Newstalgia Round Two | Ginger Sparks No. 29
In yet another round of everything-old-is-new again, nostalgic food and crafty toys are making headlines.
Like so many shifts that emerged from the pandemic, our relationship with nostalgia has only grown stronger, and even six years later, the ripple effects are everywhere. Bloomberg reports that food is in a “newstalgia” spiral, with Datassential finding menu appearances of the “Creamsicle” flavor up 37% over the past four years. Wendy’s Orange Dreamsicle Frosty, Sonic’s Orange Cloudsicle Slush Float, and Coca-Cola Orange Cream have all joined the revival, while dirty martinis, ice cream floats, and Baked Alaska are making the rounds once again. We had to laugh at that last one. Baked Alaska seems to stage a comeback every few years, and after years of trend forecasting, we’ve learned that when it shows up, it’s usually not traveling alone.
The most interesting part is that many Gen Z consumers don’t even realize these are throwbacks. In a recent Datassential survey, 68% of Gen Z respondents described twice-baked potatoes as “extremely new & different” or “very new & different.” That’s the magic of newstalgia. If your audience has never seen it before, it’s not retro; it’s a discovery. That’s exactly the lens we’re bringing to this week’s fragrance and lifestyle launches, where familiar ideas are returning with fresh packaging, a new audience, and, inevitably, a TikTok account.
Meet Lil Softie
Apparently we’re all one bowl of cereal away from emotional support fragrance, and Lore certainly seems to agree. The brand’s latest campaign pairs dreamy cartoons with couches that dissolve into pillow-like clouds and cozy cereal milk daydreams. The LORE World website extends the fantasy, inviting shoppers to become a “Lil Softie.” Available online and exclusively at Sephora, the fragrance, housed in a striking sculptural bottle, is described as “…a cocooning cashmeric musk, with notes of pink pepper, cereal milk, ambroxan, cotton musk and us. Made warm, addictive and soft in all the right places, so you can be a Lil Softie too.”
We wrote about the rise of lactonic fragrances back in February, but the category hasn’t slowed down. If anything, it’s getting even more specific. Snif’s recent 2% Milk + Cereal collection has been generating buzz across social media, with reviewers comparing it to “cereal milk soft serve.” One commenter even joked that the original milk fragrance icons, DedCool Milk Xtra and DedCool Milk, suddenly smelled like nothing by comparison. The milk wars have officially begun!
Ginger Spark: With another sweltering summer, it’s no surprise that fragrance is leaning toward cooling, comforting notes. Milk, ice cream, and cereal all evoke a kind of edible relief, even before you spray them. What’s especially interesting is the increasing specificity. Calling something “2% milk” instead of simply “milk” creates an instant visual, emotional, and sensory cue while giving the fragrance a distinct point of differentiation. Snif describes its 2% base as “a creamy, sweet milk scent with notes of fresh dairy, vanilla, praline, and caramel,” designed to be worn alone or layered with the brand’s three nostalgic cereal-inspired body mists. Turns out, the dairy aisle has become fragrance’s latest mood board.
Cola Addict
Whether it’s called Americana, newstalgia, or the Lana Del Rey effect, cola has become more than a drink. It functions now as a cultural reference point. Between the rise of dirty sodas, functional alternatives like Olipop’s Vintage Cola, and a broader fascination with familiar flavors and symbols, cola has quietly bubbled back to the surface. This week’s launch from Seoul-based niche fragrance house BORNTOSTANDOUT lands at exactly the right moment. It also reinforces a pattern we flagged in 2023: South Korea remains one of the most exciting forces in fragrance, a signal we traced in our Symrise piece on East Asian fragrance innovation.
Launched this week at Sephora under the line “your favorite soda, now a scent,” Cola Addict Eau de Parfum opens with effervescent cola foam, lemon, lime, and cinnamon, then settles into notes of caffeine, dark rum, vanilla, and caramel. BORNTOSTANDOUT built its name on provocative fragrances, unconventional names, and sculptural bottles inspired by traditional Joseon Dynasty white porcelain, a lineage the brand has carried since founder Jun Lim launched the house in 2022. The result reads less like cracking open a can of soda and more like bottling the memory of one on a sweltering summer afternoon.
Ginger Spark: BORNTOSTANDOUT teased the launch on Instagram with the line “COLA ADDICT? GOOD. WE WILL MAKE IT WORSE.” The caption paints carbonation prickling like static on the skin, cold sweetness slowly dissolving into vanilla cream and dark rum, a scene built entirely around sensation rather than ingredients. Sephora frames the fragrance as “stimulation stacked on stimulation,” noting that cola ranks among the world’s most successfully engineered pleasures, built on sugar, caffeine, acid, and bubbles, with every element designed to keep drinkers coming back. Legacy soda brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi keep searching for new growth levers, yet the flavor itself has already escaped the can. It shows up now in functional beverages, beauty, and a broader wave of sensory nostalgia. The craving stopped being about cola. It became about the feeling cola represents, reimagined for a generation that wants its memories delivered with a luxury finish.
Forever Blooms (by Play-Doh?)
This week, Hasbro announced the launch of Blooms by Play-Doh, a line for adults, marking its entry into adult crafting and home decor. According to Brian Baker, Senior Vice President for Play-Doh, the kits are intended to offer “a more elevated, hands-on way to slow down, get lost in the process and create something beautiful you can enjoy long after you’ve made it.” Over half of toy growth between January and April this year came from women, according to a recent report by Circana. Furthermore, overall toy consumption is being led by adults, with consumers aged 18 and over accounting for 35% of the total industry growth. Sensory-focused items are a driver of acceleration within the product category.
For more than 70 years, the Play-Doh brand has been synonymous with hands-on creativity for kids and families. Blooms by Play-Doh builds on that legacy, using the familiar compound to create intentional, lasting pieces. The line also represents a broader step forward for Hasbro as it expands beyond traditional play to engage fans across life stages. Once complete, the floral creations can be preserved and displayed as decorative pieces made entirely by hand. A key innovation is the inclusion of a specially formulated finishing spray that helps maintain the flowers’ structure over time, allowing arrangements to be enjoyed for months.
Starting at $24.99, Blooms by Play-Doh kits in a range of sizes and styles are now available at Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Select items from the line will also be live on TikTok Shop on July 16th, marking the Play-Doh brand’s first product debut on the platform, meeting consumers where they actively discover and engage with creative content. Each kit includes everything needed to complete an arrangement, including Play-Doh compound, tools, molds, a vase, and finishing spray. How-to videos for each kit are available on the Blooms by Play-Doh YouTube channel. For more information, follow the Play-Doh brand on Facebook, Instagram (note Millie Bobby Brown’s endorsement), and TikTok.
Ginger Spark: Kudos to Lego for seeing this movement coming. It introduced its first botanical collection in 2021 as part of its Lego for Adults range. Blooms lands at a moment when adults are rewriting the rules of “play.” Hasbro’s research among 10,000+ adults globally found that roughly one in seven turns to arts and crafts specifically for stress relief, while nearly 80% of Gen Z and Millennials report burnout, fueling demand for creative outlets that feel calming and purposeful. Gingergeist covered the playful, sensorial packaging trend hitting beauty back in May. A Play-Doh collab with the right beauty brand would be an event unto itself.
Before you close the tab: if something in here felt true, restack it. That is how Gingergeist reaches the Cultural Pioneers who haven’t found us yet.
🔄 Restack if you’ve got a childhood ritual that quietly made its way back into your adult life. That’s how Gingergeist finds its next Cultural Pioneer.
Or: like it, forward it to your most nostalgic friend, or drop your own bit of newstalgia in the comments.
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