Products you were surprised are still around

BIKE still sells its original #10 Jockstrap.

I've been continuously on the market since 1980.

Noxzema

Ivory Snow Flakes

Lemon Pledge

Patti LaBelle

Love's Baby Soft

Jiffy Pop Popcorn

Who the hell is still shaking an aluminum pan over an open flame?

I was obsessed with Dippity Doo. I still buy Jiffy Pop.

R6 While still on the market, I've read that Lemon Pledge was reformulated by SC Johnson about 10-12 years ago. It had something to do with the aerosol used in it being toxic. This might be why when I was a kid and might get a whiff of it when mom was using it, I'd nearly gag. As I recall, the company also had reformulate it's Jubilee liquid wax. I've read it had petroleum naptha in it. Lovely.

I used to play with my mom’s Dippity Doo when I was a toddler..

Period underwear. It's a newish product, but I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want to walk around in bloody underwear. 🤮

A number of ancient fragrances are still produced, although a good deal of these are in terrible shape because the IFRA has banned the use of many of the molecules those old fragrances were built upon. Classic chypres and fougères are hard to make but a few brands have found acceptable workarounds with modern molecules. A couple years ago Grès reworked their classic Cabochard, which had been reformulated a few times in 2000s with each new restriction. But they finally got it right again, and sell it at a low or reasonable cost. Chanel 5 EDT is still acceptably itself, as is the Liu, the Guerlain copycat from the 20s. Guerlain reworked a number of their classics 2 years ago and rescued a few 20 years of decline. Jicky smells good again.

Emeraude

[quote] the IFRA has banned the use of many of the molecules those old fragrances were built upon.

Interesting, r14. Can you explain why they were banned?

Tesla

R16 it's complicated. There is evidence some of the old molecules are allergens for a small minority of consumers. Also some may have had health risks.

The current analysis is that the IFRA did this in cahoots with the "fragrance and flavor" molecule industry to oblige brands to buy and use the synthetic molecules. There is nothing WRONG with the new molecules. And there are many wonderful scents among the new molecules. So noses can create fantastic or good NEW fragrances, designed from the start with the latest molecules. Such fragrances don't smell anything like old fragrances however. It's all new genres.

It's difficult to create an old-fashioned chypre without oak moss.

Sometimes it's not about the IFRA restrictions however. Rather the old NATURAL ingredients are now too costly, or rare. Or "problematic". Real good old sandalwood and ambergris are astronomically expensive and rare. Real good jasmin isn't cheap. Civet and castoreum banned for animal cruelty. Etc.

Madonna.

Brylcreem

Your mother’s dignity.

Florida Water cologne.

Frozen orange juice concentrate

Adidas “Country” sneakers.

r25, they don't have them at adidas.com.

Here, R26

Oops, I mean HERE, R26

X (fka Twitter)

Tussy cream deodorant

4711 cologne

Stretch Armstrong

Ultra Brite toothpaste

There was a incident with my mom's curlers and Dippity Doo and the toilet when I was a toddler, it wasn't pretty.

Buick cars

Joy (the dishwasher detergent)

Thank you, R28. I have to wait until the day after tomorrow to order a pair. Do you wear them?

Lincoln cars - I thought they went extinct, but their flat-assed SUVs are everywhere..

Massengill vinegar and water douche

Drakkar Noir

R34 Joy the classic Patou perfume, along with the entire house of Patou, was killed by Dior/LVHM during the Pandemic. I guess I can dab Joy dish soap on my pulse points.

Old Spice and Brut 33

Products I WISH were still around-

Doo Dads

Velour Bench Seats 💺- I hate bucket seats

Full Service Gasoline Stations - New Jersey still has them.

Sweets 🍫 before they and other foods had High Fructose 🌽 syrup and genetically modified ingredients.

LVHM and its duopoly competitor (which is based round Gucci) are probably the main reasons we can't have nice things any more. They decided when they first took over the fashion houses that they could make far more money from fragrances and handbags than they could from clothes, so they worked their star designers into the ground then fired them when they started to break down. At the same time, they sent the handbag and fragrance fields tabloid, marketing even to the kind of gal Anne Hathaway was before she met Miranda Priestly. That means that they decided the pricepoints they thought they could market way beyond the couture space while still being expensive enough that the average joe would think "luxury", and any fragrance that cost more than that to make was out, baby.

It is also true that France instituted a body to look at the constituents of fragrances, which banned some for health reasons (aldehydes, as in formaldehyde, were a big component) and others for animal cruelty/environmental ones. But I wonder how far that would have gone if the billion dollar brand owners hadn't wanted fragrances to go cheaper while the components were getting more expensive.

Necco Wafers, candy cigarettes, Beeman's and Clove chewing gum, Life Savers.

R41 There are still several full-service gas stations around Los Angeles. The media always likes to show the one in Beverly Hills when they feel the need to shock people about the price of gas. Plus, it's the one with the famous mid-century modern roof over the pumps.

Coco's Castile Soap

Ths one...

Carbolic soap

Snuff

Bactine

One thing that's not around that I miss is Morten's Frozen Honey Buns.

Queen Helene Mint Julep Mask

Carter's Little Liver Pills and Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans.

Oh my gosh, r40. The first guy I kissed wore Brut 33. We were in high school, he was a wannabe army type, probably CIA recruitment material. He would sneak me into the photography dark room and we would all but have each other during photog class. I've never forgotten him in his military fatigues, and the cheap Brut 33.

Brut is still around. Brut 33, I think not.

[quote] Old Spice and Brut 33

Where have you been? Old Spice has had a long and ubiquitous marketing campaign. It has been revived.

And everyone reading your post has the damn song going through their brains, r55.

Oh, hell. Knock yourself out, R56.

Regarding Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans, where is the logo? This is a sad zombie brand grift.

Does Anderson wear his mom's jeans?

Well!! Sniff

Carter's Little Pills

R58 Other once famous designer brands that are pretty much forgotten but are still hanging around:

Bill Blass, Perry Ellis, Adolfo, Esprit, Gianfranco Ferré, Enrico Coveri, Betsey Johnson, Norma Kamali

On that note, Knize and Battistoni tailors. James Ince umbrellas. Much older: Torrini jeweller in Venice was founded in the 14th C. and Lodenwalke in Styria the 15th Century.

Torrini is Florentine, not Venetian.

Otherwise known as "Vitalis Hair Tonic for Men."

oh, you're right!

Spray Cheese.

Maypo, Bosco Chocolate Syrup, Ovaltine

Who in the world buys Ovaltine?

^^The same person who buys Cream of Wheat.

Lydia Pinkham pills

Today's Ovaltine is just powder, r68, more like Nestle's Quik than the Ovaltine of yore. It isn't the wonderful crunchy bits I used to love and eat right out of the jar, or put on ice cream.

Ovaltine tasted pretty good, IIRC. My mom bought Quik, which was hard to dissolve. My neighbor's mom bought Ovaltine and they were jealous of the Quik, for some reason. I think Ovaltine was branded as more "healthy" whereas Quik was branded more as just tasting good.

r67 a staple in the 70's used to make elegant celery snacks. I need to go buy some now.

Quik's resistance to yielding into solution was one of the things we loved about it. You could stir up a thick slurry of chocolate-and-milk and enjoy that before stirring milk and more Quick together. Or as a finishing touch before pouring a fresh glass of milk to start all over again.

It was very different from Bosco or Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, two other standbys. Bosco wasn't to my liking, although I checked and saw the processing and recipe (if such it may be called) changed in 2020, removing vanilla and malt extract, so it's a far step from the original. We'd drink Hersheys from the can when our mother left the kitchen. No wonder we were all (five of us) wound tight and spending a lot of time at the dentist. Our folks couldn't figure it out.

Doan's pills

Paregoric

Not quite the original, but found Tang in sugar free drink packets for your water bottle. Not bad, too young to know how close it tastes to the original.

R43, NECCO wafers are in production again. Also saw Beemans and Clove gum at my hardware store a couple days ago.

^ ignore that, I forgot the topic.

BC headache powders

[quote] Also saw Beemans and Clove gum at my hardware store a couple days ago.

R78 I was at Rocket Fizz (a retro candy and soda store) in Los Angeles a few years ago and saw them. They also had Black Jack and Teaberry gums. At that time, the guy running the store told me that the company produces one annual run of them, then that's it for another year. Don't know if that's still the case.

Apparently, one can still get Mandrax - Quaaludes - in South Africa.

Infusium 23

I actually Googled Doan's back pills this weeks because I'm trying to take a break from ibuprofen. I remember the commercials from the 70s so I thought maybe. Like r75, was surprised they're still around. But the magnesium salicylate has the same issues as ibuprofen, so not a great option.