When I was growing up you could buy Dr. Oetker packets of baking powder and vanilla sugar- and many people use Dr. Oetker recipes. Today there are Dr. Oetker cake mixes and such.

Here is the Dr. Oetker I grew up with:

I really don't recall many products that were used when I was growing up in the late 30's and 40's. No windex, she and we used vinegar and water. I have no idea what she used to do laundry with. I know my grandma used Fels Naptha and bluing. I do recall we used Lipton tea and Campbell's tomato soup. Lunch meat was Echrich and so were the hot dogs. I still use those. Lard to fry and bake with.

Sue

Thanks Rita for posting those Dr. Oetker packet pictures... saves me from hunting for some.

There was no liquid vanilla, and no baking powder in a can.... back then.

Chisue the Lifebuoy soap probable would have kept the deer away. It contained Phenol.

Funny Face drinks (kind of like Koolaid), like Goofy Grape and Choo-Choo Cherry.

A metal milk box.

Big metal cans of Hi-C (another sugary drink). One had to make an indentation in the cans with the other half of a bottle opener in order to pour the contents.

Blue Bonnet margarine.

An electric frying pan (for fried pork chops especially in our house).

Shake n Bake (and I helped!)

Campbell's Chicken n Stars soup.

Going home for lunch (to eat the above).

A restaurant chain called Lum's.

Woolworths.

Wieboldts.

Sears, Wards, and Penney Christmas catalogs.

Garfield Goose.

Ray Rayner.

Bozo's Circus.

D.J. and Dirty Dragon Show (with the Blob, the Lemon Joke Kids, and Mother Plumtree)

Zoom.

Sta-Puf. Fabric Softener

Fab (Oh Fab I'm glad there's lemon freshened borax in you)

April Fresh Downy...the old one

Ivory Snow powder and Flakes

Cascade powder with Bleach and Sodium Tripolyphosphate

Oxydol

Now I have to think lol

Growing up we had:

Campbells veg. beef soup for me, pepper pot & tomato for my brother.

Captain Crunch cereal

The neighbors had: Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, Bugles corn chips.....they gave us as after school snacks in little Dixie cups

Ivory soap....the soap that floats

Palmolive, Marge says it makes your hands soft

Scott may have 'arrived' too late for "Kukla, Fran and Ollie".

I'd forgotten the electric frying pan. Talk about a nonessential -- we HAD a stove, and frying pans! My mother also had an electric turkey roaster; I call it that because that's all it was used for, and only at Thanksgiving. It lived in the basement, on little table, next to...the *mangle*!

I grew up in a suburb of Cincinnati that contained Proctor & Gamble's manufacturing plant so many of Mom's choices were the one from P&G. Additionally many options would cause a reaction for my mother so her choice was the one that didn't.

Tide usually, sometimes others depending on what was on sale. (Something dye- and scent-free that is on sale)

Zest soap because others irritated her skin (The same)

Joy dish soap (cheap Dawn-like store brand )

Lemon Fresh Pledge (Orange oil)

Pine Sol or Spic and Span (?)

Gleem toothpaste, until they added fluoride at which point she switched to Pepsodent IIRC (Colgate only)

Cheerios & Corn Flakes (no cereal)

Margarine either Nu-Maid or Imperial or Parkay (Smart Balance Margarine)

Miracle Whip (Helman's Mayo)

Kahn's Hot Dogs & Bologna (Oscar Mayer rarely)

Worthmore's Mock Turtle Soup (Campbell's Chunky or Progresso)

Crisco (Olive oil or Canola Oil or butter)

Store brand white bread or "Day-old" Wonder bread on sale (whichever Honey Wheat bread is on sale)

Brown-n- Serve dinner rolls (Sometimes Pillsbury Crescent Rolls)

Unsweetened Kool-Aid where you add your own sugar (Tap water)

Maxwell House or Taster's Choice or Folger's Instant (Cafe Pilon Espresso)

Log Cabin syrup or Mrs Buttersworth (Pure Maple Syrup only)

We grew up with made-from-scratch food, mostly. We hated home-made potato chips, we wanted store ones, like other kids had. In the winter, when there was ice on the stock tank, Dad would have us chop some, put it in a gunny sack (burlap bag) and pound it in the bag with a mall, so we could make ice-cream. We didn’t get it often, because they had to skim some cream to make it and that cut down on the milk check.

We drank raw milk, and lots of it. It would be in gallon glass jars, with about 4” of cream on top. We would stir it and dump it in a two-quart pitcher, it was too heavy to pour from the jar. Even thinking of drinking raw milk makes me shudder now.

Seldom had candy. Guess I wandered off down memory lane.

Growing up I remember:

Oxydol

Cheer

Spic n Span

Jubilee Kitchen Wax - wish I had some

Palmolive Dish Detergent

Breck Shampoo

Cashmere Bouquet Soap - loved how it smelled

Real Butter, unsalted

Sweet Marie chocolate bars

Chisue - I still use my electric frying pan and I have a 36" range. My frying pan is all stainless and when i found it I actually bought a back up. Unlike stove top cooking you can set the temp. Best thing ever for fried chicken or even doing a pot roast or casserole without heating up the kitchen.

Other things I remembered:

Bon Ami cleaning cake.

Full one pound sized Nestle chocolate bars.

Nestles Quik. (I still think the original makes the best hot chocolate)

Hershey's was for Ice cream and we still use it.

Fizzies

Flavored milk straws

Coca Cola or Pepsi in glass bottles

Hawaiian Punch in a can.

Shasta Tropical Punch soda.

Bactine

Mercurachrome

Sea and Ski Suntan Lotion in the green container

Pea shooters

Pogo sticks

Flexible Flyers (sled on wheels)

I agree about the electric skillets....best fried chicken...which is sort of blasphemy when you have a lot of cast iron skillets, but it really does make the best fried chicken and great pot roast too. Actually I think it is the handiest thing in the kitchen...you can use it for so many things. I agree about stainless steel too. You couldn't give me a teflon lined anything...or rubber cooking utensils. I collect the old ones from the '50's and '60's....stainless and my favorites have colored plastic handles. I still buy every one I see at thrift shops and yard sales.

I can't remember much about what my mother used. I know she didn't like Tide laundry detergent and I think what she used was Fab?? That doesn't sound right. Mama Pinky would know if that is the name of a product.

She bought Land O' Lakes butter....never ever margarine. Actually churned butter when we had a milk cow, but they sold her when I was about 8 years old. (Her name was Cherry and she was a Brown Swiss, Jersey cross).

She used Lipton tea and drank Coca Cola and Folgers coffee.

She bought Swanson's TV dinners for me when there was something for supper that I didn't like. I thought Swanson's was a real treat. ;)

Something else I liked when I was a kid was chicken fricassee in a can, and I bought some a few years ago and that stuff was awful. I guess tastes definitely do change.

Another treat for us was La Choy chow mein that came with the little can of noodles on top of the can of chow mein. That is horrible too....but I liked it back then.

Jiffy-Pop, with the expanding foil dome. It was a special treat, and we thought it was magic. We now use a hot air popper, real melted butter, and add nutritional yeast.

Frozen TV dinners - no

Instant coffee - no

Kool-Aid and Hostess snacks - no

Margarine - no

White bread - no

Hot dogs and bologna - no, although I have fond memories of garlic bologna.

Velveeta cheese - no

Germatrol (sp?) for cleaning. I distinctly remember the scent.

A gallon of pink Amway shampoo concentrate my dad bought from a co-worker. Seems as if that same jug of shampoo lasted for years.

miracle whip - not mayo

log cabin syrup - not REAL maple

butter - not margarine

not much into brand names

mustard always in fridge and ketchup never??

Lava soap

Home made butter, the real stuff

Home made cottage cheese

Soft rain water from the cistern

Pop corn popped in bacon fat

Corn bread

Freshly made apple sauce

Spanish peanuts

Goose berries from the garden

Rubber bands and strips cut from used inner tubes

Red plums straight from the tree

Fresh black berries with cream or ice cream

Kool aide

Tang

Ice tea

Oxadol Laundry Soap

Wheaties

Corn Flakes

Rolled Oats

Quaker oats

Sassafras tea

Pecans and Hickory nuts

Persimmons

Honey (from a bee tree or hive)

Lysol (general purpose cleaning and disinfectant)

Ammonia (added to cleansing soap & water to cut grease, or to remove floor wax)

Linoleum floors in kitchens

Kitchen matches (The last factory making wood matches in the US has closed)

Whatever was cheap.

Maryland, yes there was a detergent called Fab! My mother got whatever detergent was on sale or whichever one had a towel in it LOL.

I have no idea - my mom wasn't brand conscious. Whatever was on sale. I do remember a few things. We never had real butter, just spreads. My mom also always used Oil of Olay on her face. The scent reminds me of her.

I only use butter and my skin products come from Origins.

Does anyone remember Duz detergent? I think my mom got a whole set of glasses with that stuff, one would be in every box.

Marilyn yes could have been Fab. Fab had different formulas thru the years here is an old one in my collection.

My mom shopped by price, too, so I think the brands varied.

Always real butter

Life and Total cereal for Dad, mixed together

Sometimes Cheerios

Campbell's tomato soup (with buttered toast cut up and stirred in)

Lava and Fels-Naptha soap for really dirty stuff

Ivory soap for baths

Planters Peanuts and Coke, but only for Dad. We weren't allowed to have either without permission.

Does anyone remember the name of a home delivery of cleaning supplies in the 60's? It wasn't Fuller Brush, but similar. My grandparents had it, and I've been racking my brain. It was in NE Ohio, if that matters.

aok - Watkins?

My parents are from The Netherlands. Like Monis parents, mine cooked from scratch. Breakfast cereal was a treat when we went camping. Otherwise we got toast with Dutch breaksfast toppings :) <3

As for the rest of the lists, I don't remember what my mom used. Powdered laundry soap. No fabric softener. She hung her laundry out to dry on every nice day. No canned soup. No salad dressings. It was all home made. Kraft peanut butter. For the rest, I really don't recall.

Aok. Maybe The Jewel Tea man or Stanley? There's another on the tip of my tongue.

Did Amway do home delivery?

Oh my gosh, I forgot about the laundry detergent that came with a towel in it! I thought that was the coolest thing when I was a kid.

I forgot all about Tang! We loved it, I wonder if I can still buy it, my mouth is watering now!

aok - was it Stanley? My Grandmother bought lots of their stuff!

Thanks, Mama Pinky. I remember the blue box. My mother didn't like her mother in law, who happened to live next door to us. She really was a mean old woman, so I can understand that. If Grandma Stout did something, my mother would never do the same thing. So maybe Grandma used Tide. I know Grandma made chocolate pies and my mother baked but she would never make chocolate anything. She said she didn't like chocolate....but she did like chocolate Hershey bars. ;) Grandma cooked rice a lot, and my mother never made rice. When I started dating Jody, and trying to make shrimp gumbo....took me awhile to perfect my recipe and have tweaked it over the years.....I couldn't make rice, so my mother bought some Minute Rice for me. (I can cook rice now.....Jody would eat it at every meal if he could).

Mamapinky, I think it was jewel Tea. I'm not having a lightbulb moment, but that sounds familiar so it might be right. It definitely wasn't Stanley or Watkins or Amway.

Summer, I recall Cashmere Bouquet soap and loved it. Have not seen it around any more.

I still remember our Fuller Brush man. We'd get so excited to see him coming because he'd give us samples of tiny lipsticks. It didn't take much to impress us in those days. Any little toy or a new coloring book from the 5 and 10 felt like a special treat.

My grandmother and some of my aunt's used Jergens soap and Jergens hand lotion. I was thrilled when I found these items at the store recently, took them home, and the cherry almond fragrance sent me right back to my Granny's house, complete with linoleum floors and Dearborn heater LOL.

Let's see products I remember my mom and grandparents using as I kinda lived at both houses off and on.

Tide powder (yes)

Downey April Fresh (yes, though the combo of Tide and Downey is not the same as it used to be)

Lipton Instant Tea- Mom (no way)

Sweet n low (no) I use splenda

Lipton Tea bags (yes)

Sacchrine- great grandma used for sweet tea (no)

Camay Soap (no, though I do like to smell it at the store to remind me of my mom) I use olay

Prell (no) Pantene for me

Hellman's (yes)

Butter (yes)

Electric Frying Pan for Chicken and Pot Roast (sometimes)

Dawn (yes)

Spic n Span (no)

Brillo Pads (no)

Chore Boys and Chore Girls (no)

Lard (no)

Crisco (yes)

Borden Milk ( if I could find it)

Dolly Cashmere Bouquet was discontinued a number of years ago. I seen it comming so stashed a few bars just for the memories. It had a lovely, light, feminine scent. I think there's a few vendors on Amazon that still have some.

Dolly - Look what I found at Amazon Canada. ( Price $338.81 )

Mama - What is the fragrance? I recall orange blossom or gardenia. Mom would always buy it for me because I loved it.

I can't put my finger on the exact floral scent.

Wow! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. It took me a while to compile my list and I see that I've duplicated several from others' lists:

BC powder pain reliever – No

Tang – No

Tangee Lipstick (way ahead of its time. Mom wore only that color; it changed to
different shades on different people, like the mood lipstick they have now) – No

Sen Sen (Mom always had this breath mint in her purse) – No

Daisies snacks (kind of like chips or Bugles snacks) – No

Ivory bar soap - no bar soap for me

Ivory dish soap - now Dawn

Bazooka Bubble Gum – No

Bold Laundry detergent (saving points got me my first electric shaver) - now Tide

When Mom discovered dryer sheets she used them (any brand) all the time - I use
dryer balls that I wound from wool yarn.

Campbell's Pork 'n Beans - now DH uses them as a base for his BBQ baked beans and they are awesome!

Cascade dishwasher detergent - I don't have (or want) a dishwasher)

Prell shampoo – No, I use baking soda, with a vinegar rinse, DH uses Suave

Sunbeam Bread: batter whipped and it tears straight. I would tear off the crusts and eat them first, then squish and roll the rest into a tight dough ball and eat it that way. But Mom baked most of our bread. - Now we eat very little bread, but we like Orowheat.

Hexol - I loved the smell and how an amber colored liquid would turn milk white when it hit the water, LOL - No

Any old oleo - now butter

Mercurochrome for boo boos - Now, I don't get too many boo boos

Kool Aid - No

Fizzies (tablets that were dropped into a glass of water or milk to make a soda alternative) - no longer available, but I wouldn't drink them now if they were.

Look candy bars - now, my tastes are a little more refined.

Bologna, lots of bologna (for a day trip, Mom would pack a loaf of bread, sliced bologna and condiments and we'd stop by the side of the road for lunch) - About once a year I get a craving for a bologna sandwich, but once a year is enough.

Ajax or Comet - still use them

Frozen TV dinners – No, but as kids we thought they were a huge treat. On the rare occasions we had them, it meant that we got to eat dinner in front of the TV!

Jiffy Pop – No, but I sure loved that stuff.

I will probably have some duplicates from other lists too.

Eight o’Clock Coffee - fresh roasted beans and fresh ground coffee

Kraft mayo - Dukes

Crisco (or bacon grease that was strained) or lard occasionally - olive oil, canola, or Crisco rarely

Log Cabin syrup - pure maple

Blue Bonnet margarine - Butter

Tide powder - Tide HE Free and Clear

Ivory soap - Dove shower gel

Windex - Glass Plus, vinegar/water, or green alcohol, depending on what I’m cleaning

Comet cleanser - Bar Keeper’s Friend (but I have Comet outside for cleaning some things like my ceramic pots, dog bowl, birdbath, etc)

Spic and Span, Pine Sol - no. wood floor products or steam cleaner

Prell shampoo - sodium laurel sulfate-free shampoo (currently trying a L’Oréal one)

Boxed cracker crumbs (for breading & frying fresh shrimp) - no, but I miss my mother’s fried shrimp

Quaker Oats, corn flakes, can’t remember anything else - Quaker or Red Mill oats or granola, DH eats Cheerios or oatmeal

Jams and jellies were mostly made by my mother or someone in the family. They traded off whatever somebody had made. We seldom use it but DH does buy strawberry and grape for pbj’s and toast some. I make apple butter every couple of years.

Speaking of baloney, does anybody remember fried bologna? And of course the famous fried spam LOL!

yes. whenever my mom went out and dad had to cook.

My husband loves fried bologna sandwiches. I think that it's 'comfort food' to him. He grew up eating them.

I recognize a lot of these products mentioned here. Here a few more I can recall:

Underwood deviled ham

Hostess fruit pies

Dial soap

Right Guard

Dodge Dart

Johnson's baby aspirin

Watkin's salve

Eisenhower dollar coins

I remember my brother eating fried bologna. I probably haven't had bologna since I was a kid.

Underwood deviled ham!! I liked that .. stuff .. whatever it was. No, please don't tell me.

Obtundia cream ointment for cuts/scrapes/whatever. Love the smell -- reminds me of TLC from mom. Long gone now, which I deeply regret. Still have two tubes that are nearly empty, and I ration it carefully. Wish it could still be found somewhere... Am trying to make them last for the rest of my life! (I'm 71)

Deviled ham is probably somewhat akin to Hormel's Spam. It was pretty good eating from what I recall. My grandmother always had it out at the family's old lake house, which harkens back to few other things I remember now from summers in MN at the lake:

screen porch

wood docks

Chris Craft

large hanging wicker swing and furniture

bamboo cane poles

cork bobbers

Water Gremlin split shot

black dacron fishing line

worms in a coffee can

metal minnow buckets

metal clip stringers and metal fish baskets

Lowrance green box fish lo-k-tor

Mitchell spin cast; Ambassador 5500; Johnson Century; Zebco 202...

Bass-O-Reno; Lazy Ike; Daredevil; Hula Popper; Gapen Ugly Bug, Crappie Queen, Doll Fly; Beetle Spin; Lindy rig; Prescott strip-on spinner...

and lots of fishing, fish cleaning and fish fries.

Crisco and beer batter (Schmidt, Blatz, or Hamms).

Still have and use a lot of this stuff and it never gets old…except the cooking oil and beer is changed up from time to time!

I haven't seen or had deviled ham in awhile, but this thread will have me looking it up again.

Our bathroom had:

Colored toilet paper

Wildroot Hair Creme

Tame Cream rinse

Double edged safety razors

Bubble Bath Powders in little cardboard tubes. (a frequent birthday gift)

Dusting powder

Roxanna try eBay. There is a ad for something called obtundia in small individual packets.

The LARGE Crisco tub was a staple at our house growing up. I only keep a small tub in the fridge for greasing pans when baking.

Can on the stove for drippings, kitchen matches in a metal container that hung on the wall, and you could strike the match on any sandpapery resurface, Dearborn heaters, bathrooms that stuck out of one side of the house because they had been added to an existing old that had originally had what my hit Lily called outdoor bathrooms LOL, attic fans (now called whole house fans), floor furnaces, wall furnaces, having to wear a dress to school no matter what the weather, PE uniforms with white shirts and heavy black twill shorts with elasticized legs inside the regular legs.