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Abigail Thomas's avatar

If you're as old as I am, the same feelings will be stirred up if you could find one of those old cobalt blue jars of noxzema, and take a long whiff.. oh my god. I'm, sixteen again. Can't do this too often lest I just drop dead from--from what? wanting to be there again? on the Amagansett Beach in the fifties and sixties? No. Too much money fucked everything I loved .

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Charlotte Hamrick's avatar

I feel sad for younger people who won’t experience a beachfront without high rises and tons of people. Maybe there are still some around? I wanted to use Noxzema but it made my oily skin oilier. It smelled so good!

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Marie A Bailey's avatar

Just the words “those old cobalt blue jars of Noxzema” was enough to flood me with memories. I loved that stuff, how it cooled and tingled my skin, how my cousins and I used to mix Noxzema with cornmeal so we could exfoliate our skin as well as moisturize. And I loved the jars, that cobalt blue, and even kept a few for odds and ends. And the scent always lingered in those glass jars, no matter how well I washed them. Thanks for the memories, Abigail 🙂

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Abigail Thomas's avatar

Brilliant, mixing it with cornmeal! I wish we'd thought of that. I love that you remember that smell too. If only they still made it in those jars.

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Brandy Renee McCann's avatar

Beautiful, Char- There's something about those summer smells! Baby oil takes me to summer, back home in WV, when we slathered it on our skin to lay out in the sun. Ah, I might have to do that for a few minutes during these last days of high summer.

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Charlotte Hamrick's avatar

Yes, I remember some people doing baby oil and iodine. Whoa! Enjoy but don’t stay out too long. XO

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Deb Levy's avatar

As per usual: Beautiful, Charlotte. Enjoyed this immensely. 😊 Gorgeous writing. Deb

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Charlotte Hamrick's avatar

Thanks, Deb. I hope everything is going well in your parts!

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Robin Dalton's avatar

I love this! Stirred up some memories for me too!

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Charlotte Hamrick's avatar

That makes me happy, Robin. 🩷

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Marie A Bailey's avatar

A wonderful post, Charlotte! What memories you evoke. Getting a tan in upstate New York was near impossible for me because of the short summers, until one summer when I broke my thumb and couldn’t work so I hung out at my cousin’s house, reading in the sun. Later she would tell me I had a great tan that summer but I don’t remember the tan, just how I enjoyed not going to work. And then in California where I would sunbathe topless on the roof of my apartment building, until one weekend afternoon when an earthquake hit and the building shook and I decided I didn’t want to be found topless in rubble. Now my husband and I cringe at all the “vacation” homes on stilts that line Florida’s coastlines, all the condos that will sit empty most of the year but are still being built where a hurricane came through as if … and my property insurance went up 50% this year, no doubt in part due to these reckless property owners. You know Florida has a license plate with “Endless Summer” on it?🤦🏼‍♀️

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