Exclusive 1990s

How women wore (and applied) make up in the ’90s – A comprehensive guide

Back in the 90s, even though it was only 10 years ago, the way young women wore their make up then was definitely different to the looks favoured now. The whole application process was also a bit of a law unto itself, but we made it work. Sort of. 

So pop ‘Now That’s What I Call The 90s’ into the CD player, crack open an Alcopop, and take a walk down memory lane with our guide to wearing make up in the 90s.

1.

Firstly, skin prep didn’t involve a 12 step routine involving multiple serums and creams. It’d be a wash of the face with whatever soap was in the bathroom, maybe some tea tree oil or witch hazel dabbed on your spots, and possibly a blob of your mum’s Oil of Olay (though it was still called Oil of Ulay back then) if she’d left it knocking about.

2.

Back then primer was just something your dad might have in the shed leftover from painting the lounge, so it’d be straight on with the foundation. A thick layer was slapped onto your face with your fingers and heartily rubbed in.

We also weren’t too fussed about the colour of the foundation,

usually we were just using the cheapest one that was available in Superdrug.  The majority of the time it didn’t even come close to matching the colour of our actual skin, so generally we’d end up as orange as a tupperware container that had been used to store leftover spaghetti bolognese.

A blender, at that time, was something you found in the kitchen so we’d stop dead with the application at our jawline, leaving our face and neck two completely different colours.

3.

Next up would be concealer. Usually this came in a lipstick style twist up tube and you’d just dot it directly onto any spots you wanted to cover up. Again no brush or applicator would be used, we’d just sort of pat it into the spots with our foundation caked fingers. As with the foundation, we weren’t particularly strict on the shade used, so the end result would be the spots looking even more noticeable as the concealer basically just highlighted them. 

4.

Onto powder. While today, the dewy look is favoured, in the 90s any sort of shine on the face was enemy number one. Therefore we’d go in hard with the pressed powder to make our faces as matte as possible. We would actually use an applicator for this. No, not a big fluffy brush to gently dust the powder on, but a small round sponge puff that came with the powder which we’d use to near enough grind the powder into our faces.

To keep the evil shine at bay we’d vigorously cake our faces with powder at regular intervals throughout the day or buy fancy looking little pads of paper, from The Body Shop, to blot our faces with.

5.

Blusher was usually bright pink, with the end result generally being less healthy glow and more Aunt Sally from Worzel Gummidge.

Then, towards the later end of the 90s, bronzing balls became a bit more of a staple in our make-up bags. These were basically a tub of small balls of brown powder, designed to give us a sunkissed look. Rather than just using it sparingly, to gently highlight our features though, we’d generally just liberally apply it all over our faces. The end result being less sunkissed and more punched in the face by the sun.

We would actually use a brush for this, which we probably never actually washed, and even though we’d try to be careful, we’d usually end up with one of the balls falling on the floor and getting trodden into the carpet, which we’d desperately try and clean up before our mum saw and went ballistic.

6.

You might have used a bit of bog standard brown on your eyelids, or even grey or black if you were into the more grunge look, but frosted eyeshadows in blue, silver or white were key favourites.

These were usually applied liberally to our lids and then right up to our brow bones, using either our fingers or the tiny sponge tipped applicator that came with the eyeshadow. Did we blend the colours properly? We think you already know the answer to that.

7.

When it came to eyeliner, our go-to was usually an eyeliner pencil. No matter what your colouring, this would usually be the darkest black we could find. The general approach to application was thick and smudgy along the top and bottom lash lines, like a sexy raccoon. Then maybe a bit of white eyeliner on the waterline, whilst trying to avoid poking yourself in the eyeball in the process.

8.

Mascara, again, was usually the blackest of the black, though blue was still an option as it managed to cling onto its 80s popularity and sneak into the 90s. It was often Maybelline, as we weren’t born with it, so needed all the help we could get.

Eyelash curlers weren’t, as a rule, found in our make up bags, so it’d be straight in with the mascara. Multiple coats, which would usually end up clumpy.

9.

Eyebrows. Well, we think the less said about our 90s brows the better, other than that most of us REALLY shouldn’t have been so heavy handed with the tweezers and are still paying the price to this day. 

10.

While obviously other brands and shades were available, Heather Shimmer, Coffee Shimmer and, for the more daring amongst us, Black Cherry were staples from Rimmel for lipsticks in the 90s, and they actually looked pretty good! What didn’t look so good was when we used a dark lipliner (or possibly even an eyeliner!) with a much lighter shade of lipstick. While Pamela Anderson in Baywatch might have just about pulled it off, most of us, well, couldn’t.

To seal the deal, so to speak, we’d liberally apply Lipcote. It definitely helped keep our lipstick in place, so was fully worth the terrible chemical smell, the burning sensation and how much it dried out our lips.

And there we had it! Though if we were going on a night out, then there would also probably be the addition of some sort of facial glitter too. Liberally applied, obviously.

We thought we looked the business, even if, looking back, the photos we took on our disposable cameras showed otherwise! But we felt great and, at the end of the day, that’s all that bloody matters!



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