10 American brands only Boomers will remember (& you can still buy them…somewhere)

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Few things are sadder than the realization that time has passed you by. Perhaps nothing brings that reality home like the observation that some ubiquitous, beloved brand you grew up with is no longer being manufactured.

 

The Baby Boomers are the generation currently having this experience in the most significant quantity, and one can observe the weary sadness in their tear-streaked eyes when they realize that nobody makes Sen-Sen candies anymore. What they don’t know is that some of these favorites are still out there and available, although they might need to leave the country to get them.

Image Credit: Michael/Flickr.

1. Tab

Before Diet Coke, there was Tab. It came in a pink can, presumably so only those with XX chromosomes would buy it. It was discontinued in 2020, but you can still get it in the US Virgin Islands, Canada, and Spain.

Image Credit: Mike Mozart/Flickr.

2. RadioShack

For a little while there, it seemed like there was a RadioShack on every corner, and during those glorious days, one could purchase answering machine microcassettes at their convenience. The company filed for bankruptcy but those looking to quickly stock up on MiniDisc players can go to El Salvador, Central America, South America, or the Caribbean, where the store is still operating.

Image Credit: Wikipedia.

3. Velveeta cheese

Everybody’s favorite pasteurized prepared cheese product, Velveeta is a cheese-based goo that makes life a lot easier for those who are too busy to cut up a block of cheese and melt it for a few minutes. While the product is no longer hip, you can still buy it, and its official website even advises consumers to live “la dolce Velveeta.”

Image Credit: Ebay.com.

4. Ovaltine

Baby Boomers will undoubtedly remember chugging a cold glass of Ovaltine before putting on their Davy Crockett hats and bicycling down to the penny candy store. Those days may be relics of a long-forgotten era, but you can still buy Ovaltine unless you happen to be in Denmark, where it was banned in 2011 because it had not substantiated its claims that it was rich in vitamins.

Image Credit: Isabelle /Flickr.

5. Sanka

Sanka was a decaffeinated coffee brand that was decaffeinated before being decaffeinated was cool. Today, you can get an endless variety of decaffeinated coffee drinks without batting an eye, but Sanka is still on store shelves if you want it. From 1976 to 1982, the concept of decaffeinated coffee was so out of the ordinary for consumers that they had to get Robert Young, a man who played a doctor on television, to hawk it in commercials.

Image Credit: Ebay.com.

6. Brillo Pads

The Brillo Pad is one of those products that’s actually called something else – steel wool – but most people call it by the brand name anyway, as they do with Vaseline. There are many different steel wool brands these days, so Brillo no longer dominates the market, but it is still widely available, and truth be told, it still works better than many of the newfangled brands that have come along to supplant it.

Image Credit: Amazon.com.

7. Noxzema

Baby Boomers would know that blue jar anywhere. While the word “iconic” has been abused into a state of meaninglessness in the past few years, the term absolutely applies to the blue Noxzema jar, and the product is still the go-to goo for anyone with a skin complaint. Boomers are hereby advised to ignore all the Johnny-come-lately skin notions on the market and reach for the blue jar, as memory and instinct are already advising them to do.

Image Credit: Roadsidepictures/Flickr.

8. Aqua Net

Baby Boomers will undoubtedly remember the sky-high beehive hairdos of the 1960s, and the hairspray Aqua Net helped them achieve towering heights that required multiple showers to undo. The brand is not stuck in the Boomer era though, as now middle-aged Gen Xers will remember it being used by bands like Def Leppard or that one kid at high school who had a mohawk.

Image Credit: Amazon.com.

9. Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific

The jury is still out on whether “Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific” is the stupidest or most brilliant name for a product. Either way, it immediately sells the shampoo to anyone concerned with their hair’s aroma, but sadly, you cannot buy it in the US as of the 1980s, when they stopped making it. But if you want a bottle of it really badly, just take a 20-hour flight to the Philippines, where it’s still being sold.

Image Credit: Wikipedia.

10. Tang

Tang is a powdered drink mix that was introduced in 1957, but what made it really fly off store shelves was the revelation that astronauts drank it. They had to drink it, of course, since they could only take nonperishable goods to outer space, but kids didn’t know that and were happy to drink as much astronaut juice as Grandma was willing to put in front of them.

This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.

Image Credit: Michael/Flickr.

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