Yes, I Really Did My Makeup in the 1990s Like This and Why Today's Makeup Would Have CONFUSED Me

A shoplifting horror story from the 90s, plus brown-red lipstick and the history of Chanel's Vamp nail polish

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A shoplifting horror story from the 90s, brown-red lipstick, the history of Chanel's Vamp nail polish

Today we’re going to take a walk down memory lane complete with some TikToks I made, and for those of you who are old enough to remember it, you’ll be shocked, horrified (we had no skills) and hopefully nostalgic for the makeup of the 90s.

Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. While she is not wearing Chanel’s Vamp here (that’s a rumor, apparently), Vamp became an instant icon when it came out a year later and had a one-year waiting list to buy it.

90s Makeup: We Didn’t Know A Damn Thing

There was no reliable, accessible way to get knowledge about makeup application in the 90s, you had to learn it from your friends, and maybe if you were lucky the cosmetics lady at the drugstore would tell you what to do. Makeup was not part of pop culture as it is now. 

Drew Barrymore in the 1990s. Note the thin eyebrows and reddish brown lipstick.

Because many of our moms were of the seventies generation, they didn’t wear much makeup, maybe a little eyeliner and lipstick. However, 70s moms knew a thing or two about PLUCKING THE HELL OUT OF THEIR EYEBROWS, which was one skill you could definitely pick up from moms back then. And oh boy, we did.

The 90s was about the thinnest, slightly arched eyebrows you could imagine, Kate Moss had them, Drew Barrymore and even previously extremely thick-eyebrowed Madonna.

Every time I see a TikTok tutorial on 90s makeup and the creator is brushing up their brows and filling them in I’m like, Girly Pop, that’s a no. We did not put makeup in our eyebrows. 

All you did with your eyebrows in the 90s was hate them, pluck them, then ignore them.

This is a modern MAC counter in a department store, but they looked somewhat similar in the 90s in Canada, just smaller.

Enter The MAC Counter in the 1990s

I’m Canadian so it’s my job to know every famous Canadian entity and point that out to you. It’s an insufferable trait. I’m sorry, pronounced the Canadian way: SORE-y. (Americans’ “sorry” sounds more like SAW-ry. Interestingly, most Canadians can’t hear the difference and we think we sound like Americans thanks to a phenomenon called Canadian Raising.) So let’s talk about Make-up Art Cosmetics: MAC

MAC is a Canadian makeup company and in downtown Toronto by the early 90s we already had a department store counter. The staff at the time were incredible, MAC hired cutting-edge young makeup artists, men and women, all serving WILD looks.

Arsenic green eyeshadow, fuschia lipstick, chola eyebrows, enormous Vantablack eyeliner wings, you get the vibe. No staffer I ever saw wore boring, basic makeup, this wasn’t Lancome, honeys.

I used to mosey on up to The Bay department store at Yonge and Bloor (RIP) once in a while to buy foundation, lipstick and lip liner: pretty much the only makeup I used to wear. The staff were very nice, even though their makeup looks were fiery, they were exactly the kind of pleasant Toronto artistes you might imagine.

The makeup scene was NOT what it was today, no one had tons of makeup, maybe 5 items in rotation, and we used them up before buying new things.

Anyway back to MAC. This makeup brand catered to teens and real makeup artists. No one over 30 shopped there. You couldn’t touch any products either! If you wanted to try Spice or Ruby Woo lipstick, a staff member would pull it out of the display, spritz the bullet thoroughly with alcohol like it was Patient Zero of the bubonic plague, wipe that off with a tissue, then hand it to you to try. None of this grabby hands shit that goes down at Sephora today. Nuh uh.

Winona Ryder in the 90s. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s wearing Rum Raisin lipstick by Revlon.

Shoplifting Makeup in the 1990s (Not Me, Here’s Why)

This was not something I ever, ever did. Luckily stealing crap when I could just buy it (hooboy, I just remembered 90s icon Winona Ryder’s shoplifting problem. Yikes!) has never been one of my temptations in life. I can say any notion of ever shoplifting was thoroughly quashed in my Grade 9 law class where we went to the Toronto courts for a field trip to see REAL LAW IN ACTION.

Imagine my horror when I slipped into a courtroom to check out some cases being tried. Standing at the defendant’s bench or whatever it’s called, I saw a TEENAGE GIRL, maybe 18 or 19. She was on trial for, and I’m not joking, stealing a lipstick from Shopper’s Drug Mart (Canada’s Walgreens, and notorious for prosecuting shoplifters which I did not know at the time, but I found out!).

CRIME: SHE HAD SHOPLIFTED ONE LIPSTICK.

Her mom, dad and younger sister were seated in the public benches with us. The mom was crying into a balled up Kleenex. The tween sister was using her sleeve to wipe the tears streaming down her face. The girl defendant was sobbing, trembling and barely keeping it together. The whole case took about two minutes, and the girl was let off on an absolute discharge or whatever they call it. No jail time (can’t even believe I’m writing this over a lipstick), no fine, nothing. Rightly so.

At this news, all the women in the family started gripping each other and howl-sobbing like they were at a Chinese funeral. Even though it was good news, I guess the stress got to them. It was intense! I thought, Imagine if I stole a lipstick and then I had to be processed at a police station and then my whole family had to come to the courtroom over a $3.99 Toast of New York lippie? That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.

Also, Shoppers Drug Mart, I’d like a word. First off, your name is dumb. Second, it was not cool to prosecute teenage girls for shoplifting ONE lipstick like they’re the gangland murderer who killed Tupac. (Incidentally, that dude was only recently indicted for murder after 27 years. But I suppose the real menace to society was the teen with the stolen lipstick, huh?) 

I get that you, Shoppers Drug Mart, wanted to send a message, but why didn’t you just hire visible security guards if this was such a problem? Not only did it traumatize ME as a courtroom onlooker, the girl and her family who probably waited a year for this trial while in mental anguish, this is also not an effective use of the court system. I can look out on the busy sidewalk near my house and four assclowns in more need of prosecution will stroll by in a matter of minutes.

Today’s Trends That Would Have Confused Me in the 90s

@helenaverymediaMakeup trends that would have confused me in the 90s.

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Contour. I would have been shocked that people paint dark stripes on their face and then mostly “blend them” i.e. wipe them off. Forehead contour would have completely confounded me. The 90s look was one dimensional. After you layered on your heavy foundation and your powder, only your nostrils were visible.

False eyelashes. We associated false lashes strictly with the Swinging 1960s and the “mod” model Twiggy. These face brooms would have been considered absolutely ridiculous. They still look pretty ridiculous when they’re too full!

Multiple brands of foundation in our makeup kit. Nope. We owned one foundation (probably MAC, saved up for with babysitting money), one pressed powder (probably Cover Girl): that was it. 

Using a brush to apply makeup. You’d look at a makeup artist sales associate with their belt pack of brushes and you’d think, you’re not touching my face with that! We didn’t know brushes, we didn’t trust brushes. We used our fingers, white latex sponge wedges, and those idiotic tiny sponge applicators that come with eyeshadow palettes.

Filling in eyebrows. The trend was skinny minimal eyebrows with a slight arch, you can say a thank you to 90s makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin for that. No one filled them in, brushed them up, or wanted them to look any darker or fuller. 

Blush and highlighter. Again, no. Our faces were matte and one-dimensional. Blush was for a granny’s vanity top along with Oil of Olay and Pond’s cold cream. Highlighter wasn’t on our radar at all.

This Is How I Did My Makeup in the 90s

@helenaverymediaHere’s an authentic 90s makeup tutorial that’s easy and REAL. If you want to do this look for Halloween or a costume party, you just need small butterfly clips for your hair, and a brown red Revlon lipstick like Coffee Bean or Toast of New York. You also need a really matte foundation and pressed powder. #90smakeup #90smakeuplook #90smakeuptutorial #revlonlipstick #90shair

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Nailing the 90s look only requires two things: a really matte complexion, and a red-brown lipstick. This is how I wore my makeup every day for years

• MAC Face and Body foundation, applied with fingers or a wedge

• Pressed powder to mattify the t-zone. This is the one item I brought to school with me along with lipstick, because you have to reapply dark lipstick a lot.

• Eyeliner. I didn’t wear liquid liner until I was about 20 so in high school it was the pencil stuff. I only lined half-way on my bottom lid. Oprah told us to do this once so I just did it! I don’t know why.

• Lipstick. This was the star of the 90s, and those old lip looks still look pretty fly today if you ask me. Fave shades then were Revlon’s Toast of New York, Wine With Everything, Rum Raisin and Coffee Bean. If you had money for Mac it was Spice lipstick and Twig lipliner.

I’m Getting The Cutest Questions on Tiktok

Now that I have about three or so TikToks on 90s makeup, I’ve been getting the most adorable questions from today’s teens. This was my favorite:

“Was Clinique cool in the 90s or was it an old lady brand like it is now?”

These youngsters are so shady, I love them. Answer: Clinique had that French mystique, but it was an older-sister/auntie-in-her 20s-working-woman brand, definitely not for teens.

The sales associates wore white lab coats, and that was not an approachable vibe for a 16 year old. Also Clinique was mostly about the skincare. Teens back then only bought skincare from the acne section of the drugstore, Clearasil, Clean and Clear, and that brown Neutrogena bar of soap.

Anyway, this comment prompted me to go down memory lane and analyze the luxury brands I would NOT have shopped from in the 90s and why:

@helenaverymedia90s department store makeup #vamp #chanel #clinique #lancome #hardcandy

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In that video I said that Uma Thurman wore Vamp in Pulp Fiction. I got a few comments that indeed NO, that’s a rumor. The movie Pulp Fiction came out well before Chanel’s Vamp nail polish, by perhaps a year. Shooting of the movie and principal photography was 1993, Vamp debuted later 1994-ish.

I remember them coming out at the same time but memory is nothing if not fallible.

So that’s all I have to say about 90s makeup, I hope this was a fun look back or perhaps you learned something new.

That’s all this week, thanks for reading!

Warmly,

Helen

P.S. More from me!

• Did you miss last week’s Round Up of Really Good Things? I talk about Roots sweats, a new teeth-whitening device that actually works, and Ouai leave-in conditioner.

• The terrifying thing AI did to my hands.

• Olay’s worst product and how they bungled the marketing.