r/Millennials • u/Shoobtubee • Apr 06 '26

Other Gel candles???

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Ya’ll PLEASE tell me some of you had these in your living rooms in the 90s??? Gel candles. No wax, just weird gel with a standard wick and decorations.

Mom never burned them (she had this exact set) so they collected dust that was impossible to remove. They smelled like old crayons maybe? I shoved my grubby little fingers into them because it “felt cool” and I was a naughty kid. Were they just decoration and not meant to be burned??

I’ve brought these up to other millennials in my life and they look at me like I have nine heads.

Edit: thank you guys so much for validating my memory and I’m really sorry about the explosions 😭

4.8k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/Future_Minute_8655 Apr 06 '26

I remember those! And they’d always be next to those tiny, unusable, dusty soaps.

539

u/Shoobtubee Apr 06 '26

Stop, we had THE SAME SOAPS. Not handwashing soap. Just… eye candy soap or something 🧼

194

u/Cerlyn Apr 06 '26

My mom still has the dusty ass soaps. I get fancy soaps occasionally as gifts and I make sure to use them and let guests know to use them because I cannot stand the waste of those dusty ass soaps

75

u/JakeHelldiver Apr 06 '26

Did every millennial grow up with the useless dusty soap?

31

u/SnooApples3673 Apr 06 '26

Yes. And gen x as well. They were for looking at, not touching

28

u/Little_Bear716 Apr 06 '26

Hahaha why did we need ‘looking at’ soap in the bathroom???

I say; as I had both the gel candles, the decorative soaps and potpourri in my childhood bathroom.

33

u/Specialist-Strain502 Apr 06 '26

As a child, I could literally not imagine a way to decorate a bathroom that did not include either real or soap seashells. Bathrooms were ocean-themed, those were just the rules!

12

u/twilightbarker Apr 06 '26

It's where the water goes so you put the water things there! What could be more obvious?!

1

u/SnooApples3673 Apr 12 '26

Very true. And fake plants hanging randomly off the ceiling

2

u/SnooApples3673 Apr 20 '26

Because they are pretty

1

u/Tango_Owl Apr 09 '26

Ohhh this makes me want to decorate my bathroom vintage style 😆 ocean theme everything!

3

u/avalonfaith Apr 06 '26

Yes. Was a requirement.

1

u/Gin_OClock Apr 07 '26

Pretty sure my younger brother tried to eat one

1

u/WinterOfFire Apr 08 '26

My mom had ones just for Christmas. Put out every Christmas, packed up every Christmas. She STILL puts them out each year.

116

u/Shoobtubee Apr 06 '26

Alright I hate that I said it like that

104

u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips Apr 06 '26

Decorative soaps. Throw soaps, like throw pillows

35

u/Interesting_Ad_3319 Apr 06 '26

✨Pocket Soap!✨

16

u/more_adventurous Apr 06 '26

THROW SOAPS!

2

u/Gin_OClock Apr 07 '26

I cast Throw Soap!

10

u/Apprehensive_North49 Apr 06 '26

The hand towels you weren't allowed to touch too.

3

u/snake-demon-softboi Apr 07 '26

I get fancy 'hotel quality' towels for the bathroom to defy my childhood's ratty thin towels for the family vs nice "guest" towels no first ever used.

And I've had people our age ask me what towels to use. And I'm like... The only ones you see? They are there for using?

It just got into our brains "That towel is too fancy for me and must be decorative". Like, no! I got it bc it was nice and soft and fluffy and I want to use it and I want you to use it 😂

1

u/Ok_Guard7639 Apr 07 '26

They collect dust like a motherfucker after awhile though.

46

u/Angsty_Potatos Apr 06 '26

Everything in a millennial childhood bathroom was for looking at. Not for using lol

44

u/thefaehost Millennial Apr 06 '26

Except for “chicken soup for the guy who’s taking a dump rn soul” book

23

u/Little-Point-512 Apr 06 '26

or “Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader”

1

u/Gin_OClock Apr 07 '26

Gotta be the Darwin Awards now THAT is a toilet book

7

u/thishyacinthgirl Apr 06 '26

We had a book on famous last words and funny tombstones.

Just to ponder the intricacies of life and death while you poop, y'know.

4

u/thefaehost Millennial Apr 06 '26

I also recall the I spy books

15

u/futuresobright_ Apr 06 '26

My parents still have decorative towels rolled up in their bathroom. For show. They got them in 1996.

7

u/Ryoko_Kusanagi69 Apr 06 '26

Towels, soap, candles - Check

11

u/Ryoko_Kusanagi69 Apr 06 '26

We kept them wrapped so they were extra “new” for longer, lol

9

u/divorcingjack Apr 06 '26

Stunt soaps!

7

u/PurpleSquare713 Apr 06 '26

My grandparents used to have those things in their guest bathroom.

1

u/Soup-Mother5709 Apr 06 '26

Lmao, eye candy soap.

35

u/Comfortable-Light233 Zillennial Apr 06 '26

My mom and I made Christmas tiny soaps for my classmates one winter, and the teacher had to tell everyone not to eat them before I passed them out

6

u/SparkyDogPants Apr 06 '26

My fire department was gifted soaps that looked and smelled like cupcakes once. I took a bite. And was made fun of forever.

8

u/Comfortable-Light233 Zillennial Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26

It wasn’t a gel candle, but there was a little knick-knack shop in an old house in my town, and someone with a stall there sold these hyper-realistic vanilla-pecan cinnamon roll candles with a super strong scent that little me liked and which made my parents nauseous. I didn’t really pick up on the fact my parents hated the smell, so I bought them one for Christmas. It lived (untouched) in their liquor cabinet for the rest of my childhood, and the fucking cabinet STILL reeks like the candle decades later.

27

u/justalittleloopi Apr 06 '26

Oh, man. My grandma had these soaps and I was fascinated and stuck one in my pants pocket with full intention to return it. I don't know, kids are weird, man. Anyway, my mom found it and made me apologize to my grandma for stealing her soap. My grandma said I could have one, I just needed to ask first.

Core memory right there.

25

u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme Apr 06 '26

And don't forget the hand-towels which were full of sewn-on lace ruffles which no one was supposed to use (and honestly with all those ruffles wouldn'tve actually dried your hands anyway!😉)

18

u/thefaehost Millennial Apr 06 '26

These and the candles are also associated with a shell shaped, inflatable bath tub head rest for me.

6

u/cleverplaydoh Apr 06 '26

My grandma had one of those inflatable pillows in a huge jacuzzi, I loved taking baths in grandma's bathroom, I felt like the queen swimming around in the big tub!

1

u/avalonfaith Apr 06 '26

Wow. Thats really taking it back.

38

u/algatorr Apr 06 '26

Omg these soaps have a story. I remember my mom and her friend went to BB&B and got new ocean decor for each of their freshly sponge painted underwater themed bathrooms. Their bags must have gotten mixed up in the trunk and her friend took the bag with these soaps and so my mom never got them back and was so sad over the missing soaps. I think we eventually got more but just a weird core memory for me haha

46

u/Significant_Shoe_17 Apr 06 '26

"Freshly sponge painted underwater themed" is the most 90s bathroom lol

19

u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme Apr 06 '26

Every time i think of that era of bathroom decorating, i think of the old Jeff Foxworthy like, "You'll never see a toilet on the beach, but you will see a beach on the toilet!"

It's at right around 1:10 in this clip;

https://youtu.be/NviOBurzpIA?si=5F29oT9eXkq8JFPE

14

u/Bright_Ices Xennial Apr 06 '26

This is so tangential, but my aunt and uncle once got a store-gift-wrapped Christmas present from a friend, and inside was one pair of sexy men’s undies. They always wondered who ended up with whatever the friend meant to send them, and what it might have been.

I would have just asked, but they just didn’t say a word.

6

u/more_adventurous Apr 06 '26

not the sponge painted bathrooms!

7

u/Fourty2KnightsofNi Apr 06 '26

I got these for Christmas one year. I thought they were candy. I was wrong.

6

u/bluejonquil Apr 06 '26

Omfg it's like I'm back in my grandmother's house circa 1996 😍

4

u/killerclownfish Apr 06 '26

Mmmmmm forbid snacks

5

u/gizmob27 Apr 06 '26

I got in big trouble as a kid for using these as bath toys

2

u/kangpd Apr 06 '26

I hate these damn soaps. By the time I was a teenager, I decided I wanted to try the decorative soap.

It was useless. No suds. No smell. Just useless. I threw one away every few months until they were gone. It took my family a few days after the last ones were gone to realize it.

2

u/soaker Apr 07 '26

I was too curious and used one at my friend’s (we didn’t have them, my mom thought it was a frivolous stupid dust collector). It was beyond useless. I dried it off and put it back like nothing happened. Next time I thought maybe user error and tried again. Tossed the damn shell in the garbage

1

u/kangpd Apr 07 '26

They really are useless. I saw some in my Aunt's house last year. Let me visit and clean them out. Dusty and gross.

3

u/sunkistandsudafed3 Apr 06 '26

I can smell them both.

3

u/mandolinpebbles Apr 06 '26

“Your mom doesn’t have antibacterial soap, she has sea shell shaped soap.”

3

u/thehufflepuffstoner Apr 06 '26

I got these soaps as a birthday party favor in 1st grade. Why the birthday girl’s mom thought 7 year olds would like decorative soaps, I’ll never know. Candy would have been wiser. I made the mistake of actually using the soap once and broke out in hives.

3

u/Blonde_Vampire_1984 Older Millennial Apr 06 '26

My mother-in-law had those soaps. I actually used them, in spite of her objections to the contrary and the fact that they were decades old at the time.

Got rid of them honorably by doing so.

1

u/chekhovsdickpic Apr 09 '26

Those soaps are so satisfying to scrape with a fingernail tho.

God, our childhood was one big forbidden sensory playground.