Old-school MAC Eyeshadows in Brule (left) and Print (right), circa the late 1990s
Heck yeah, I do. I started wearing makeup at 14, and I have kept a few things for nostalgia’s sake.
Like the two MAC Eyeshadows above, Print and Brule. If I remember correctly, those are from 1998!
No, I do not use them anymore… They’re 15 years old! But I still get a kick out of the packaging. Print looks pretty to’ up because I carried it everywhere. I used it as a liner for years. And Brule was my go-to base color from ’98 through the early 2000s, around the time I met Ricepaper.
I also have some aged but beloved perfumes from the ’90s at my parents’ house — a bottle of Covergirl’s Navy and a couple of Victoria’s Secret perfumes I wore in college (I can’t remember which ones… Jasmine or Rose? Something like that.).
How about you? Do you have any venerable pieces of makeup in your collection? Anything you keep for sentimental reasons?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
julio says
The only thing I have is an old Chanel #6 brush and it is scratchy as Hell! I can’t use it but it’s Chanel, it’s a classic.
hanna says
I can’t believe you still keep it. I constantly get rid of things so there isn’t any way I have anything more than a few years.
shannon says
On my 13th birthday, my older brother took me to MAC and let me buy my first eye liner, and now it’s nothing but a small little stub the size of my finger nail, but I keep it around to look back at!
Jax says
I had a major clear out recently and I don’t generally get too nostalgic about makeup but I do have a MAX factor eyeshadow from about 20 years ago, it is a great colour and I could use it as a blusher as well every couple of years I try to find a suitable alternative, still looking 🙁
(Maybe I should give up, my makeup has moved on and I tend to use different colours now.)
Gowthami says
I have my first set of eye-makeup brushes!!
Irene says
Not exactly vintage, but I went to my boyfriend’s summer house and found that his mother had left a bottle of The Body Shop’s Neroli Jasmin body mist, which I believe is super rare now, since it is discontinued, and it is so expensive on eBay.
Meredith says
I’m a ’90s girl myself and totally get the nostalgia thing. I have plenty of things saved from back then but not any makeup that I can think of. That’s a more recent interest of mine. And now that I’m a real, grownup lady I actually have a few pieces worth saving.
Sara says
Haha, I have two MAC eyeshadow products like the ones in your photo as well. That’s pretty cool. I have several other vintage MAC stuff too. Do you remember when MAC lipliners were silver rather than black? And the old lipstick packagings?
Amanda says
I’ve kept a Laura Mercier “Wedding Party” eyeshadow palette that I bought before my wedding in 2003. It’s intact and hasn’t turned funky, but I won’t use it. I’ve also kept a stash of Bare Minerals that I flirted with after the birth of my first bay-bay. Sentimental and nostalgic.
Rose says
I have a MAC lipstick from 1995 in the old cylindrical packaging that preceded the bullet shaped cap. It’s in the color Modum. It’s a silvery/peachy/frosty color that only belongs in the 90’s. Of course it looked best with Chestnut or Cork lipliners. 🙂 I also have a MAC lipliner in the silver packaging that they had around the time of Y2K and the whole millennium change. Good times. 🙂
Kharrissa says
I have my first shade of lipstick from the 80’s. It made by Lip Quencher, color is Plum Storm. I remember the teenage heartbreak of not finding it on the makeup wall in Revco. The saleslady showed me the clearance section, where I found three. I finished two of them and kept the third, hoping to find a dupe. I never did. I’m having an affair with many other colors in my old age, but for some reason, I can’t throw it away.
Jennifer says
My favorite lipstick ever, too. I wish I still had it. Plum Storm.
Kate says
Kharrissa, that was my all time fave! I found it at HC Murphy’s on SWP in the 80’s. It took forever to find the PERFECT color, and then they dc’d it. I was SO upset! Never found the perfect color again. 60 now, missing my 20’s. 😉
Amanda says
I have the lipstick I wore for my wedding in 2002. It’s was by origins. I don’t even know if origins still makes lipstick! 🙂
Danielle says
I love this post! I was a kid in the 90s, so I like seeing what makeup everyone was using back then. I wish my mom still had some of her old Estee Lauder stuff. I grew up playing in her makeup haha.
Chris25 says
I have a Jane eyeshadow I wore to my 1998 junior high graduation. I need to photograph my vintage makeup collection. I have an Avon lipstick from 1948 that still smells like Edna Marie’s perfume (she was the lady who originally owned it. When she died the estate got sold and that was one of the items that wound up on Ebay).
BeckBeck says
I don’t think I’ve kept anything that long – mostly for space reasons and having moved a bunch of times since I started getting into makeup. I clearly remember a lot of my older stuff – I had a forest green Lancome eyeshadow trio, and a ton of their old lipsticks.
Lorraine says
Among nail polish collectors (aka hoarders like me), having vintage polishes is a sign of a cultivated eye for color, and discriminating taste in subtle formula changes. In my own collection there are a few vintage bottles that Zoya Renew can fix when they start to get gloopy. I will never discard my Revlon Zing or Streetwears or OPI vintage duochrome or black labels. Even some of my vintage Essies are prized now that the company has been sold and changes in formula are detected. Sometimes a company will simply re-name of a color and those original labelled bottles are then coveted. I would love to own a butter London All Hail McQueen or Dior Flapper Pink or Aztec Chocolate, for example, though I can still get the color under different labels.
Kristy says
I’m pretty good about editing my stuff periodically, but I do still have my original MAC Rocker lipstick from 1999. It’s a matte deep ruby with sparse multicolor glitter pieces suspended in it. I don’t think that the re-release version had glitter. That was my “going out” lipstick, when I actually used to go out LOL.
Dominique says
I have a nail polish by UD and in… Gash ! I also have a lipstick called Revolution, but it’s not a vintage I think I purchased it 3 years ago. Their new collection is called Revolution^^ !
Betsy Clark says
I have my Mom’s last tube of Revlon Moon Drops 24K Orange lipstick; her signature. My Dad used to go and buy it for her when she got to the point that she couldn’t walk much. It looked so pretty on her. She had natural silver hair, black eyes and a dark Mediterranean complexion and it made her glow! I tried to use it once, and though I have dark hair and eyes like her, my skin is porcelain fair, and it made me resemble Bozo the clown! I give Mom many props for instilling a passion for makeup in me. She was quite a large woman for a lot of her life, and she told me “People are going to think I’m lazy because I’m big, but I always want to look nice anyway!” Good for her, I say.
Chelsea says
I didn’t start getting into makeup until early adulthood, so I don’t have much nostalgic stuff! The oldest stuff I have isn’t more than 3 years old. Helps that I’m also paranoid about things getting unsafe to use because of my horribly reactive skin.
I have a Dior Addict lip gloss from 2010 that I’ve worn maybe twice, but I can’t get rid of it because of the beautiful packaging and because of the price I paid for it. I have an old discontinued Revlon lippie I need to throw away too. I don’t really wear it, but it’s a lovely color and it was discontinued.
snoopysteph says
I have a bottle of Chanel Vamp nail polish that I bought back in 1994, that’s probably the most vintage beauty product I’ve got besides an old bottle of Love’s Baby Soft. 🙂
Phyrra says
I have some very old MAC Glitz Gloss, the type that came in the compact. I love it but don’t use it anymore.
Rachel P says
I kept a set of hot rollers around for a long time, from my tween years. I brought it back out again the other week, thinking it would speed up my beauty routine.. so I fished them out and realized they weren’t even mine! My little sister told me was getting ready for a school dance one night, her friend brought her own set of hot rollers over, which she mixed up with mine (the nicer set!) and promptly took home!! Turns out they don’t work so well for my super-long hair anyhow- time to retire that method and stick with my tourmaline curling wand!
Rachel P says
Oh, and I still have my UD Gash lipstick. Which is really not vintage, comparatively speaking, but I am so bummed the color has been retired- I had the gloss as well and I loved everything about it, color, texture, even the taste!