What does teen spirit smell like? If your 90s fragrance wardrobe was anything like ours, we’re betting it has a top note of vanilla, and sits firmly in the 'fruity-floral’ family. Whether it was a stolen spritz of the Body Shop's White Musk when you were shopping in town on a Saturday, or a dab on each wrist of your precious first bottle of CK One, just a hint of a whiff of those fragrant first perfumes is as close to teenage time travel as you can get. There’s nothing like a much-beloved teen perfume to bring back memories of yesteryear, and while some of our spritz decisions belong firmly in the past, why not reacquaint your nostrils with these 10 cult classics?
CK One
Splashing a little of Calvin Klein’s unisex 90s creation on each wrist officially transformed you into the effortlessly cool, androgynous pin-up of the decade (and beyond), Kate Moss. Or so we thought at the time. The fresh bergamot and musk fragrance made unisex sexy for the first time – this was a perfume for the fashion-forward teen. The hipster of the 90s. With a gender-neutral generation on the rise, we predict a comeback for this cult classic.
Calvin Klein ck one Eau de Toilette, £28, available at Boots
Charlie Red
Launched in 1993, this super-sweet fruity floral was the must-have perfume for 90s teens. Nothing said ‘I’m-a-grown-up-therefore-I-own-perfume’ like the orange blossom, blackcurrant and carnation concoction that was Charlie Red. Preppy girls at secondary schools whipped it out of their backpacks between lessons and walked through suffocating clouds of Charlie Red, or Charlie White, or Charlie Blue… It really all depended on ‘what kind of Charlie girl’ you were.
Revlon Charlie Red Eau de Toilette, £4.99 , available at The Perfume Shop
Tommy Girl
The sporty girl’s perfume of choice. Tommy Girl (another fruity floral, shock horror) was that perfect mix of luxury and accessibility. Firstly, it felt really American and therefore chic and exotic, and the Tom-girl connotations meant it appealed to girls most comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt. Tommy Girl was the most likely thing you’d bring back from a holiday to the US in your teen years – and you’d then spend the next year refusing your friends who begged for a spritz.
Tommy Hilfiger Tommy Girl, £ 35.00, available at Tommy Hilfiger
Thierry Mugler Angel
Thierry Mugler’s spicy sweet vanilla scent launched in 1992 and became an instant classic. The strong scent and striking ad campaigns meant it wasn’t for everyone but if you were cool enough to ‘get it’ then you could stand the occasional teenage boy’s rebuttal. Jerry Hall’s 1995 campaign was achingly beautiful – and the brand relit their fire by hiring Hall’s daughter Georgia-May Jagger for the role in 2014.
Thierry Mugler Angel Eau de Toilette, £52.50, available at Thierry Mugler
J Lo Glow
OK, so this one launched in 2002, but we were at the peak of our J Lo obsession and still not ready to give up our rose and grapefruit fragrances. One of the most successful celebrity perfumes of all time, this was the signature scent of any girl who wanted to be a bit sexy but was, ultimately, just Jenny (or Becky, or Leanne, or Naomi) from the block.
J Lo, Glow Eau de Toilette, £29.50 , available at Boots
J'Adore Dior
The trendy teen’s perfume of choice. This girl would have all the new season styles in their wardrobe and would stack the latest copies of Vogue at the end of her bed to leaf through while waving a fluffy pink pen à la Cher from Clueless. This blood orange, vanilla and rose scent is just as beautiful as its distinctive gold-topped bottle.
Dior, J'Adore Eau de Parfum, £70, available at John Lewis
JPG Classique
If you were mature enough to deal with the fact that owning a bottle of Jean Paul Gaultier’s signature scent meant having a pair of Madonna-esque boobs on your dressing table, you were cool enough to wear JPG Classique. Another vanilla and rose concoction, this light feminine scent is still in our fragrance arsenal, ever since we doctored the birth date on our provisional driver’s license and went to our local Wetherspoons in a denim mini skirt and a spritz of our new perfume, ready to drink at least four Apple Sours. We felt sophisticated in it then, we feel sophisticated in it now. (We don’t drink Apple Sours any more. Very often.)
Jean Paul Gaultier, Classique Eau de Parfum, £51, available at The Perfume Shop
The Body Shop's White Musk
You’d buy your mum a bottle of this every Mother’s Day, and she’d tell you she was thrilled as she placed it gingerly next to her bottle of Chanel on her dressing table. You’d then proceed to sneak into her room and use said White Musk every day and feel mightily sophisticated as you breezed around school. Actually, this soft powdery scent is really pleasant. We imagine it's what Angela Chase smelt like.
The Body Shop, White Musk Eau de Parfum, £18 £9, available at The Body Shop
Versace Red Jeans
Yes, we loved the wearable, fruity-floral redcurrant, peony and vanilla concoction of Versace Red Jeans, but that distinguishable red bottle and corresponding tin was what our teenage hearts really desired. So. Pretty. Another fashion maven’s fragrance of choice.
Versace, Red Jeans Eau de Toilette, £30 £15, available at Superdrug
Impulse Spice Girls
How could we leave without giving Impulse Spice Girls a mention? Yes, it was a ‘body spray’ and yes, it cost about £1.99 and yes, sometimes we used a whole can after one particularly sweaty PE lesson, but it is an important part of our perfume past. And we loved it. "Wear nothing but Impulse Spice," the ads told us. How rude, how liberating, how spice-ruddy-tastic. The scent was made up of a note for each girl (amber for Ginger and vanilla for Baby, of course) and represented the girls’ "feminine, funky and unpredictable personalities." Please, oh please, bring it back.
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