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?

Pure nostalgia, I remember so many of these. I so want to smell exclamation now it would take me right back to late school/college days.
Anyone remember the body shop 3 in one eyeshadows, blush, lipsticks? Great for a skint student in late 90s. Also loved the maybelline mascara in pink bottle, body shop pearls. Great times.
My MIL and I were talking about the shaders hair dyes on the weekend. Do they do them anywhere now?

@inappropriateraspberry

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!!

Me too! I had a whole shelf of them, similarly dusty and unused. Mostly from bodyshop too. My fav was a green turtle that smelled like cucumber if I recall. In the end i can't even remember using them.

Oh my goodness, Miners make-up, Juicy Tubes, hair mascara, and Impulse.

This thread is a proper time machine

Body glitter!
Superdrug did a brand of makeup called RU (I think) and I had a full set of lilac makeup - lipstick, eyeshadow, mascara. I looked like a corpse!
They also did a bright orange lipstick that I was very fond of. Worn with bright blue mascara, naturally.

@MyCatHatesEverybody I had the opposite experience with a red shaders. My hair was candy floss pink for weeks 🤦🏼‍♀️ Wash in wash out my backside!

I also had one of the babyliss straighteners with a water pod to iron the hair... still didn’t work very well.
Covergirl and anything vaguely American such as Gap and its fragrances were very popular at school.

Maybelline diamond shine lipstick (literally packed with glitter)
Really shiny lipgloss
Body glitter
Anything vanilla scented, also dewberry and white musk from the body shop.

Omg and colour mousse!!

Loving this thread almost as much as the recent 90s music thread

I also was a fan of Rimmel heather shimmer and black cherries. There was also a particular lip pencil everyone used, a pinky-brown colour but I can’t remember where it was from, it was coveted amongst my girlfriends. It gave that matt corpse look. Very grungy.
Wore bronzing pearls too and Maybelline Great Lash mascara (in the bright pink tube) which weirdly I bought only recently and it’s still up there with the best.

I wore Eternity perfume but clearly remember my mates wearing White Musk and a posh one called Samsara by Guerlain. Anyone remember that?! It was SO heavy.

Bloody hell I remember that virgin vie crackle body bronzer, I can clearly remember the feel of it as you put it on, so weird! Ahhh I've gone back in time!

Ooh and there was another Body Shop perfume which smelt like cannabis.....?!
Or was it patchouli? Ha ha

@Lillygolightly I use Essence mascaras (you can get them in Wilkinsons or online Justmylook with free postage). They're all around £2.50 and they're fantastic. I'm currently using the volume one in the fat purple tube and it's the best I've ever used - even better than Maybelline Great Lash!

I still have a bottle of LouLou (and Eden, and Anaïs Anaïs). LouLou has I think aged the best. Does anyone remember LouLou Blue? It was in a transparent blue bottle and came out around 1995. It was absolutely gorgeous. It's the summer of 1996 in a bottle for me.

Cargo trousers and cropped tops. Hipster waists.

Shit! I didn't read 'make up'! Just looks. Ignore me.

@Sunshiney1981

Ooh and there was another Body Shop perfume which smelt like cannabis.....?! Or was it patchouli? Ha ha

Body Shop patchouli was a goth staple!

@PennyDreadfuI
Yes! My friend who was a goth wore it
Happy Days.

What about nails.... We all loved a simple French manicure. We spent hours getting the tips of our nails in a perfect white arch! Or more likely a ‘squoval’ shape lol. So chic though. No tarty nails here.

I stil have a bottle of Lancôme micro palates (think it was called that) from the 90s.

It’s a very fine glitter and it comes out for Christmas parties.

I remember the Lancome glitter!

It was fantastic in the mid/late 90s when nail polish got really exciting wasn't it. I think Rouge Noir and Hard Candy paved the way for it. Before if you wanted 'weird' colours like (gasp!) black, deep wine or green you had to use gothy brands like Stargazer but suddenly they were everywhere. I gave birth to DD in 1997 wearing electric blue nail polish by Boots 17. And don't even start me on the advent of holographic glitter polish, or 'crushed CD bits' as me and my friends used to call it. Like something from outer space.

I'm surprised I've got any skin left after the overuse of that St Ives Apricot scrub in my teenage years.

Loving some of these forgotten classics!
Did anyone else wear Sunflowers perfume? It wasn't even that nice but everyone at my school wore it

[quote SteveArnottsbeadyeyes]@TooMinty if you’re also had a little wooden box thing with make up and lipstick from the Body Shop you might be![/quote]

Not wooden I don't think but my mum always put a Bodyshop palette in for a stocking filler at Christmas 😊

@Footlooseandfancy

I'm surprised I've got any skin left after the overuse of that St Ives Apricot scrub in my teenage years.

I still use this! Still have skin... I break out in spots if I use anything else, dreading it going out of production!

@wingingmywaythroughlife

Loving some of these forgotten classics! Did anyone else wear Sunflowers perfume? It wasn't even that nice but everyone at my school wore it

Yes! I bought a bottle a few years ago for nostalgia purposes (it's so cheap now) and I was shocked by how unpleasant it was - I loved it at the time!

Chloe Narcisse is another one - it was expensive back in the day but became mega cheap, so I bought a bottle about 5 years ago. It's aged rather better than Sunflowers, it's pretty strident but lovely. It's been discontinued now and is super expensive again when you can find it.

Ooh I’ve just remembered another I loved, a perfume called Monsoon Wild Lagoon! Smelled all beachy and exotic, loved the bottle too, blue glass bottle with a bronze lid.

@Sunshiney1981 yes I remember Samsara it was my mums perfume, very heavy and lasted ages. She passed away when I was still a kid, I always keep a bottle as it reminds me of her.

@PennyDreadfuI thanks for the mascara tips I will definitely give them a try.

I was still wearing sunflowers until about five years ago.... I like it