More childhood brands -- still here today

These days, Ribena comes ready to drink.

WHOOPS, how can I forget Ribena? This childhood drink is still around today -- in more forms than those of yore. In my time, the syrup was usually in a knobbly (like little grapes?) glass bottle. And you needed to mix it first with water before you could drink it -- unlike those ready-to-drink versions of today.

During my primary school days, my constant companion was a light green water bottle filled with very diluted Ribena as mum said I shouldn't be taking it too sweet. While Ribena is still around today, sad to say, I couldn't find a water bottle like the one I used to have. It came with a full-sized cup that fitted on top of the bottle. Sometimes, instead of Ribena, mum would fill it up with button-sized biscuits. As the bottle was airtight, they would still be crispy as anything during recess. OK, I am digressing.

Ye old water bottle which accompanied me
thorough primary school;

For condensed milk, there is none as familiar as Milkmaid. Of course, the jingle in the commercial helped: Grow tall little girl, grow tall little girl, there's a big world waiting for you... drink Milkmaid milk. See, I can even remember the lyrics even now. Blogger Yeo Hong Eng:  http://wwwyeohongeng.blogspot.sg/2013/10/collection-of-milkmaid-condensed-milk.html features a collection of labels! Must admit I don't remember they coming in a series featuring different themes. Certainly must-have collectibles.

For evaporated milk, Carnation is the brand that comes to mind. What better thing on a hot day but a dash of Carnation milk on ice-kacang? "More, more, more" was what we always requested of the ice-kacang man (or woman).

In the bathroom, there was always a big plastic bottle of Johnson's Baby Powder. Just loved the smell which I don't think differs from today's version.

We were not familiar with Band-Aid, although according to Wiki, this American brand has been around since 1920.  But in my days, it was always Elastoplast. Although it has 4 syllables, and a bit of a tongue twister, "Where's the Elastoplast ah?" was rather commonly heard whenever we got blisters from wearing new shoes (particularly around Chinese New Year). In those days, the plasters came in a flat red and white metal box (like the last picture you see here: http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2011/11/11/elastoplast.html) which could be used for keeping other things like coins -- or pudi pudi, those little plastic things that were shaped like flowers (or sometimes even cabbages) and animals we used to play, pushing them over each other, using our fingers.