Love's Baby Soft, circa 1988

[booksandcheeses.livejournal.com]

At least it doesn't have the pedophile-like tone of some earlier Love's ads.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

just a little gay subtext

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

I don't really see that unless it's because the model looks more like he would date a Nicholas than a Nicole. Most of the straight boys I knew during that time weren't that pretty, so you might be onto something there. No matter. A naive tween girl wouldn't know the difference and that would be the target market for this stuff.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Does he want to _date_ Nicole, or _smell like_ Nicole?

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

Ah. I did also consider the thought of a boy wanting his jacket to have a baby fresh scent!

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Under that though is the homophobic subtext that gay boy = girl.

(since when do babies smell "fresh"?)

[mwittier.livejournal.com]

Idealized babies, the kind featured in the fevered imaginings of lonely teenage girls of that era, smell super-awesome-fresh, and their diapers are changed by unicorns!

[fallconsmate.livejournal.com]

In the five minutes between the bath/lotion/fresh diaper and clothing and the time they fill that fresh diaper with hazardous waste. ;)

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

Or puke on themselves! Yes, thank you! That's what I was thinking. I was kind of using "baby fresh" ironically anyway. That's marketing lingo if ever I've heard it!

[meleth.livejournal.com]

He likes the fact that it smells like Nicole, because then "it's like she's right there," smelling all good and girl-like and stuff. So it's your basic "my girlfriend smells good, and so this smell makes me think of my lady" thing.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

It's like the Sweater Song

[elric-dewisant.livejournal.com]

Only a little.

And at the risk of showing my sliptrue age, but isn't that one of the guys in New Kids on the Block?

[spuzzlightyear.livejournal.com]

I thought he looked like Billy Zane actually.

Billy Zane as if he was a 80's butch lesbian.

[mwittier.livejournal.com]

He's so kd lang, it hurts.

[hiddenmuse.livejournal.com]

That must be why I liked him so much, then! ;-)

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

You, know, I think you're onto something there! Are we sure that's a boy?

Wait a minute . . . is that a young Rachel Maddow? That smirk! Yep, that's gotta be her. Now we know who she dated in high school!

[cuddledumplin.livejournal.com]

I think he looks more like Brian Bloom. http://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/brian-bloom/photos/142726/16904

[mwittier.livejournal.com]

If nothing else, he has the handwriting of a seventh grade girl. Back then, I would've decided that meant he was secretly communicating with me.

It was a craven time for adolescent boys of a certain type.

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

I agree it's not as creepy as the "Lolita" type ads of the 70s. I think they wanted to avoid that association again.

It's a cute ad. I like the 80s-ness quality of it that isn't too over-the-top. But it doesn't mention when the guy gets beat up because he smells like baby powder (which is what Love's Baby Soft smelled like).

[crabofdoom.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, much as I was thinking. If it's summer vacation, perhaps no one would notice the scent but him, but then, he wouldn't need a jacket. In the middle of crowded halls and classrooms, though, he's gonna catch hell for smelling like perfume. Even cheap perfume. (powder perfume, which makes me gag just thinking about it.) Unless Nicole is one of those people who uses half a bottle at a time, and everyone's used to the Baby Soft onslaught by now.

Hot guy, though. I recall thinking so back when the ad was new, as well.

[wheresthebeat.livejournal.com]

haa i automatically like it because my name is nicole

[miafedup.livejournal.com]

Do you smell baby soft? Or is that just rude of me to even ask:)

[wheresthebeat.livejournal.com]

it's not rude, just silly.. of course i do!

[miafedup.livejournal.com]

Thought so! ;)

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

I actually remember this ad. It used to always be in YM or Teen or whatever magazine I got at the time.

[ocean-star.livejournal.com]

I remember seeing this ad in Seventeen magazine as a teenager. :-) I thought that guy was adorable.

[mwittier.livejournal.com]

I think the subtext is more, "Hey girl, who's immature and sufficiently unformed enough socially to want to smell like a widdle baybeee, and who responds to ads that look like a womb and yet feature what you think a penis probably looks like in your romantic, idealized view, because you've never actually seen one because the internet doesn't exist yet: here's an utterly unthreatening, yet equally unrealistic representation of what a boyfriend will be like when you get one someday. And look, even his idealized penis only wants to cuddle with your dainty box."

But, yeah, as a gay teen in that era, I fell for it, too.

[vix.livejournal.com]

I hated this ad. Just hated it. Thought the guy looked like a mega douche.

[matmutchmr.livejournal.com]

This is Galen Gering. He's been on "Days of Our Lives" for a number of years. He still has those gigantic eyebrows.

[cremepuff.livejournal.com]

I thought I recognized him from somewhere! You can totally see it in the pose on the lower left.

[zydee.livejournal.com]

I never saw this ad--only the pedo toddler beauty-queen ones--but gawd I hated Love's Baby Soft. Most of the girls at my overwhelmingly virginal and uber-Christian school wore that disgusting stuff; the rest rebelled with Giorgio or Shalimar, which in my opinion weren't a lot better but at least they weren't associated with infancy. The idea of a guy who actually favored a girl who smelled like a freaking baby creeped me out so bad. In retaliation I adopted Nikki de Saint Phalle (http://www.fragrancenet.com/niki-de-saint-phalle-perfume/niki-de-saint-phalle/womens-fragrances/wf/en_US/01757), which was kind of the polar opposite of what I perceived in Love's Baby Soft right down to the bizarrely inappropriate name and implications of tentacle sex right on the bottle. My mother wasn't entirely sure this was an okay scent to give a 16-year-old but she was also totally creeped by the pedo ads. Fun times.

My high school was filled with guys like that, all overly-expressive, over-sensitive, with weirdly animated eyebrows, and strangely non-masculine (and likely battling their real orientation); that bunch bathed in Polo the same way the virgins bathed in LBS.

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! I went to an uber-Christian school, too, but I loved Love's Baby Soft when I was middle, junior high age! I was a very naive kid. I never noticed how creepy the ads were until I was older, but now I realize why my parents were so reluctant to buy it. I totally get it now.

I outgrew that stuff by high school though and then it was Calvin Klein's Obsession my parents wouldn't buy me! Can't say I blame them there either. I can't stand any perfume now.

[zydee.livejournal.com]

I'm in love with Creed perfumes now, but rarely wear it. I hate most perfumes nowadays--either the stuff's gone rancid or the owner wears too much or most commonly both.

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

I wore Love's Fresh Lemon in the late 70s. To this day a certain whiff of sweet lemon can bring me right back to 8th grade; which in a sense is terrible because I hated my school life, but in a sense is good because I loved my home life.

I'm still a perfume maniac. My vanity table is a bit cluttered.

[je-reviens.livejournal.com]

You mean like Justin Beiber? LOL

[tabaqui]

I liked Love's, but when it mixed with my body chemistry, it smelled like slightly dead skunk. Same for my sister. So we'd either spritz a little on our shirt, or we'd use my mom's White Shoulders.

There was something else, too, that was lemony/citrusy. I have no clue what it was called but i liked that one a lot, too.

[zydee.livejournal.com]

When I was young enough to be a bigger demographic target for that scent, I still favored the Barbie Perfume Maker (http://ellicottcity.patch.com/articles/what-do-parents-know-about-gift-giving-not-always-as-much-as-we-think), specifically the gardenia one.

[tabaqui]

I....had no clue that even existed. :)

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

OMG I had that and totally forgot about it until just now. wow.

[je-reviens.livejournal.com]

In actuality the dude is all

"GODDAMIT, every fucking time she takes my jacket I have to have the fucking thing dry cleaned before I can wear it myself. Every. Fucking. Time."

[violetscorpion.livejournal.com]

LOL!!! This, so much!!

[je-reviens.livejournal.com]

"Because otherwise Stiffler and those assholes will be all: JORDAN SMELLS LIKE A GIIIIIIIRRRRL. Nice perfume, pussy!"

[miss-october.livejournal.com]

I remember this one!

[donnalee-kiss.livejournal.com]

Well I commend the company for realizing young women wanted to smell nice, yet most mothers would not let us have a strong scent.

I was able to get away with Youth Dew and Paloma Picasso and other strong scents, due to sampler scents my mother had. She couldn't wear them, yet they smell great on me. I sneaked out of the house with one, and put it on at school and got several compliments on it. So mother relented and let me pick what I wanted. I was the only high school girl I know who didn't smell 'cute' or like pool water, since we didn't have enough time to shower after swimming.

[notorious-oit.livejournal.com]

OMG one of my guy friends from high school won a contest and was in a LBS advert back in the 90's. It's a shame I can't find it anywhere, cos it was totally LOLworthy.

[booksandcheeses.livejournal.com]

That's hilarious. It wasn't this one, (http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaclassicfragrances/4503735392/) was it? That one cracks me up.

[jocelmeow.livejournal.com]

Agh, 1987! That ad must have been in what would have been the first copy of _'TEEN_ that my mom let me buy at age 11. I can remember studying the girl's outfit in that ad...the pink leather skirt, the suspenders, the graphic oversized shirt over tank top, all perfectly matched, and the dude's shaker-knit sweater and aggressively stonewashed jeans...all so incredibly 1987.

[faceless-wonder.livejournal.com]

i totally thought that was a woman in the ad.