To ask what make up you loved in the 90s

[PennyDreadfuI]

I'm on a bit of a nostalgia trip this afternoon after finding a stub of MAC Viva Glam (the first iteration) which I bought from Harvey Nichols in 1994 (amazingly it still smells fine and applies just like it did 26 years ago). I bought it from one of my first pay packets and went on a waiting list to get it. I also remember being on a waiting list for ALL the Hard Candy pastel nail polishes a couple of years later - £12 a pop and I bought five or six! Also waiting list for Chanel Rouge Noir - took months to get my hands on it and in the meantime I mixed black and red nail polish which resulted in a lovely streaky mess 😂

At the start of the 90s I was a sort of goth/Manic Street Preachers fan hybrid so lots of smudged black eyeliner and red lips and glitter for nights out. Mid 90s I was Courtney Love obsessed with hair, clothes and makeup to match. Towards the end of the decade it was all MAC Spice lipliner and Carmex with shimmery eyeshadow. And for all of it, skinny perma-surprised brows which never grew back.

What were your favourite looks/fondly remembered but long gone 90s beauty staples?

My first job was on a magazine in the West End. Payday would involve a trip to the South Molton Drugstore to stock up on Stargazer nail polishes for £1 a bottle in whatever colours they had. My salary didn't stretch to Hard Candy.

body shop japanese washing grains were lovely

Not so much make up, but after a childhood of Imperial Leather, I thought that the rainbow soap range from Body Shop was amazing. Also loved the Linco beer shampoo and conditioner from Superdrug. The other 90's thing was Cosmetics To Go- they had a happy hippo grapefruit shower gel which was divine, as well as a host of other exciting products. I think I got one of their ration books.

I had a collection of soaps in different shapes, mostly Body Shop I think. Flowers, animals etc. Never used them and they just got dusty and slimy sat in a basket of shredded paper!!

Baby blue nail polish.
The first and last time I joined a waiting list was for Chanel Rouge Noir nail polish.
Christian Dior hair mascara in royal blue or gold.
Testing out the lipsticks at the Mac counter in Harvey Nichols. Diva was my first Mac lipstick
Clinique Almost lipstick in Black Honey.
Dark lipliner and pale lipstick a la Naomi Campbell
Thierry Mugler Angel perfume.

@twilightcafe

My first job was on a magazine in the West End. Payday would involve a trip to the South Molton Drugstore to stock up on Stargazer nail polishes for £1 a bottle in whatever colours they had. My salary didn't stretch to Hard Candy.

I loved South Molton Drugstore! I lived in Notting Hill for most of the 90s and it was my go-to for bargain hunting. I still have a powder brush I bought from there. Also Wong Singh Jones on Portobello Road for Carmex which was still covetable and only available there at the time. And Kensington Market for Stargazer, particularly the shimmery pressed pale powder which I adored!

Boots cucumber range
Sensiq eye shadow trios
stealing my mum's Charles of the Ritz make-up
Anais Anais, Tresor, Paris, Issey Miyake perfume
Hours at the NO7 counter - so spendy
Natrel deoderant
Vichy liquid tights- orange and biscuity

oohh - and NO7 Plum Beautiful lipstick which is still best autumn/winter colour ever

My favourite lipstick was a red/coral colour and throughout the night or day you just pressed your lips together and it freshened the colour. Might have been Almay?
And corn silk powder.

I still use Rimmel Hide the Blemish

Body Shop foundation that came in a little pot.
A Maxfactor lipstick in a berry colour that was one of those ones that lasted all day, was like a crayon 🖍
Maybelline Mascara (the one that came in the pink tube)
Rimmel pressed powder in translucent (they still do it I think)

I was a teenager in the 90's and makeup has got so much better over the last decade. I wish we'd had then what teenagers can have now!

I think it would have been around the Year 2000 and I fell in love with St Tropez fake tan after reading about it in the magazines.

Self-tanning was very new, and you couldn't really get anything like that in the shops in those days. Online obviously wasn't a 'thing' yet.

I used to walk for miles to pick one up from a local beauty/spa type place. Totally ruined my mattress with the thick dark chocolate lotion soaking into my sheets.

Still love St Tropez to be fair..

@MathsFiend I remember Virgin vie. I had an amazing cream highlighter, it was the first kind of highlighter you could buy. It came in a pot with a sponge to apply. I wish they still made it a I'd definitely buy again.

Exclamation perfume was one of my favourite's. There was also a perfume called 'fleur' which was quite cheap but I loved it.
And marks and Spencer's body cream in Freesia.

Impulse Free Spirit as well.

I had an amazing brown nail varnish by Jessica nails. Was my absolute favourite

Not make up but did the girls at anyone else’s school go mad for Mason Pearson hairbrushes? I begged my mum for one and she came home from John Lewis one day with the huge bristle and nylon one for me 😍 (I think it was about 65 quid!) God I thought I was so cool taking that out of my bag at break time.
Anyway it’s still going strong 25 years later and my own DDs use it every day.

I loved the brand 'spectacular' for nail Varnish. I had about four million of them in the most gaudy colours. I especially like Brighton rock, which was a really vile luminous pink, but I didn't make the connection to rock as in the long sweet sticks. I thought it was an actual rock in the sea 😂

@Naticus there's a small Les Belles de Ricci on eBay for about £25.

@PennyDreadfuI please repost my link about heather shimmer (no I don’t work for Superdrug) jist so many people have asked about it - and it’s still around!

Stargazer Electric Blue nail varnish. I could only ever get it in Kensington Market and when I could get there I'd buy several bottles and wear it constantly. I loved the Spectacular stuff too but not as much as Stargazer.

Late 80's early 90's was the smell of Shockwaves hairspray being burnt as I crimped and primped my hair to Robert Smith proportions.

My friend and I also worked out that if you mixed coloured eyeshadow with vaseline, applied it and then put on lipcote, you could have green or blue lips all night and still drink snakebite and black.

Urban decay eyeshadow, there was the navy blue one with bronze glitter for wearing with Jeans and an amazing sparkly emerald green one for "best" this was about the time of juicy tubers so I may be straying into early '2000's

Spectacular nail polish - I had a white mother of pearl one which I loved.

Silver smokey eye shadow from Rimmel. You can't seem to get individual colours anywhere now - always a massive pallette.

Lots of CK One or Tommy Hilfiger perfume.

My sister was an AVON rep and I loved the little samples of lipstick that you got.

Sun In for hair and blue hair mascara.

Apparently healther shimmer is rimmels top selling shade still! The 90s and early 00s were the best, this is giving me all of the nostalgia. Also Maybelline dream matte mousse.