Year Introduced: 1985 or 1986 (year MEM took over for Menley & James) - Feminine
Notes: Top notes of syringa, aldehyde, lemon, lavender and rosewood; middle notes of heliotrope, lilac, rose, lily of the valley, orchid and carnation; and base notes of vanilla, benzoin, sandalwood and musk
The very first "original" Love's Baby Soft was made by Menley & James in 1975. It is perhaps the most feminine of all feminine products to be made. From the mid-70s to the mid-90s, this fragrance was "it" for girls who had reached a certain age. Those not a little girl anymore but not yet a teenager. It smelled like baby powder and scented dolls and was easy to find and very reasonably priced. In its own odd way, it said "Womanhood".
The advertising for Love's Baby Soft was rather creepy. The slogan "because innocence is sexier than you think" seems to be terribly wrong. There are two advertisements (one was just print and the other was print and television) that bordered on pornography as the ads blatantly showed a young girl and a young woman as erotic targets. You can see a picture of each of the ads in this listing at the top and you can click here to watch the commercial. In one ad, a young girl is made up to look like an adult with full makeup and the other ad as well as the television commercial shows a young woman with a gauzy white dress with just a hint of cleavage showing and one leg up timidly licking a lollipop while the male announcer says that the fragrance captures the scent of "a cuddly, clean baby that grew up very sexy". This was actually a fragrance targeted not so much to young women as it was to girls who were looking forward to being a woman. One of their other ads read: "Love’s Baby Soft is that irresistible, clean-baby smell grown up enough to be sexy. It’s soft-smelling. Pure and innocent. It may well be the sexiest fragrance around." Eventually in the 1980s the marketing campaigns shifted away from "sexy baby". The new ads showed a cool tomboy hanging with guy friends and the line "underneath it all, she's baby soft".
In 1980, Chattem took over "Love's" and made Love's Baby Soft the focus of their product line, targeting preteen girls. The Chattem version was the most popular. In 1985 or 1986, Mem took over Love's products and made them until at least the early 1990s. I believe there was a time that the fragrance was not made. In 2008 Dana took over the brand but changed the formula while discontinuing some of the other fragrances in the line - Soft Musk, Rain Scent and Musky Jasmin (my personal favorite!). They introduced some new fragrances which are listed on our site as well.
Love's Baby Soft is our youth. This powdery fragrance defined the 1970s for young girls and women. With it’s combination of lavender and vanilla it actually had a masculine fougere note at the heart of its girliness. It seemed as though everyone wore it and I dare you not to remember a special time, place or boy when you try itagain!
Love’s Baby Soft is still being sold under the Dana Classic Fragrances name but it has been reformulated.
This is the original MEM body mist version of the fragrance.
