Why, thanks to TikTok, your favourite 90s perfume is suddenly back in fashion

The 90s are back with a vengeance (aren’t they just?). I have a tweenage daughter; I’ve been in Urban Outfitters. I know.

I’ve rifled through the rails of “reclaimed” clothing and felt wounded – physically hurt – by “vintage” lace-trim cami tops and Courtney Love slip dresses; by combats with 15 different pockets, FCUK t-shirts, Oasis bucket hats and tracksuit tops worn with an unironic bumbag.

But the 1990s revival in 2024 is very different, very mindful and far too demure – and when my lovely Gen Z colleagues and friends talk about going “out out” and they mean to a “sound bath”, I both love it and my heart also bleeds. Into grunge, are you? Smudging on a bit of kohl to go with your kale?

No, I ache for the provincial nineties night out; the long, stuffy room beneath a casino without ventilation or fire exits; where sweat creeps up the walls – yes, human sweat, hard-earned after drunken moshing to Deftones and Feeder – the kind you only get nowadays by doing “hot yoga” and a particularly spicy knitting sesh.

And the person you ended up getting off with would be wearing a Global Hypercolor T-shirt, which changed shade when they got hot. For what could be possibly be sexier than seeing someone’s sweat patches develop IRL?

Oh, and they absolutely stunk of CK One.

They were drenched in it. That, or Obsession by Calvin Klein (don’t lie, you remember the whispering – we all remember Kate Moss’s whispering…)

If by now you are getting a distinct, sharp, disinfectant-esque waft of nostagia, then that, my friend, is because not only are the terrible 90s fashions back, but the smells are, too.

That’s right: if you thought you could escape your mis-spent youff; the era which saw you strut into the local salon and demand a “Rachel” with Sun-In spray highlights, then you’re wrong: for Gen Z has fallen head over heels for Tommy Girl and Calvin Klein Eternity for Men – and they are putting it on TikTok. I know. What would Bebo and MySpace think of that?

We’re talking YSL Rive Gauche, Dior Fahrenheit and Davidoff Cool Water, all over again.

According to statistics from perfume distributors, sales of Joop! Homme, which first hit the shelves in 1989, is up 381 per cent in the past month, while Calvin Klein Eternity for Men – which was the smell of 1990 – is up 228 per cent.

And the renewed interested has been sparked by Gen Z spritzing themselves silly on TikTok.

We remember “oohing” and “aahing” over Karl Lagerfeld’s Sun Moon and Stars, the one with the spangly motif – with an actual gold top and blue embossed bottle, OMG – and we were sophisticated, actually, for we pronounced Anaïs Anaïs the French way. Not like Julie in the year above who said “Anaaaay-Anaaaay” like an idiot, thanks. We were drawling Issey Miyake’s “L’eau d’Isseeeey” like we were Emily in Paris; we were so Clinique Happy that it hurt.

A few years ago, when I worked at the BBC, I once accidentally smashed an entire bottle of Balenciaga Paris perfume in the very studio you see on the Six O’Clock News. For weeks, New Broadcasting House smelled of cedar, carnation, violet and patchouli. Just imagine if it had been The Body Shop’s White Musk.

The thing is, Gen Z don’t realise what they’re unleashing; that the very glimpse of an unironic bottle of Charlie Red or that incredible (frankly, a feat of modern engineering) Trésor Lancôme pyramid caterpults us straight back to the scuffed seats of the 179 bus to Ilford; where we’d head straight to Boots because some of us were banned from Superdrug (don’t ask) and we’d covet and coo over the monochrome sophistication of Coty’s ex’cla-ma’tion – shaped like an actual exclamation mark.

And we’d feel a jolt of very real, very physical pain because we wanted that, and Acqua di Giò, and a bottle of Jean Paul Gaultier Classique, so, so badly.

Oh, to be able to afford an actual glass bottle of Thierry Mugler’s Angel, with its sickly-sweet scent that made your fillings hurt; its star-shaped container that defied gravity by standing on its points... the one Allison (the lucky cow) got for her birthday! Ah, if only we could rival the je ne sais quoi of Gemma, who owned a bottle of powder-blue Cacharel Loulou! Or Roz, who wore Samsara by Guerlain!

When I asked these friends – the same ones I went to school with in the 1990s – which perfumes they remembered loving, hating or longing for, Cacharel Eden came out top – as did New West “skinscent spray for her”. We had a couple of votes in for Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden and a rogue Versace Blue Jeans.

As for now: I’m very grown up, you see – I only wear Le Labo. But I know a few tweens who have a lot of floral mistakes to make. Starting with Liz Claiborne…