Makeup Crimes of the ’70s: Lava Eyeliner and Raccoon Regret

Farrah called. She wants her eyeliner back—and a therapist.

Does anybody wear frosty blue eye shadow any more?

In the '70s, there were four basic shadow colors. Blue, brown, and green. You wore whatever matched your eyes, blue on blue, brown on brown, green on green. I remember my sister going apeshit with joy when purple shadow came along in the mid seventies.

Eyeliner was almost always solid black. It was usually liquid - pencil liner was hard to find - and frankly, it was a bitch to use without smearing. It took minutes to dry during which you couldn't blink or it would smudge and leave you looking like a fucking raccoon. Then Maybelline came along with the little red eyeliner pencil and it was sold everywhere, but the makeup inside the wood casing was hard as fuck and had to be warmed up with a lighted match held close but not TOO close, and not too long or the shit would turn into lava, and blister your eyelids.

Mascara, too, was usually black. Only hippies really wore brown mascara. Around 1975 blue mascara got popular. The blue smudged easily and looked ridiculous, but teen girls went apeshit over it. Mascara comes in so many colors now, it makes the mind of this 60-year-old antique just boggle.

Foundation didn't have many shades: Light, medium orange-ish - Donald Trump's spray tan reminds me of that color. Not many options for POC folks. A lot of older women didn't really use it, they used powder instead - or powder over the top of foundation. That came in the same shades. Both products were thick as hell, oil-based, and hard to blend in so there wouldn't be wild edges or smears. The powder/foundation combination looked thick, like they were wearing fright masks. It was pretty fucking bad.

Lipstick came in basically three colors: bright red, cotton candy pink, or a kind of taupe shade and basic shades of those. In the late sixties and early seventies, white lipstick was a thing - which I in my very opinionated mind, made the women wearing it look like fucking foolish idiots. They had white eyeshadow too, at that time. But let's be real, the mod-glam fashion era was a visual abortion. It made people want to claw their eyes out.

There was lip gloss, which teens fucking LOVED. It was very lightly tinted, and the ones I remember best were two brands, though there were many. One favorite was Bonne Belle Lip Smackers, which came in flavors from strawberry, cherry, and watermelon to Dr Pepper and cotton candy. I loved that shit.

The other really popular gloss was these little gold colored tins with a sliding top. They were called Lip Lickers, came in many flavors, and disappeared some time ago. Tinte Cosmetics makes them now, under the name Vintage Lip Lickers, and has a wide variety of flavors. By all accounts, they're basically identical to the original product.

And then there's nail polish. Let's talk about how manicurists worked in hair salons - not dedicated nail salons. They had no more than ten colors of polish on their station: several pinks, from salmon to Barbie, a few reds, maybe a pearl white, and a clear. That's it.

Nowadays, you walk into a nail shop and they have an entire wall COVERED with nail polishes and powder dip jars. You select your color, bring it to your manicurist, kick back, and let the fun begin. You want glittery green with a neon orange stripe? GO FOR IT!

So that's the history of makeup as I recall it, keeping in mind that I was a young adolescent for most of the 70s, and my memory may be imperfect. Add in that I'm not a big makeup historian, these are my memories.

Also keep in mind that yeah, I'm not a big makeup user, so I've never owned a LOT of it. My sister is the really solid cosmetic pro of my family, not me. Her makeup game is perfection. I've never been a person who wears it every day, not even a little gloss. I really only wear it for weddings and funerals, or when I was younger, going on a date. I'm just not a girly girl. I don't give a fuck about fashion, either.

But I DO observe, and I know what's good makeup and what's bad, and I know good cosmetic use when I see it, and I am a pretty good critic of when clothing looks good. I know what the current and past styles are in all that shit - what rocked and what sucked - even if it's not really something I actively DO.

Truly though, I'm all about my basic black pants and tee shirts, flat black ballet flats, and short, unadorned hair (or the occasional floppy green mohawk).

And maybe a hint of lip gloss if I feel fancy.