lady hairspray for sure. Aqua net is stinky. Final net. What's with all the nets. Yeah, that holds your hair in place, I bet.
Kristin Nilsen 33:45
But here's another good smell that's in the same category as the sprunch spray. Is John Sebastian spritz,
Carolyn Cochrane 33:53
the spritz that was for the rich people.
Kristin Nilsen 33:56
Yes, it was. It was for the rich people. I'm sorry, it was very expensive.
Carolyn Cochrane 34:00
Yeah, salon, you could get it for a long time, like, yeah, right. It was one of, like, you could only get it.
Kristin Nilsen 34:08
And I remember one time I was a terrible story. One time I was on a bus in Mexico, back way in the back with with my friends, and we wanted to do shots of Kahlua, but we had forgotten a shot glass, so we took the top off the spritz spray and we put Kahlua in the spritz spray in the back of the bus.
Michelle Newman 34:33
Oh, shot of Kahlua makes me want to vomit. That
Carolyn Cochrane 34:37
was a bad spray. It
Michelle Newman 34:40
was a very bad night. I honestly feel like I have to take to my bed because of the cold spray, scrunch spray thing. So I might just have to down. I might have to exit the tour for just a hot second and go take to the bed and have a little lie down and try to wrap my head around smell that it was always called scrunch spray.
Carolyn Cochrane 34:59
Yeah. So Kristin, if you take a look over here, you might see, you might notice the very large mirrored perfume tray, and you're going to find a selection of the finest perfumes and colognes of the Gen X era. Oh, my, oh, my, okay, we'll start with the ones that remind us of our mothers or our grandmothers. So you might remember Chanel number five. That was my mother's scent of choice, and my grandmother's was white linen, and that's also there as well as youth do. By Estee Lauder,
Kristin Nilsen 35:33
yes, my grandma was youth do, yes, that was my grandmother, and my mom did have like and my mom had a powder puff of youth, do and powder, okay, let's just think about the powder in those Yes.
Kristin Nilsen 35:54
And I would get some. I would get a powder puff once in a while, like in my stocking or something. And I'm gonna totally out my mom. My mom would put the powder puff between her legs.
Michelle Newman 36:04
Yes, infection, yes.
Carolyn Cochrane 36:11
The commercial with yes, if you use especially Johnson
Kristin Nilsen 36:14
and John, Johnson
Michelle Newman 36:16
and Johnson. One step further, that's grosser. I can picture my mom's big old 70s triangle Bush. And my mom was brunette, but it was frosted white, covered.
Michelle Newman 36:33
And most of the time what I'm picturing is it's squashed in the nylons. It's squashed in the pantyhose
Carolyn Cochrane 36:40
because my mom this stuff.
Michelle Newman 36:43
Because my mom, my mom would wear pantyhose without panties underneath, but almost every day, and she has the squashed giant triangle.
Carolyn Cochrane 37:00
Singer songwriter from the 70s,
Kristin Nilsen 37:02
dusty Bush. And I remember my mom like almost doing a plie, like you do a plie and then you puff, puff, puff.
Carolyn Cochrane 37:12
I think my mother was too private about this.
Carolyn Cochrane 37:23
I would puff, puff, puff. I want to say, since my mother was maybe more private about the plie ing and puffing of that area, and I never saw it, I did sneak the powder puff every once in a while, and I put it to think that it was there, but then I'm probably putting it all like up here, and it had been down there before.
Kristin Nilsen 37:43
You're putting it on your face, putting it everywhere, all over my body.
Carolyn Cochrane 37:57
Oh, my goodness. Back to the smell. Oh my goodness. Okay.
Michelle Newman 38:04
Well, that's very relatable. We are going to get a new comment on Apple podcasts that says there's too much talk about their mother's I don't need to listen to them talking about their mother's 70s. Bush, well, then I'm sorry for you.
Carolyn Cochrane 38:17
Do you? I'm just laughing because the title of this episode is like Gen X smells.
Kristin Nilsen 38:31
References ever in the Gen X smells episode,
Michelle Newman 38:39
we might not want that might tear a lot of people off. Okay?
Carolyn Cochrane 38:44
Well, very quickly, I will go through some of the other perfumes that are on our tray. Okay, these came in from our listeners and our followers who shared their favorite scents. Charlie loves baby, soft. Jean too. Wind song I can't seem to forget you on a horse. Cody, wild musk, Benetton, Oscar de la Renta, eternity lady, Stetson. Gina Tay, oh.
Kristin Nilsen 39:14
Gina Tay, my mom did? Gina Tay, oh, we, we did. We would get That's Christmas. That's a
Carolyn Cochrane 39:18
Christmas that for my mom's Christmas, and that would come with powder. And I had this little thing where I would put on the Gina Tay, so embarrassing, we'll take this out. But I would put on the splash, I think it was called the splash, and then I would take the powder, and I would emphasize the, like, crook of my arm right here. Then, like the next dance school, I would just go,
Michelle Newman 39:53
Carolyn was.
Michelle Newman 40:00
Was walking around, but nobody knew Carolyn had put Gina Tay on the night. They were like, there comes that weird girl who likes to keep her nose and her elbow pit.
Carolyn Cochrane 40:10
I thought it was the most clever thing that ever done. Like it lasted for days.
Kristin Nilsen 40:15
Your teacher was like, Oh,
Michelle Newman 40:19
God, nobody knew it was Gina taste. So they were like, What do you think her elbow pit smells like?
Kristin Nilsen 40:26
It's an elbow crotch.
Carolyn Cochrane 40:31
Okay, sweet, honesty. Okay, sand and Sable. I did not recognize that. I recognize that one. I don't know what it smells like, but I recognize it. Exclamation, I don't know. Oh, never heard of that one, Sierra. I remember Sierra?
Kristin Nilsen 40:45
Oh, I do with a C. It's like C, I A, R, A, right, very good. Yeah, we're
Michelle Newman 40:49
not having Spelling Bee show off e
Carolyn Cochrane 40:53
museum guest,
Kristin Nilsen 40:55
but I'm gonna stay after. I'm gonna stay after and ask questions, opium. Remember opium? Yes, there was bobium at my knockoff perfume store.
Carolyn Cochrane 41:04
I was gonna ask you, you should be chiming in all of these with all of the fake names. Then we have our anaise. Ana is poison obsession. Lauren, I remember this one, Giorgio of Beverly Hills, but there was a fake one like that, probably that you sold at your yes, at my knockoff room. I can't remember what it was called, but that's the one that I had, of course, Halston and Shalimar, which I would wear. And I felt it was very grown up. I wore that in high school.
Kristin Nilsen 41:32
Yes, my mom wore Shalimar, for sure. There's one you missed on there that is a big one for me. There's a differentiation between what we smelled on our grandma's and what we smelled on our moms, and then what we started receiving as gifts at Christmas when we were 1314, 15 years old. And so we probably got loves baby soft first, and that if you smell that today, that will knock you on your ass. You're just like me talk about
Michelle Newman 41:57
singer singe the probably it's very alcoholy.
Kristin Nilsen 42:01
And then the other one was Gloria Vanderbilt. That one will make me envision my outfit, like if I smell that, I can picture what I'm wearing. And it's dark Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, and a little like gold snake belt. Remember those disco belts?
Carolyn Cochrane 42:18
Are those ones that you could get your finger pinched,
Kristin Nilsen 42:20
yes, yeah, you get your finger. You could get you, like the hairs on your finger would get stuck in it.
Carolyn Cochrane 42:25
And do you remember the ones that had the exchangeable belt buckles, like a shell? I mean, it wasn't, it was a little more intense, but kind of along those same lines, like it had a gold, oh,
Kristin Nilsen 42:36
I guess those were fabric belts. Yeah, those were stretchy fabric. Mine was rainbow. I had a rainbow belt, and you could switch out the clasp.
Carolyn Cochrane 42:43
Yeah, I just remember different things, shells. But look at this is
Kristin Nilsen 42:46
exactly what we're talking about. We're talking about a smell, and it's making us remember all these other things. Yes, so, so interesting.
Michelle Newman 42:52
Can I show you something? Yeah? So listeners, if you're remembering sweet honesty, I hope you're watching on YouTube, because when we cleaned out my mom's place after she passed away a year and a half ago, I brought these home. And these are just three that I had, but I had a ton. So I have the little Avon, you know, the Avon Swan, that little crown, mine is blue. They came in different colors, and the crown on screws, and that's where you get the smell. So I have the swan. I have the deer. Now the deer still has some perfume in it. Do you see it has a lot of sweet honesty in it? These set out in my bathroom until I graduated high school, and I probably got them in like 1975 and then I have the little frosted pink ballerina sitting on a little trunk. And this still has perfume in it too. But for my mom, it was Norell perfume when I was a kid. But then from about 1980 until she died, it was Oscar de la Renta. It was Oscar constantly. And I have friends that say, if I smell Oscar, I think of your mom, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 43:56
Oh, that's sweet, yeah. I will say one of the things that I found that I had forgotten about that somebody mentioned, when they mentioned the Benetton perfume, because I that was one I wore. But they commented on the part of the magazine where you could open up the page of it, or I would rub my wrists on it.
Kristin Nilsen 44:16
And song, for sure, was so overpowering you would have to take the magazine outside, like you can't have it in your dorm room anymore because it's lighting up the whole dorm
Michelle Newman 44:25
so let's take a peek quickly inside the medicine cabinet. Now this is the one in the bathroom with the mirror door that's permanently freckled with toothpaste. Constellations and shelves are kind of bowing under the weight of half used bottles of liniments and ointments and creams. There's one plastic cup I want you to notice, and it has a crack down the side, and it contains a few toothbrushes with the bristles that are all flared out and stiff, like they've seen things, and they're just kind of frozen in that flared out position. So this is where we keep. Keep our not just our medicines, but our lotions and our face washes. So I actually have a couple of things from the medicine cabinet that nobody said now, listeners, we could have missed in 1000 over 1000 comments. We were scrolling pretty fast, but we didn't see, I don't remember this, Carolyn, let's see if you do. But yeah, for me, the two things that I the smells for me would be calamine lotion, because for my mom, calamine lotion was what you put on zits. So my sister, I have always been very blessed, like even when I was going through puberty and everything, I've never really had I didn't have acne. I didn't really it was very unusual if I got a pimple. My sister, poor thing, on the other hand, basically went to bed every night with her face polka dotted with calamine lotion, because it was supposed to dry them out, right? But it was also, anytime we had an itch or a scratch, like, you know, calamine lotion on, so we were always pink and crusty, basically. And then the other thing, do you guys remember? We called it methylate now, a lot of times, it's known as mercurochrome, and it's an it's, you put it on a cut, it's like an antiseptic, and it turns a bright, like orange red, and like a mother iodine, yeah, like, Okay, you will, when you put it on, even like a paper cut, you will scream as if you're getting, like your hand cut off with a butter knife.
Kristin Nilsen 46:28
I literally never heard a name for this. We didn't have it, but I remember kids coming to school with their with orange on their skin. I didn't know what it was. I'm learning right now what that was
Michelle Newman 46:37
methylated, which is another, another name for it, and my mom again, like with calamine lotion, if it couldn't be fixed with methylate or calamine lotion, you pretty much it wasn't going to be fixed. So anytime you had a little cut, like now, like with my kids, or me personally, I always just run for the Neosporin, right? Like an ointment to put on. We didn't have that, or if we did, it was anytime you got a cut, a hangnail, whatever you had a douse, that sucker with methyl aid, yeah, you did it. And I it was like the worst thing in the world. I hated it so, but the smell, I say, really strong.
Carolyn Cochrane 47:11
I had FOMO for that because we did not have either. Well, all the kind of cool kids had it and that, you know, they'd come in with that rust colored, you know, it's like having a broken arm. Yeah, we don't have that and, and I would sometimes sneak in people's, like medicine cabinets, I didn't apply it, or anything like, but I would look, I mean, but I started early, but I remember seeing everybody's and I just thought, why don't we have it?
Kristin Nilsen 47:38
What Carolyn, did you have? Did you have back teen? We were about
Carolyn Cochrane 47:45
sometimes, like, if we had a sun, a sunburn, for some reason, we would spray stuff.
Kristin Nilsen 47:50
God, that would hurt. But we,
Carolyn Cochrane 47:53
I don't know what we put on. I think my mom just said, We suck it up. Yeah? We did. Hydrogen Peroxide. Yeah, hydrogen peroxide.
Michelle Newman 48:01
That was like, peroxide first, so it bubble everywhere, yeah? And then the methylate went on. And then the band aid, and the methylate was the worst part of it. Okay, here's some other things. And yeah, you guys chime in when I say something that you really remember from your medicine cabinet, of course, vix vapor. Rub right anytime you're saying, rub that vix right under your nostrils, everyone, man, that's a that is a decades, decades long curing talk
Kristin Nilsen 48:26
about smell. I mean, just think about that. It's so strong and it's so distinct that, and I don't think a lot of people have that in their medicine cabinet anymore. So that is a thing that you could go to the you could go to CVS right now and take the top, yeah, just take away.
Carolyn Cochrane 48:40
Because for you know, it's the whole experience too. Because if, at least for me, if I ever had that, I was sick. So usually I had a cough, like it was that congestive stuff. And for me, my mom would put it under my nose, and then she we had this paint or yellow basin. It was also what we threw up in so that, but she put in, like,
Michelle Newman 48:58
like boiling water, wash. Yeah, also your powder container. That's right container.
Carolyn Cochrane 49:07
But when so the water would cool off a little after it was boiling, and then she'd get a towel, and we'd have to put our heads over the steam, and then we'd have the stuff under our nose, and we'd have this towel, and we just have to look into it. Yes, and I'm thinking
Michelle Newman 49:21
we did that too. Yeah, yeah, oh my god. Okay. What about the smell of the little, tiny baby aspirin, those little,
Kristin Nilsen 49:29
oh my god, St Joseph's baby aspirin, and it's a little Orangey. It's a little orange. You guys, yeah? Okay, so one time I loved those things so much. And one time, I got up in the middle of the night, and I know I'm less than three because of the house that I'm in, I'm less than three years old, and I get up and I go into the bathroom, and I climb up onto the sink. This is how tiny I am, because in order to get to the medicine cabinet, I had to stand on the sink. So I'm standing on the sink, and I open up the medicine cabinet, and. Get the St Joseph's baby aspirin. And my dad hears me, has to get out of bed, and he sees me standing on the sink, and he's like, What are you doing? I said, I'm sick aspirin. And luckily he caught me before I took any I was just gonna eat it like candy.
Michelle Newman 50:21
Lids. Man, yeah, Priya, that's why they were admitted for
Carolyn Cochrane 50:25
Christmas. Of it. Oh,
Kristin Nilsen 50:26
you didn't like it. I did. Now, I think I said I had a I have a fever. I have a fever.
Michelle Newman 50:33
It's not on our list that I don't remember, but this reminded me of that I would want to eat. And also, the smell is so distinct. But what about the Flintstones vitamins? The smell? Oh, yes, yes. But for some reason I thought it was like candy. Maybe because we it was like it it looked
Kristin Nilsen 50:52
like I begged for that. I begged for those stupid vitamins, and they did taste like dirty fruit,
Carolyn Cochrane 50:57
yeah, and we got the generic one, so it wasn't like.
Michelle Newman 51:09
Well, let's see what else is in our medicine cabinet. Shall we? We have St Ives apricot scrub is a little exfoliating, right? A little and
Kristin Nilsen 51:19
you'd put it on your zits. Now think about that. That's not a good idea, but I thought that you would like scrub away the zits.
Michelle Newman 51:26
Yeah? Camel, oh, calamine lotion, polka dots. Well, yeah, because right next to it is the sea breeze. Is sitting there. The sea breeze, man, that'll burn that top layer right off. No exfoliation needed, yeah, it'll burn it right off.
Kristin Nilsen 51:44
We should have a top like, at the end of this. We should have a top 10 list, because sea breeze would be in the top 10.
Michelle Newman 51:50
We have a top three. We're gonna do have a top three, but it's not in it, but we could add it to it, yeah, okay, it's in the top three. Wing, yeah, it should be, yes. It should be that. Yeah, the goat, the Hall of Fame. Yeah, we have Noxzema that smells good. I would love that. I think I do too.
Kristin Nilsen 52:10
I washed my face with that forever. That was like when I started washing my face by myself. You know, when you're a child, you don't wash your washcloth, yeah?
Carolyn Cochrane 52:18
Because that was all over the magazines, yes. And I was, like, adult years old, not very long ago, to know that it actually spells no eczema shut. I mean, it's not the exact spelling of eczema. That's what it's based
Michelle Newman 52:35
on. Emma, yeah, it does.
Carolyn Cochrane 52:40
I think maybe that was original Kate. Maybe the original formulation was for some kind of skin disorder, and then they just rebranded and remarketed until we thought this.
Kristin Nilsen 52:53
I feel like I learned something today that's amazing.
Carolyn Cochrane 52:57
That is what we want here at our museum.
Michelle Newman 53:01
It's also a teaching, teaching museum. Okay? We have rose milk lotion. We mentioned that a little bit that our grandma's always is. And then, of course, the Johnson's baby lotion and the Johnson's baby powder. Cautionary tale, yeah, don't write an entire thing of that on your baby's bottom. What about tickled deodorant that had a very distinct smell to kind of roll that ball over, and then it would kind of glob out, like as a kind of gel glumpy Jurgens hand lotion. And in my memory, that smells like almond huge.
Kristin Nilsen 53:32
Yes, it is almond scented, and I still love that smell. And it's something that's sort of fallen off people's radar until, it's not and I think I was in like, an airport bathroom or something, and I was like, Oh, my God, What? What? Where's that? Where's that coming from? What is it? What is it? And I and I so I found it. They didn't have it labeled in the soap container, but I was able to put together that it was Jergens. And then I went and I bought some. And that's like, that is the Jergens hand lotion is. There's a whole olfactory memory of, I'm eating my Spaghettios because my parents are going out, and my mom's coming in to talk to the babysitter, and you hear the clack, clack, clack of her heels, and then she's going like this with her hands. She's putting the lotion on her hands as she talks to the babysitter, and it's Jergens. I can smell the almond lotion.
Michelle Newman 54:18
I can just picture that scene too. Yes, yeah, I love it. Okay, Neutrogena, rain bath. Someone mentioned, which I remember the smell of that. And then let's talk just, we've talked about this before, but let's just mention some of the bar soaps. We have a really funny conversation back in I don't remember what episode, but talking about when we move
Carolyn Cochrane 54:41
jingles, maybe,
Kristin Nilsen 54:42
yeah, I think you're right. There's a whole thing about soap.
Michelle Newman 54:45
There's a really funny conversation there, something Kristen says, so go back and listen to that one. But we have mentioned, oh, we were talking about all the residue that would get in your and you were talking about the pubic hair, and I was talking about the culture. And But you thought we were talking about the bathroom. It was just a weird moment, because we were both talking about different rooms. And so then I stopped, and I was like, Why would there
Kristin Nilsen 55:15
be pubic hair? Too much pubic hair today, most episodes don't have this much pubic hair.
Michelle Newman 55:21
Listen, yeah. First time listeners, most, most episodes, don't She's right, but at the same time, hey, we all have it, everybody.
Kristin Nilsen 55:30
Well, Callie, who knew?
Carolyn Cochrane 55:38
Nobody told me that, or the gray just Yeah.
Michelle Newman 55:44
We're not gonna edit ourselves for things that are just, you know, science, it's Yeah. Okay. Let's get back
Michelle Newman 55:59
to the bars of soap, the ones mentioned for zest, dial Ma, ivory. And then what we didn't see mentioned, but my husband would like to contribute to this list, is Irish Spring.
Kristin Nilsen 56:12
Yes, yeah, the ivory was what I brought with me to college. And a lot of people had Ivory soap in college. I don't know why it was there's cheap. Maybe it was the cheap soap that's possible. And we had gang showers. Did you guys have gang showers in here? I don't like that. It's crazy. I don't I'm sure
Michelle Newman 56:34
it's like, can we say communal?
Kristin Nilsen 56:37
They were very communal. They were very, very communal. For some
Michelle Newman 56:40
reason in high school gym class, but we didn't and in high school gym class, we had to shower naked with all the other like freshmen.
Kristin Nilsen 56:49
I never showered in high school a single time either.
Carolyn Cochrane 56:53
We didn't really have showers in our locker.
Michelle Newman 56:55
Well, we had to be when you had gym first period. I mean, also we were going through puberty. I remember my armpits would really smell even if I had on my it's probably because took probably because tickle deodorant is crap. Wasn't actually doing its job. I loved it. I remember second semester of freshman year, I had gym last period, and I was so happy because it meant I didn't have to shower. But I had to, I had to worked really hard. Just went in and washed your armpits up. All right, Carolyn, take us to cosmetics. Oh my gosh, we're still in the bathroom. You guys, it's going to be a long episode, but it's funny and fun, and I don't care. Okay, yeah, okay, okay,
Carolyn Cochrane 57:29
so Kristen, now we're going to look at the makeup drawer, because we've got some makeup in there, and a lot of it smelled. Was fragrant. How about that? So one of the very first smells you're going to encounter is very first makeup that we encountered. You are going to smell the distinct scent of Tinkerbell cosmetics, Tinkerbell, right?
Kristin Nilsen 57:56
Yes. And Tinkerbell had a little splash too, right? Everything, a little everything, and a tiny little lipstick, like the size of your pinky,
Carolyn Cochrane 58:06
yeah? Like those trials, yeah.
Michelle Newman 58:10
Were awesome. Do you remember the good thing? And probably because they didn't want little, tiny children to have to use nail polish remover, but the nail, yeah, that's right, yeah, peeled off.
Kristin Nilsen 58:21
Okay. Did no one say Mr. Bubble in the bathroom? No, I don't think Mr. Bubble because, and I say that because Tinkerbell also had a probably,
Carolyn Cochrane 58:31
probably it might have been in there.
Michelle Newman 58:33
I think Mr. Bubble might have been and I just forgot to write it down. But you're right, that does have a very distinctive
Carolyn Cochrane 58:39
smell. Well, I don't know the smell, because,
Speaker 1 58:41
oh yeah, you're not allowed. I was you, Carolyn, can't have UTI bath
Carolyn Cochrane 58:44
gives you your total bath gives you UTI, UTI. Okay, we've got lip smackers. And in my case, it was the really big one of
Kristin Nilsen 58:54
Dr Pepper. And mine was root beer, root beer on a string around your neck.
Carolyn Cochrane 58:59
Yes, around your neck. That big, giant. And I remember once, I think I tried to eat it just, good, yeah.
Michelle Newman 59:10
Well, just because the I wear root beer a lot on my lips and bubble gum, obviously the bubble gum had the almost bazooka bubble gum smell too. It wasn't the Double Bubble Bubble Gum smell. It was the bazooka bubble gum was kind of sharp, but, you know, you'd lick your lips when you had it all, that's true. But nothing good bit it, it was that waxy. Oh yeah, you're saying you actually like bit in she ate it. I took a bite to see what
Carolyn Cochrane 59:34
it tastes like, a whole thing. And I thought the seven up one was the grossest, to be honest.
Kristin Nilsen 59:39
I just, I was not into the seven up, yeah, there's i Okay,
Carolyn Cochrane 59:43
kissing potion, which was our roll on lip gloss, the liquid so Cover Girl Foundation, with the naxima undertones and the Cover Girl powder compact,
Kristin Nilsen 59:55
that was my first foundation, my first foundation. And just like. Yeah, just the smell of makeup in general, in those days kind of, kind of had a you, what's the word? It was a universal smell a little bit. And I can even picture like opening my powder blush, which was also cover girl, and it's the same smell. It's just like a powdery well.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:00:16
I can tell you that my friend Debbie, her dad was a sales rep person for cover girl and Noxzema. So it was the same company. So there is, I don't know that they if they advertised it with a touch of Noxzema or anything, but there was that undertone of naxima in Covergirl cosmetics. All right, we've got all Maybelline eyeshadow had a particular kind of to your point, like all those universal Yes, and do you guys my last one? So do you guys have any particular makeup smells that you remember fondly?
Michelle Newman 1:00:56
I think I have, I think the Wet and Wild lipsticks had a very distinct smell. And I feel like mine was like 627, or, you know how there was that one number? And I feel like that had a very distinct smell. Again, you can still buy that. It was an Ulta the other day. You can still buy wet and wild cosmetics. Isn't that crazy?
Carolyn Cochrane 1:01:16
Love it. Okay. Well, now we're going to go down the hall Kristin. We're going to leave our makeup behind. We're going to channel our inner child, because we're going to the toy room. Fun. Yes, and as we cross that threshold, you're immediately overpowered by the scent of plastic. There is so much plastic, but yet each plastic kind of has a distinct, a distinguishable smell. Okay, we've got color forms?
Kristin Nilsen 1:01:41
Oh, yes, ah, yes. That had, it smelled like your car, kind
Carolyn Cochrane 1:01:44
of, yeah. It was kind of that, finally, yeah. It also had like a, what's the other word, sensory, kind of, there was a feeling,
Michelle Newman 1:01:53
yeah, I'm a fan of that. That smell, yeah, I like it. That plastic smell. I like it too.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:01:59
Garbage, patched, garbage. They would really smell. People mentioned Cabbage Patch dolls. I remember this next one so clearly, blow up Barbie furniture because so close to your nose anyway, as you're blowing it up. And it's that like plastic that you know kind of
Kristin Nilsen 1:02:20
the same, it's the same smell as your blow up Bozo punching bag, right? Didn't everybody have a blow up punching thing? Yes, yep. And why did we have that? And it would take forever to blow up.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:34
And I probably, I never sorry, but this is like, I had one, and then, you know, my mom wanted to put it away, so she deflated it, and then I'd want it out again. No, we're not anymore mixes.
Kristin Nilsen 1:02:50
We're never blowing that thing up again,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:52
like such a treat if it ever got blown back up again. Oh, gosh, but yes, you're exactly right. Someone said new plastic baby dolls, like baby tender, love, yes, I was gonna say, but she smelled like baby powder too. A little bit like they tried to massive plastic smell by putting baby powder on them. And I do remember that, and I thought I did not like that smell, because it was like a mix. It wasn't just baby powder. They were in baby powder plastic. Strawberries shortcake dolls.
Kristin Nilsen 1:03:25
Oh, yeah, and was there a
Michelle Newman 1:03:27
little after my time? I think I didn't get into them, but that was more 80s after, like, early
Carolyn Cochrane 1:03:35
I'm sorry if you all loved your strawberry shortcake dolls. Like, why fruit? Like a dog.
Kristin Nilsen 1:03:42
Was that, I remind me, was there like a scratch and sniff aspect to it, or did
Michelle Newman 1:03:47
it just have what was no she just smelled right there for me. Okay, my sister had one. I bet you anything. There's either a video now on YouTube or something that you can ask, did they mix a scent in her plastic or her rubber, whatever she's Yeah. Doll smelled like it, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:04:04
It just never went away. It was just kind of Yeah, and yeah. So those are some of the toys that are hanging out in our toy room. Do you guys have any memory of
Kristin Nilsen 1:04:14
what's the number one? The number one thing in the toy room with it has a scent that everybody loves, is play.
Michelle Newman 1:04:19
Doh, Oh, for sure, yes was mentioned. I don't remember Play Doh being mentioned. Oh, maybe it was.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:04:27
It probably was, but you're right, yes, thank you and
Kristin Nilsen 1:04:32
crayons, yeah,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:04:35
yes, yes, definitely, absolutely smells.
Kristin Nilsen 1:04:40
Yeah, in my so in my hall of fame, it would be sea breeze, naxima Play Doh crayons. There's more coming, I'm sure. But I'm building, I'm building Oh crayons, for sure.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:04:50
Yeah, yeah. Well, if you donate at our next camp capital campaign, Kristen for this wing of the museum, oh, you could maybe have. Have your own section of like Kristen's top 10, work over some
Michelle Newman 1:05:06
big bucks. Okay? Well, I want you all to follow me now, because we're getting in the elevator, we're gonna go up to floor three. Is everyone behind me. We're walking. I get we're in the elevator. Yep, if you leave me now, you you leave me now. Oh, sorry, everyone. I'm just gonna sing along to the Muzak. Okay, we're here. Elevators open. Okay, let me set the scene for all of you that are not with us. We enter the industrialized mock up of your elementary school. Here we go, and it's all of yours. It's all of yours. I know you might be going, was it mine? Is it mine? Is it might? No, it's all of yours, because it's all beige and it's all metal, and there's a faded construction paper border that's been hanging on the walls since about the Carter administration. The waxed linoleum, tiled floors are scuffed from years of saddle shoes and chalk dust floats in the air like millions of specks of pollen come Kristen. Sit in the square beige desk with the carved history of hearts, initials and Van Halen logos, while your nose takes in all of these aromas. I'm going to hand you this piece of paper, Kristen, okay, and it's got some kind of it's kind of damp, and it's got some purple words all written on it. What are you gonna do with it? What are you gonna do with it? Yes, you are. You are gonna take the biggest inhale you've ever taken since yesterday's second hour of your day when the teacher passed out the exact same you guys remember the smell of the mimeograph worksheets? I mean, right? I don't even know how I would describe it. It was a bluish purple, and it was damp, and you could smell it. And you know what? It's so great, because we all can remember, and we talked about it in fast times, but there's the great scene and fast times where Mr. Hand comes in and they hand out the worksheets, and every single one of them takes the worksheet and puts it up to their face. Does not
Kristin Nilsen 1:07:12
so great. Were you guys ever lucky enough to go into the office and crank the big mimeograph machine to get
Carolyn Cochrane 1:07:19
well, my mom was a teacher, so I got to watch that was labor intensive. Yes, it was. I wasn't a teacher, because you had to turn it one turn for every sheet.
Kristin Nilsen 1:07:30
That's 26 times. And what
Carolyn Cochrane 1:07:34
if you taught history like Mr. Hand and you had five sections, oh, my street, and you had 26 kids in each class. Yeah, that's why. That's when you send the
Kristin Nilsen 1:07:42
students to do it. Or, yeah, that's you have Office duty. Kristen, like, who's the brown noser? Kristen, would you like to take this down and mimeograph it
Michelle Newman 1:07:51
for me? Some of the other ones that, some of the other comments that our listeners left us that I really resonate with, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read those ones first. But what about sharpened pencils and pencil shavings? As you remember when it would be full and you could kind of pop off that pencil sharpener, and when you would go and you would shake all the pencil dust, like the little shavings in the trash, you would also kind of get a cloud, but that smell, and it's a blend of the pencil shavings, plus all the lead that's in there so distinct, yeah.
Kristin Nilsen 1:08:25
And that was another that was like a classroom job, like, Who's gonna clean the pencil sharpener? And even just the act of, like, remember lining up to sharpen your pencils? Yes, yes. Get in the line to sharpen.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:08:37
We all had, like, jobs. Remember, like, your name would be on something, and there was the pencil sharpener person and the chalkboard person and empty the trash and that window opener and closer. I mean, everybody jobs,
Kristin Nilsen 1:08:49
yeah, one person had to be the person to do lights when we had movie day. Yeah, lights one time,
Michelle Newman 1:08:56
there's a job for everything. And, I mean, as a teacher, I can remember just racking my brain. What is
Kristin Nilsen 1:09:02
a job? Yeah.
Michelle Newman 1:09:04
Okay, some of the other school supplies that were mentioned that really hit me, the Mr. Sketch markers, so everyone smells like a different flavor. And my favorite gray, blue one, I love the Blueberry. Blueberry was my jam. Loved it. And no one said this one. I'm gonna just take a pause, just real quick for before I go into more school supplies. But no one said this one. And I would include this at the top of my list, the smell of the inside of my thermos, like if it got washed, there was always a smell. And for me, it was a little bit of like you talked about earlier Kristen, it was like that kind of old spaghettio smell. So even if I had milk in it, like three days later, and my mom had washed it in the dishwasher, but if I brought it up to drink the milk, you'd always still kind of smell that spaghetti and it was mine was always kind of stained orange, because I would take, like Spaghettios sometimes in my lunch. I. Okay, let's keep going. What about the chalk dust? People say that had an odor? And I think that's right, I can, I think I can smell that. Yep, the big pink eraser, the smell of that big pearl eraser.
Kristin Nilsen 1:10:12
Oh, yeah. You know, we used to do in when I was in fourth grade. We had what are called totes. We didn't have desks, we had tables, and then we had totes that hung underneath our it was very 70s, and we could take our totes, and then we would take our totes with us and there, and the tote had a very pebbly surface to it, and so we would take our pink erasers, and we would erase and erase and erase to make eraser dust. And then you would collect eraser dust. We would collect Ziploc bags full of eraser dust, as if it was a contest, like, who has the most eraser dust? Yeah, I don't know what we were doing. I have no idea what the end game was, but it was like it was such a cultural moment, like when you were done with your assignment, you'd pull your tote out, start erasing, you start making eraser
Carolyn Cochrane 1:11:03
that might not be something that went
Kristin Nilsen 1:11:05
all over. I don't think that's universal. If anybody went to St Anthony Park Elementary School in 1977 if you were in Miss Olson's class, did you make eraser dust?
Michelle Newman 1:11:14
You definitely got a whiff of it. Then if you were doing it
Kristin Nilsen 1:11:18
was the whole so the whole room smelled like pink eraser.
Michelle Newman 1:11:22
Well, what about the little, tiny you guys, more work, the tiny, small ones, more early 80s, but that were shaped like all different shapes, and they were totally useless as erasers. They didn't really erase the Frank ones and everything. They definitely didn't
Kristin Nilsen 1:11:39
some of some of those were scented like you could order them from, from the Scholastic Book order, and it would be scented like strawberry or whatever,
Michelle Newman 1:11:47
yeah, or Lillian Vernon or somewhere. Okay, we talked about, we talked about rubber cement, liquid paper that definitely had, yeah, like, white out, you mean, yeah, white out liquid paper, scratch and sniff stickers. Of course, it's what our entire exhibit is named after. Someone said those big metal permanent markers, like it was almost like a really big silver oh yeah marker with a big top. They were noxious.
Kristin Nilsen 1:12:16
They were like, they were Yeah, they would knock you out.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:12:18
They would smell up the whole classroom. Yeah, they were, like, doing sometimes that was what they would write on, like, those big pieces of, you know, colored paper, Michelle, that we'd go into those rooms and rip them off
Kristin Nilsen 1:12:31
the Yeah, giant pad of paper, yeah, a teacher sized, giant. I can't
Carolyn Cochrane 1:12:36
even hear it. There's like a squeak to it. They totally
Unknown Speaker 1:12:39
squeaked. Yeah, yeah,
Michelle Newman 1:12:40
I loved him. I'd Huff those things for I was probably high, yeah, my entire like, fourth through sixth grade years, I was 100 Okay, the cafeteria had some smells like cafeteria, the fry. People mentioned the fries and the pizza. They mentioned boiled hot dogs. They mentioned the plastic coin purse that you would squeeze apart. We put that in the school because maybe you kept your lunch money in it,
Kristin Nilsen 1:13:05
your milk money, put your milk money.
Michelle Newman 1:13:09
I would like to add air popped popcorn, because remember when air poppers became a thing, and then the teachers would could have them in their classrooms. And if you were sitting there and you were in like seventh grade and you were in science. It's awful, but maybe science is connected to next door that has the fun English teacher. And like every Friday, we would smell popcorn, and you'd be like, you know, they get a popcorn, but that popcorn smell in your classrooms, someone said, I love this one, just because someone the smell of the big red rubber ball as it hits your face in dodgeball
Carolyn Cochrane 1:13:48
that did have such a distinct
Michelle Newman 1:13:49
smell those rubber playground, someone said the gym in general. And then, of course, we have the library books, card catalogs and the Scholastic Book order itself in the past about how it felt, and I think in our book book fair episode, we definitely talked about how it smelled as well. And then the last one in our school section of our exhibit, someone said the yellow school bus seats, they thought that that has
Kristin Nilsen 1:14:16
something that they were smelling so okay, you know what didn't get mentioned here, the dust that the janitor would sprinkle on vomit it did, and
Michelle Newman 1:14:24
it's called it starts with a V. I'd
Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:26
have to look through my notes rad or something. She did mention
Michelle Newman 1:14:29
that, and I think
Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:30
that's such the one that our teacher that
Kristin Nilsen 1:14:36
used voban, ours was like
Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:39
banana smelling, but you knew, and you saw it on the ground, and you're like,
Kristin Nilsen 1:14:45
and sometimes you can, if you walk into an old school, I think it's permanent. I think it's sort of a permanent smell, like it doesn't probably,
Michelle Newman 1:14:54
yeah, yeah, yikes. There's so many times I walk into places now, oh, I know. Like our like the doctor's offices, we go to several that are in hospitals and stuff. It's that smell of a school cafeteria. And I don't know what it is. It's just a mixture of, it's not like I could say, oh, it's the school cafeteria, pizza or products. It's every
Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:18
foods. It's
Michelle Newman 1:15:19
it's heated, like beef, a Roni, mixed, basic, mixed,
Kristin Nilsen 1:15:24
Rooney, yeah, Roni, yeah, yeah. And then you pile other things on top, talking
Michelle Newman 1:15:34
about, right, curious, yeah, yeah, one smell.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:39
They wouldn't be so fun for us to have, like, a game show where you're blindfolded and you get, like, either you're taken somewhere or you're given a cent, and then you have to guess what? It would
Michelle Newman 1:15:49
be cool. You're like, yes, pencil shavings. I've got it.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:52
Okay, yeah. Okay. Well, Kristen, guess what we get to do after school? We're gonna go to some fun places. Oh, the places we remember, wing and we are going to make our first stop at the mall.
Kristin Nilsen 1:16:06
Yes, I knew it. I knew it. I'm so excited to go to the mall,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:10
it's like time traveling via our nose. Yeah, right. So here we go. I'd like to share this wonderful description that our benefactor 88 ragged Tiger, aka seven. Friend, 88
Kristin Nilsen 1:16:24
because there is no this is Blaine
Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:38
Duran. Duran fan, either. Okay, thank you. That was my year I graduated college.
Michelle Newman 1:16:43
Well, no, that's his. No, 87 isn't and he has doesn't have anything to do with the year we graduated from high school.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:49
So I'd like to share the wonderful description that our benefactor, 87 ragged Tiger, also known as our good friend, Shane, shared with us, and he says that mall smell that hits you as soon as you walk through the doors, no matter what entrance you used, that all inclusive smell of floor polish, pizza perfume, Orange Julius, caramel corn and candles. And he shared that he really, really missed it, which is why he is one of our benefactors of this wonderful wing. He wants us to preserve all of these smells the
Kristin Nilsen 1:17:22
Eau de Maule, yes, eau de mall,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:27
well, our friend at Sonic candles, at Sonic glow candles, maybe that could be her neck. Their neck sent their retro candle thing.
Kristin Nilsen 1:17:33
Can we give them a shout out right now, because their whole reason for being is bringing back the smells that you remember. And I bought for Christmas one year, I bought my brother. I wish I could remember the real name, but it was something about Camaro. I was gonna say the Camaro, the Camaro one. I bought my brother, the Camaro one.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:50
And then there's some, there are some specific scents once we enter them all. Of course, the t shirt factory, I think there's almost mic drop with that, because I would pay
Kristin Nilsen 1:17:59
a million dollars to smell that smell again, t shirt.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:18:04
So good. Kind of that, kind of, would you describe it? Almost? Well, I thought
Michelle Newman 1:18:09
it was burning, but it's more like heated. It's just a heated, like, plastics
Kristin Nilsen 1:18:15
melting plastic smell,
Michelle Newman 1:18:19
yeah, it's like that. It's an iron that's too hot on plastic on a team.
Kristin Nilsen 1:18:24
And some of that smell, I mean, I think that's part of the association, is that when you smell that smell, you get something so cool, right?
Carolyn Cochrane 1:18:35
Are the experience associated with the smell? You know, it is. It's that cool shirt that you got at the end, and that a lot of times that was you had agency over you know what you got? Totally, yes, you're standing there ever I was not good at decision making.
Kristin Nilsen 1:18:50
I can't imagine, Carolyn, what that would be like for you, because remember, the t shirt designs would go all the way up to the ceiling. Oh, and you're just like looking like choosing, I want a, 17, no, no, right? B, 24,
Michelle Newman 1:19:05
and you would get it back, it would still be warm. And then you could just put it up and talk about huffing, man, you would just put it
Carolyn Cochrane 1:19:13
right up next, really went away. I mean, if you stuck your nose in it, in that after, even after it's been washed and worn, there's always that faint smell of that scent, and
Kristin Nilsen 1:19:22
how do we get that back, like some of these smells we can revisit by going to the drugstore and buying more noxima, just you know, for a laugh. How do we get the t shirt shack smell? Is it just gone forever? Will we never get it ever again? If you went to the TV t shirt shack right now, what TV show would you pick off the wall
Carolyn Cochrane 1:19:41
for me, has to be a ring or tea. It has to have like a different color on the arm, yeah, for sure.
Michelle Newman 1:19:48
Arm for me, it's a baseball tee, and my name has to go down the sleeve. And I still have one in my closet right now, and if I take it out and smell it, I wonder if it still smells like it, but I still have one that says 87 rules. I. Oh no, of course you do has my name down the sleeve, Rainbow, rainbow vinyl and sparkles.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:20:06
Then there's that chlorinated mall fountain. Oh yeah, everything from throwing your coin in, and sometimes I didn't like, like where it landed or something, so I'd go stick my hand in, then your hand would smell like it forever, and you throw it back, or you would that would always be a place to meet. So I envision, like, sitting on the little ledge of the fountain, getting a little wet every once in a while. Yes, you know, the spray of it would kind of hit you, and it was so distinctive. And guys, there was so much chlorine in our growing up. Like, think about it, we had the chlorinated fountain, like we just said, there was at the holodom Kristen, anytime we were in an indoor hotel, you know, motel, pool chlorine out the wazoo, our neighborhood chlorine and, like, our hair, in our hair, you know, got all messed up because of chlorine, chlorine,
Michelle Newman 1:20:56
chlorine, this smell of an indoor pool, even if it's like at a gym, if I'm walking in a gym or at the Rec Center or something, and I smell the indoor pool, I am whooshed right back to holiday and in Boise, Idaho, where we used to stop and I could swim in that indoor pool. So that is and a lot of people did mention indoor pools in our list.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:21:16
So yeah, another place that several people responded with was Kmart that it had a distinctive smell when you walked in, because there was, like, warm, salty, kind of hot dogs. Yeah, there's hot dogs. There's popcorn, yeah, yeah. And then kind of, there's polyestery smell too mixed in and, you know, plasticky. It's a very unique combination of things that really only Kmart could have given us, yeah, so
Kristin Nilsen 1:21:43
and that just like the, just like the the cafeteria, the under the undernote is the beef a Roni, I think with Kmart, even though you're looking at like the pajamas section, the undernote is hot dog or popcorn. So, like, the two things don't go together, and that's what makes you think of Kmart.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:22:01
Kmart, exactly, exactly, yeah. So those are just a few of the places that gave us some very distinct smells. The caramel corn had a big
Kristin Nilsen 1:22:10
one for me, because that is just like, huge, yeah, yeah. And that was where my dance studio was, right by the caramel corn place. And when I came out of my dance class, my mom would be sitting there eating her caramel corn. It's like it was a weekly thing every week for years,
Michelle Newman 1:22:26
reading The Thorn Birds, reading the giant brick of the farm birds. I would like to add in the mall to the cafeterias, the smell of the cafeteria, yes, yes. It's very gravy. Ish, yeah, into a cafeteria, and it's just, it's that mashed potatoes and gravy smell, yep, and a little bit of the roast beef. Yep, you get a little white beef.
Kristin Nilsen 1:22:48
Errone, it's not as tomatoes, more gravy ish and mashed potatoes,
Michelle Newman 1:22:52
yeah, a little more carcass, as the under, as the undertone,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:22:57
or what? Carcass, carcass,
Michelle Newman 1:23:00
carving the roast,
Kristin Nilsen 1:23:02
carving station, the
Michelle Newman 1:23:03
carving station. Yeah, all right. Well, everybody follow us outdoors where we're going to go to our last I know you're all you're all upset. You wish you could be here longer, but we're about to go to our last section of the exhibit, and we see a large kidney shaped swimming pool with trifold lounge chairs made from metal and that woven scratchy the plastic strips that you probably still have imprinted on the backs of your thighs. I want you to sit in one of those, and I want you to inhale. And here are some of the things you're going to smell from your outdoor memories, from your Gen X childhoods. We already mentioned chlorine, so that's definitely overriding everything. But what about the smell of
Kristin Nilsen 1:23:43
off bug spray? Oh, my God, yes, bug spray, for sure.
Michelle Newman 1:23:48
And what about the smell this probably is more from as you got older. For me, it's definitely like 84 and up, but the smell of clove cigarettes, oh my god, sure will take me right back if I ever, and it's very rare that you smell a clove cigarette today, but if you do, we do it red rocks a lot. And if you do smell a clove cigarette, I mean, it's hard to discern the clove cigarette other, yeah, it's better than want to smoke. But I'm like, What just happened to me? I just got whisked back to 1984
Kristin Nilsen 1:24:19
it's like sprunch spray and clove cigarettes, exactly, and maybe a little pipe smoke.
Michelle Newman 1:24:26
Oh, my God. What about the smell of hot tar? Now I lived, I spent a lot of my childhood in very, very hot places, Texas and Arizona, and that hot tar would bubble up like bubbles, and we would pop them, or they would pop and you could smell that, that tar smell, especially when you popped one. It's really exciting. It was like, all those you'd see giant tar bubbles, and you would go, and you'd like, hit it with your toe, or you'd find a stick, and you'd pop it. Some people out there listening,
Kristin Nilsen 1:24:55
that's like, that's like rolling a hoop with a stick, right?
Michelle Newman 1:24:59
Like. Equivalent childhood. It was create an app where you can pop tar bubbles just like your finger. All right, that's trademarked. Everyone steal it, okay? So many, so many comments we got from our listeners about all the different sunscreens. I'm gonna sunscreen. Oh, my God, suntan lotion, or oil. Back then it was suntan for me. It was Hawaiian Tropic oil, SPF, negative five, basically, yeah, it's why I go to the ambitologist four times a year. Yeah? And what about the band, band of Soleil? It was an orange gel, and it, yeah,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:25:41
yes. It was crazy.
Kristin Nilsen 1:25:43
Yeah, my teenager me for sure, yeah.
Michelle Newman 1:25:46
And then, of course, the copper tone. I mean, that's classic today, the classic. And they have not changed that scent. And since they they maybe
Kristin Nilsen 1:25:55
I'm thinking of the tropic. Wait, what is it called?
Michelle Newman 1:26:02
Why are you a tropic was in the brown bottle, and it
Kristin Nilsen 1:26:04
was always that's the one I'm thinking of, because it's more like coconut. And that is another thing. If you walk into a place and you smell coconut it, I'm thinking that, yeah, putting on some tanning lotion
Michelle Newman 1:26:16
for sure, or oil. Yeah, excuse me. Um, what about sea and ski?
Kristin Nilsen 1:26:20
Panama, chat. Oh, I totally forgot I've seen that's right,
Michelle Newman 1:26:24
cutie lotion.
Kristin Nilsen 1:26:30
Which one turned your skin orange? Was that cute tea?
Michelle Newman 1:26:33
Well, band of Soleil. Even that orange? Yeah, somebody mentioned banana boat, plus the after sun lotion they really wanted to Oh, yeah, okay, remembered I would throw in just straight up baby oil, because we just spread baby oil on ourselves. I mean, we, we might as well have just taken sticks of butter and just rubbed it all over ourselves, right? Because we also would sleep on. Our sleep on. We would lay out in the sun on. It looked like a big old piece of tin foil, like a tin foil mat that you laid on. Oh, good God. Somebody said swim caps, I guess the smell of that kind of rubbery, oh, that rubbery
Kristin Nilsen 1:27:11
with maybe some flowers. Did you guys ever have the ones that had the floppy flowers on it? Like you're gonna make it
Michelle Newman 1:27:17
look like 45 Did you wear it with your caftan or your
Kristin Nilsen 1:27:24
Yes, with my lotion my caftan? She got there really early for
Carolyn Cochrane 1:27:29
aerobics in the pool,
Michelle Newman 1:27:30
Adult Swim guys. Someone did mention the pool floats. Someone mentioned the thick flip flops with the rainbow soles, like that rubber sole had a distinct smell, and then sun, and you know that you'd spray blonde hair has a hair smell, not really having to do with the pool, but still outside. Lot of people mentioned leaded gas fumes. So leaded gasoline the way that smells, to see if Yes.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:28:00
Andy about that, because I thought, did I miss something? He said, Well, the exhaust back then was a, it was a very distinct smell, like, we're probably just so used to it, yeah, no, but yeah, a lot of people said that,
Michelle Newman 1:28:12
okay, the DDT, that the mosquito truck that drove through the neighborhood and, like, sprayed DDT and, like, Carolyn and right into your mouth, yeah, ran behind it, frolicking in the DDT that probably just powdered up. They ran out, and they frolic to the DDT spray like it was a freaking like water sprinkler water park. Someone said the metallic end of the hose as you brought it up to take a drink out
Kristin Nilsen 1:28:42
of it's panic. It's very tannic, good word.
Michelle Newman 1:28:47
I love that memory the cigarette car lighter when you were lighting the cigarette. So, you know, you push it in and then it pops out, but when you pull it out, it's that kind of burning metal, yeah, that metallicy, metallic smell. What about the paper strip firecracker pops? Do you guys remember those caps? Yeah, and it's like that gunpowder smell? Yes. That definitely takes me back to childhoods at my dad's at the lake. Do you remember the smell of wine coolers?
Kristin Nilsen 1:29:15
Just that smell of wine. I just threw up a little bit in my mouth, and it tasted like a wine.
Michelle Newman 1:29:21
It's probably still down. And then lastly, oh, my God, I think we're almost done. Lastly, the smell of Boone's Farm, someone's
Kristin Nilsen 1:29:32
Yes, screw off that top. Isn't that good and purple?
Michelle Newman 1:29:36
Can I just tell you how grown up I felt one time Brian and I were dating in college. I might have been I was probably underage, so just you come at me, Don't come at me and arrest me. What's the statute of limitations on underage drinking? And we were grocery we were going to, just like, play cards one night, like we felt so grown up. I was probably 20, and we were shopping at the Safeway in Tempe, Arizona, because we went to Arizona State. And we were buying, I don't even know, stuff to make pasta, and we just felt so fancy because we bought a giant jug of wine. I don't know what it was, but it was like a jug.
Kristin Nilsen 1:30:13
Carlo Ponte,
Michelle Newman 1:30:16
yeah, yeah. Who knows? Oh, my goodness. So you know what? Oh God, we are Kristin and all of our guests. I would like you to sit for just a minute, because Carolyn has one final question for all of you. I know you're probably tired, but just get off your feet for a second.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:30:34
I'm curious if you have any ideas what the top three most mentioned since were Oh my we quizzed, or when we asked our
Kristin Nilsen 1:30:45
followers, so it's not amongst the ones we've already mentioned. Yes, oh, because I was gonna say Jolly Ranchers, because we hadn't talked about Jolly Ranchers. You don't have
Michelle Newman 1:30:54
a lot of candy. We Yes, okay, we didn't have enough that we put it but Bubblicious and, yeah, Jolly
Carolyn Cochrane 1:31:00
Rancher was that big stick? Was it called Big this?
Michelle Newman 1:31:05
People did mention the fire stick. They did mention wacky wafers. You know what? Our museum is only so big we can.
Kristin Nilsen 1:31:11
Yeah, we don't have a candy wing yet. We're working on exactly right. Oh, but that's
Michelle Newman 1:31:16
so so the most people you know, like that. Carolyn was just scrolling, scrolling. There's another one for that. There's another one for that. And we didn't do a lot. We didn't actually get out our abacus and, you know, our adding machine and all that stuff. But we definitely feel confident
Kristin Nilsen 1:31:34
that these eyeballs, well, the ones that I would say, were ones that I mentioned, and you were like, Oh yeah, that one. So then I that can't be it, because I would say, I would say, like, crayons and play doh and and maybe noxima.
Michelle Newman 1:31:51
Okay, those are all really good guesses.
Kristin Nilsen 1:31:54
Okay, that's not correct t shirt and T shirt shack and T shirt shack.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:31:58
Okay, very good guesses. Okay. Actually loves babysoft.
Kristin Nilsen 1:32:03
Okay, yes, yeah, I get that
Carolyn Cochrane 1:32:06
the mimeograph sheet. Of course, I can't believe I didn't do that one. Yes, and so, and our third one was cigarette smoke.
Kristin Nilsen 1:32:14
Oh, my God. We were just talking about this. Mike and me were just talking about this. How will you it was everywhere. And then you would go into a restaurant, and you could ask for naan, right? Smoking or naan? We'd like naan, please. And you could be sitting next to a person smoking because they were in the smoking section, and my mom would go like this, you guys. Oh, she'd be like this. And then so I have my shirt over my nose, and she's this, can you please put us at a different table? But prior
Carolyn Cochrane 1:32:40
to that, think about it, there wasn't even a separation between, that's right, smoking and non smoking. And again, I'm from a family of smokers, so it was the car, you know, it was, as we said, like walking into the house. I mean, I hate to say this, I know it now, because I'm a not, I'm a non smoker, but, like, your clothes would smell of it, even if you were a hair smoker. Yeah, you
Michelle Newman 1:33:03
guys, yes, everywhere it permeated our generation. And I wholeheartedly agree with that. Being in the top three, I don't think that's number one. I think it's number one. I mean, with all of the smells that we've just listed that were so amazing, I hate that that's in the top three, but it truly is, because it's one of the first things all of us think of when we think of our childhood.
Kristin Nilsen 1:33:22
And it was everywhere in everybody's life, whether you lived with smokers or not. It permeated wherever you were. And it and we wasn't until the 1970s when there was really a campaign to not smoke, right? And and so then you started having smoking and non smoking sections. I think that is the smell of the 70s.
Michelle Newman 1:33:44
It really is, really
Carolyn Cochrane 1:33:45
a smell. Thank goodness I would say that doesn't permeate our lives anymore. So it really is kind of a time capsule II kind of smell. And like we said, that was everywhere, yeah, that you went. So, yeah. So those were the top three according to our listeners and followers, we'd
Michelle Newman 1:34:04
like to thank everyone for visiting the Gen X Museum, and especially our first exhibit. Scratch and sniff smells like Gen X please Exit Through The Gift Shop where nothing is for sale, but everything is strangely familiar. And as you go, take one last breath of sweet honesty, pencil shavings, Aussie scrunch spray, gasoline, silly putty and that warm plastic smell from the iron ons at the t shirt shack. These smells may now follow you home. Cling to your fair isle sweater and reappear without warning for no clear reason. You're welcome. Thanks for listening everybody, and thanks for growing up with us. And before we all actually exit this episode, we'd like to give a huge thanks to our Patreon crew. You keep the mics on, the memories flowing and the Gen X spirit alive. Seriously, we couldn't do any of this without you. Thank you for hanging with us, supporting the. Show and being part of this fun family today, we're giving a special shout out to two of our newest Patreon members, Janice and Melissa. Welcome and thank you. Richard, Laura Shannon, Jen Theresa Dawn, Melissa, Annabelle, Sandra the dead sleep podcast, Rosa and Christy.
Kristin Nilsen 1:35:22
Thank you, everybody. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast courtesy of the cast of Three's Company, two good times,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:35:29
two Happy Days, Two Little House on the Prairie cheers the information,
Kristin Nilsen 1:35:35
opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards. Nanu. Nanu, keep on truckin, and may the Force be with you.