I remember back in 8th grade, Bath & Body Works first came out, and it instantly became this fad at my junior high. If you were cool, you wore this stuff. You smelled awesome, and you got to carry around those cool bottles with lotion in your purse. My family never could afford any of the big fads when I was in school - the Peace Frog t-shirts were big, Banana Republic t-shirts, Guess jeans, Jansport backpacks with patches all over them, converse sneakers. I always wore the rip-off version of those because in my family, if you wanted something extra like that then you had to pay for it. This is why I started working as soon as I could when I was 14, so I could have the extra spending money. But even when I did have some spending money, I still couldn't afford some of these fads. we lived in a pretty wealthy school district, you see....
Anyway, I digress...this story does, in fact, have a point. I'm getting there....anyway, T and I went shopping the other day because my mother-in-law got me a $10 Bath & Body Works gift card. Knowing that there are some awesome sales after Christmas, I wanted to spend it in celebration of the new job. So we went there, and I scoured the store looking for the best sale, and I came across a sign for $3 per bottle. They were mostly old scents, but I saw an old favorite of mine:
I specifically remember that this was the scent (Country Apple) to wear back when the store first opened. I loved the smell of it, but I never could buy it for myself. Spending $8.50 on a bottle of lotion? Out of the question in my parent's minds. (This went somewhere along the lines of spending $3.85 on a Bonne Bell Lipsmacker, too.) I immediately grabbed the bottle and smelled it, taking in the scent. "Oh this brings me back," I told T. He looked at me like I had lost my mind, so I went into my whole "cool girls" story.
Then it dawned on me...hey, I can afford it now! "Hey, I can be one of the cool girls!" I exclaimed to T in the middle of the store, several onlookers overhearing us, I'm sure. I quickly scooped up my bottles and headed to the checkout.
It's amazing what a little nostalgia can do to you, isn't it? Now all I need to do is to get my Banana Republic t-shirt, wrap a flannel shirt around my waist and wear a matching scrunchie on my wrist (only on the wrist, NEVER in the hair), and I'll be back in 1995.
What kinds of things bring you back?
Victoria's Secret strawberries and champagne and pear lotions! So middle and high school for me! I even had scented nail polish from VS and thought I was the coolest ever...haha!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you got your apple lotion...my big bath and body works scent from back then was cucumber melon...cant even smell it now...I wore that stuff out!
:)
I loved the Sweet Pea! I wonder if they still make it... I should check because I loved that stuff!
ReplyDelete& my dear, Nain, you will always be one of the cool girls to me. :) Now email me details about the new job please!
Ahhhh the scrunchie on the wrist! I had forgotten about that! Wow, the memories.
ReplyDeleteI remember the lotions, too - I wasn't as into it as the other girls (now I'm an addict but that's another story). And the constant glossing of the lips...I can't imaging how much lip gloss those girls went through.
We were talking the other day about one hit wonders of the 90's and my husband looked up a list...some of the song titles had me right back at the high school dances and belting in my bedroom. "No Rain", "Nothing Compares 2 U", "What's Up", "Jump Around"...those were the days.
I was never one of the cool girls, either. Still not, as a matter of fact!
I called them double stuffed socks. Two pair of socks, different colors, scrunched down over your ankles. And double cuffing your sleeve hems on short sleeve shirts.Bonus if the inside was a different but complimentary color to the outer color. :-)
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