The Faded Scent of Childhood: Scratch 'N Sniff Stickers Company to Close After 55 Years
Also... The Unexpected Exorcist!
I should feel ridiculous mourning over stickers, but here we are…
Trend Enterprises, the Minnesota school-supply company that unleashed Scratch ’n Sniff stickers on an unsuspecting world, is closing its doors after more than 55 years. Their website bluntly announced “After more than 55 incredible years, TREND enterprises, Inc. has made the difficult decision to close by the end of 2025.” For context, these stickers were a staple for children growing up in the 1970s well into today! They were an essential shared memory of the Gen X childhood experience. Who doesn’t remember gifting them over any holiday party in elementary or middle school?
Nerd alert: Scratch-and-sniff started in a lab. In the 1960s a 3M chemist named Gale Matson was inventing carbonless copy paper by mixing ink in microscopic capsules. When marketing caught wind of those micro-encapsulation beads, someone realized they could trap smell instead of color. By 1965, “Scratch ’N Sniff” debuted as a novelty application of Matson’s process. The science is simple (and still sort of magical). Each sticker is loaded with minuscule jellybean-like capsules of scented oil that stay inert until you break them by rubbing. Only then does the aroma hit your nose.
BOOM! You’ve smelled grape soda or chocolate without eating anything.
It took a little schoolhouse common sense to turn that gimmick into a phenomenon. Trend Enterprises, founded in 1967 by teacher-entrepreneurs John and Kay Fredericks, was already cranking out classroom bulletin-board kits and reward charts. In the late 1970s they tinkered in the scented sticker game and became the players in the Stinky Sticker boom of the 1980s. By the mid 80s Trend was offering a whopping 104 different sticker designs in 90 different smells.
These weren’t just stray fruit scents, either. The catalog even included full holiday sets for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day and Christmas. (Easter, got a sniff of its own too.) I vividly recall pumpkin-pie aroma looming in October and Hot Shot cinnamon packs in December.
Look, the good ones were divine. A fresh grape or strawberry sticker was like unwrapping a childhood Starburst. I would stick them to the edge of my nose and let them sit there for a bit!
Trend brags that it sold over 1 billion stickers in scents ranging from Popcorn and Chocolate to Pizza and Dill Pickle, and sure enough, the Pickle flavor made a memorable impression... so did skunk!
As for the bad smells… yeesh. My grade-school self still shudders recalling the “old shoe” scent (yes, really) or a rancid pickle one that felt like a practical joke. In the mix of cartoon cupcakes and smiling oranges, those few powerlessly stinky stickers were the villains of the era. But even they are legend now.
So the news hit me with a weird emotional gut-punch. The very company that made my sticker book feel like an interactive, scented comic book is winding down. The official announcement even reads like a eulogy: “After more than 55 incredible years…”
It’s absurd and sweetly tragic… here I am, a grizzled adult, dabbing at my nose because a scrap of kid-core is dying. Scratch ’n Sniff never saved the world, but it did save many of us Gen Xers from boring classrooms.
I will miss you Scratch ’n Sniff. We all will. // ~ JT
…btw… I just finished Adam Rockwell’s book, The Unexpected Exorcist. Really enjoyed it, and if you’re a fan of The Ghostbusters, Men In Black, The Exorcist obv, you will definitely love this book. Humanity is under attack by demons and must be protected by a shadowy agency that has stumbled on an unexpected demon hunter that has the demonic world pissed off beyond belief! Lot’s of good fun and I think it should be your next read! Check out
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Wow that makes me sad! Hadn’t thought about those in many decades but right now can vividly recall the smell of the pickle scented stickers.
I remember that Skunk Scratch and Sniff!! Also, I lived in Minnesota for over a decade and had no freaking idea they made that there LOL!! Thanks for the shoutout, John!!!! 😈