ALL week my head has been stuck in the 1990s. How's that any different than usual, I hear you ask? Well, we're not merely talking nostalgia lite – casually dropping a lyric from an obscure song into conversation or daydreaming about the heyday of Gladiators – this is deep-dive reminiscing.
It was sparked by a tweet from Derry Girls creator and writer Lisa McGee, who wrote: "I'm going to make myself a Christmas stocking filled with stuff 16-year-old me would have wanted in an attempt to pretend 2020 isn't a thing."
Top of her list: Body Shop White Musk. That name is an olfactory time machine. There was a spell in my teens when I wouldn't leave the house – we're talking blanket refusal – without a liberal dousing of White Musk.
It was all the rage in 1990s West Lothian. I remember walking through the corridors at school and the air being thick with a distinctive, cloying scent. We're talking two per cent oxygen and 98 per cent White Musk.
Other popular fragrances in this vein were Anais Anais, Tresor and all the Charlie perfumes. Ditto CK One. Red Jeans by Versace is another that springs to mind.
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What else would I unearth from the vaults? Peppermint foot lotion (a Body Shop staple). Bath pearls. A Jackie annual. A tattoo choker. The entire Forever Friends range. Roll-on lip gloss. The latest Erasure album. An Alicia Silverstone film on VHS (I also loved her in the Aerosmith videos).
Looming large on my Christmas lists throughout the 1990s was footwear (usually eye-wateringly expensive). We're talking Kickers with bright, white stitching and hugely impractical tan suede Timberland boots.
That these were of such vital importance seems ridiculous now, especially when both my parents were on nurses' wages. If only my teenage self could see me, pottering about the garden in my £2.99 plastic clogs from Aldi.
Another favourite habit was circling all the things I coveted in the Next Directory. Which was pretty much everything. I was obsessed with the Next Directory which seemed like the cooler, more sophisticated version of the Kays and Burlington catalogues.
I grew up in a small village and while Livingston was only a stone's throw away, it wasn't the shopping hub that it is today. It also took two buses to get there. With a long wait in the cold in between.
In the 1990s, there was always much excitement about a trip to Princes Street in Edinburgh (out-of-town shopping was still in its infancy). It had a Body Shop, Next, HMV, Tammy Girl and State of Independence (formerly Razzle Dazzle), not to forget Miss Selfridge on nearby Hanover Street.
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I'd go window shopping with my mum, dropping big hints and hoping that, come Christmas day, I would be lucky enough to find some of the items I had set my heart on wrapped beneath the tree. Thinking about it now is hugely comforting.
In short, what I truly crave is simpler times.
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