Writer's Block: Smells like teen spirit

[lazy_hoor]

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Late '70s - Purple photocopies. We had some arcane photocopying machine* in our school - it printed everything in purple and it smelled divine - a kind of powdery floral scent.  Five-year-old Hoor could often be found clasping a photocopy to her face and inhaling deeply.  Was mine the only school to have this?

The '80s smelled of Dior's Poison (mother, ugh), Body Shop White Musk (me) or Dewberry (scarletts_web).  I think The Body Shop was the predominant smell of the decade as it was cheap back then and it's where I purchased all my smellies - banana shampoo, fuzzy peach shower gel, cucumber cleanser, carrot moisturizer - I must have smelt like a salad. A musky salad.  scarletts_web  and I both loved Spiritual Sky patchouli oil as well. My mother always complained that patchouli oil gave her a headache and that even the cat stank of patchouli oil due to my over-enthusiastic application of the scent.  I still wear patchouli oil today, even though I most definitely am not a hippy, or a goth. I am also still fond of Body Shop smellies (the pink grapefruit range in particular) though I find Body Shop stuff quite expensive these days.

Early '90s - Colors of Benneton and Ex'cla-mation! by Coty. The latter was very cheap and nearly every girl I knew had a bottle.  I haven't seen Colors of Benneton in years, I wonder if I'd still like it?

* A mimeograph! Or possibly a spirit duplicator!

Bill Bryson is also a mimeograph fan: “Of all the tragic losses since the 1960s, mimeograph paper may be the greatest. With its rapturously fragrant, sweetly aromatic pale blue ink, mimeograph paper was literally intoxicating. Two deep drafts of a freshly run-off mimeograph worksheet and I would be the education system’s willing slave for up to seven hours.” Sniffing the paper he “…drifted off to a private place where fields were green, everyone went barefoot, and the soft trill of panpipes floated on the air.” -  The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

Comments

[biascut.livejournal.com]

No! Everything was done on those purple machines at my school, too. They weren't photocopiers, though, they were some kind of mad mechanical thing: you'd see teachers patiently turning the handles and churning out prints, and each one got fainter, so you could only do a certain number of copies at a time. I think my primary school got a photocopier just about 1987-88 or something, but they still used the purple one because it was cheaper. But at secondary school, they only had photocopiers.

Ooh, here it is - it's a mimeograph!

[kelemvor.livejournal.com]

When I was in first school (early 80s), I remember that certain worksheets were printed into our exercise books by the teacher from a master copy that was purple. It wasn't a photocopy, though. She used to hold it onto the page, and then firmly scrape all down the thing with a large plastic trapezium from the Maths set. It's funny the things that stick in your mind...

[k425.livejournal.com]

THE BANDA MACHINE! Goodness, yes, that's a proper 70s memory!

ETA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator

[leedy.livejournal.com]

Early nineties smelt of New West for me. Mid-nineties, erm, sweat and Vicks?

[scarletts-web.livejournal.com]

I was also fond of LouLou, and I remember you had a Chanel perfume (no 5?) and I always think of 80s Hoor when I smell that. Late 90s was Lush for me...