14 Iconic 80s Perfumes We Loved as Teenagers and Wish Would Make a Comeback

In honor of Valentine’s Day and Bob’s very ’80s gifts to his wife, I went on a deep dive on iconic 80s perfumes that should make a comeback.

OK, Bob’s gift was an Estee Lauder gift pack. And to be really honest, it was makeup and skincare, not White Linen eau de parfum.

But still, I was like “Um, you went totally ’80s on that gift.”

Because all I could think of was spraying “Beautiful” all over my Champion sweatshirt before I went to go drink in the woods with whichever boy I had a crush that week.

Listen, the 80s were ICONIC for perfume for many reasons.

One, smelling like Love’s Baby Soft is a core memory I think we should all revisit.

Also, perfume was almost reaching its celebrity endorsement phase. Liz Taylor and Passion and Debbie Gibson and Electric Youth paved the way for J-Lo and Justin Beiber  and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Plus, the perfume you wore said a lot about who you were as a teenager.

I mean, all I can say is if you had a best friend who wore Poison on the regs, you were DEFINITELY having a good time on the weekends.

My first perfume was the 1st runner up of teen fragrances – Heaven Sent. And WHY they didn’t call it Heaven SCENT is beyond me.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY MADISON AVE.

The Miss America of Teen Perfume title went to Love’s Baby Soft, which, combined with Aqua-Net, Bonnie Bell lip gloss and Sun-In caused more chemical damage to the environment than the Exxon-Valdez disaster.

And if you were wearing Opium, you were a confident, one-percenter who scared me a little.

Sure, half this crap probably caused cancer in test-monkeys, but boy did we love them.

A tribute to the 14 Iconic 80s Perfumes We Loved as Teenagers and Wish Would Make a Comeback:

• 1. Love's Baby Soft

  Love’s Baby Soft was the first perfume you usually got as a gift. A stocking stuffer or a present from grandma. It smelled like powder and, apparently, perverts. Because WHAT IN THE NAME OF CHRIS HANSEN is GOING ON in this commercial?

• 2. Heaven Sent

  While all my friends were wearing Love’s Baby Soft, the elixer of, apparently, Level 3 sex offenders, I was stuck with Heaven Sent. It was the lesser-know entry-level perfume. I think my mother wore it, so of course, she bought it for me. Here’s the very 1968 jingle. I couldn’t wait to get older, get a tube top and get me some better perfume.

• 3. Electric Youth

  This fragrance hit CVS and the frenzy over getting it (at least as an 8th grader) may not have rivaled the craziness of, oh, Taylor Swift tickets, but it was a HOT item. No commercial, but enjoy Debbie’s rendition of “Electric Youth” for your listening pleasure!

• 4. Exclamation!

  I’ll make a statement: this stuff was the probably the most lifted perfume in all of drugstore history. You know those plastic cases at Walgreen’s keeping all the baby formula, razors and Sudafed away from the masses? Blame teenagers and their unrelenting need for Exclamation!

   

• 5. Liz Claiborne

  Liz Claiborne smelled like your cool, well-dressed, slightly preppy friend who looked like she was on her way to be deposed by her ex-husband. But damn, the bottle was cool as hell. And this commercial hit ALL the right notes!

• 6. Obsession by Calvin Klein

  Hey honey, this smells like a stalker! Obsession was one of those perfumes you were sort of afraid of. It smelled like sin, possible pregnancy and definitely the whiff of restraining order.

• 7. Benetton Colors

  People who wore this were from Wellesley. That is all.

• 8. Designer Imposters

  At $3 bucks each, what could go wrong? I’ll tell you what could go wrong. Everything. Desperate Imposters is a better name. Also, pretty pervy commercial. The 80s were so weird.

• 9. Giorgio! by Giorgio Armani

  No teenager had this perfume. Not one. But we all wanted to visit the landmark store in Beverly Hills a la Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.”

• 10. Lauren

  I wore it. Of course I did. And if your name was Lauren, you got it every Christmas, every birthday, every holiday until you turned 30. If was almost enough to change your name to Ralph Lifshitz.

   

• 11. Anais Anais

  Anais Anais by Cacharel was huge among the Laura Ashley set. If you liked lace and buttoned-up collars, prairie skirts and soft, filtered lighting, the costuming in “Out of Africa and the movie “Pretty Baby” (ew), then this was for you. Also, this commercial wins for “Most Vague”.

• 12. Charlie

  “Kind of young kind of now, kind of free kind of now, CHARLIE!” More like kind of fruity and apricot-y, kind of smells like pot-pourri-y, CHARLIE! Thanks to CHARLIE, I can’t stand the smell of dried fruit. Thanks a lot CHARLIE!

• 13. Opium

  I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: any teenager who wore this was a one-percenter with a BMW and a Bloomingdales card who probably scared me a little. Also, is it a good idea to name a scent after a highly addictive substance responsible for the deaths of millions? I’m no marketer but that seems like it might need a rethink.

• 14. Enjolie

  Ok, this perfume overpromised and underperformed. Sure, teens didn’t wear it because we had NO intention of getting all of that done in a day. But our moms may have worn it – and we saw they were burned out. And speaking of burned, this commercial is burned in my memory.

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