What was your first makeup product? How do you feel about it now?

It was either Benefit Show Offs (loose, shimmery eyeshadows) or a few MAC eyeshadows (I think Bronze, Antiqued, maybe Goldmine?). I actually still love all those MAC eyeshadows, but it’s been a minute since I’ve thought about Show Offs. I think I’d like them still but wouldn’t use them due to the messiness!

— Christine

37 Comments

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Mariella Avatar

It was probably Cutex (are they even around any longer?) flavoured lipsticks (this was a huge novelty back in the early 60’s) – I had Peppermint Pink (it did taste minty) and caramel or butterscotch one that I don’t recall tasting ANYTHING like caramel. And a Maybelline eyeshadow in sparkly white – I think it cost a dollar which, back then, was a lot of money for me.

Wednesday Avatar

It was in the 70’s and it was definitely a tingly lip gloss and a drugstore purchase my mother was no doubt entirely unaware of. I’m thinking it might have been Coty? Does that exist any longer? I know Coty was very inexpensive and considered less glamorous than other DS brands. Did anyone wear anything but DS at the time? HE certainly wasn’t in my sphere.

Seraphine Avatar

Coty still sells their loose powder in drugstores, but I haven’t seen anything else by them. As a teenager, I worked a summer job as a cashier in a store that sold non-drugstore makeup, like Ultima II and Mary Quant, so I remember having some of those products.

kjh Avatar

Coty is still a big player as a parent co. They just don’t market much under their own name any more. In the DS m/u world, they have Covergirl, Rimmel, and Bourjois. They have a lot of ‘luxury’ perfumes that most of us think of as standard dept store/mall fare. OPI, Sally Hansen. They are still a reputable, but ‘masstige’ type co.

Wendy Avatar

Most likely Maybelline Kissing potion! And I had a Cover Girl Blush trio-I think it was called Cheekers. It had 3 colors. They were peachy-pink with a deeper contour color. It was around 1980, and I was in 6th grade. I wasn’t really allowed to wear makeup, but lipgloss was okay. So I wore a lot. You could probably see my lips shining from outer space.
I have always loved makeup. I would save up money to buy eye products at the drug store and hide them in my room. I’d leave for school in the morning, turn the corner, and do an eye look with a pocket mirror. I remember a coppery Aziza duo and a Maybelline Dial A Lash mascara that I treasured.

Kitty Avatar

It was a Clinique foundation that was given free with a bottle of its Dramatically Different lotion. What was funny (or sad) is that I liked it enough to get the full-size bottle, but just assumed the color I got with the sample was the right color for me. This was in the days when there were intimidating saleswomen working behind the counter of all makeup counters with some controls of testers. I never even thought about the color probably being wrong for me until one time I saw my SIL using the very same color, and she was paler than I. Eventually I moved on to another foundation (the Prescriptives one that was customized).

Ana Maria Avatar

It was either one of those half concealer half green pimple corrector (can’t remember if Oriflame or Avon) either an eyeshadow palette from some Chinese or Turkish off-brand (something I would find at local boutiques). I would never put those kinds of things on my face nowadays. ?

james Avatar

My first product was a Clinique powder my mom received as a gift with purchase or something. I was a very small child, she assumed I just liked the green compact or the sound it made when it clasped shut. I kept that powder for years, making absolute sure it didn’t break. The first product I purchased for myself was L’Oréal tru match foundation in the wrong color because in the early 2000s Walmart’s tester situation was nonexistent. I also remember my first purchase from MAC, I had a tiny arsenal of drugstore products, but I saved for an entire summer and I earned enough for eyeshadow in Jewel Blue, eye kohl in Phone Number, and a pressed powder. I’ve kept the jewel blue eyeshadow, probably long since expired, just for memories. Phone number eye kohl is still one of my favorite eyeliners 15 years later.

Eileen Avatar

My first makeup product was Maybelline mascara. It was a solid black cake mascara that came in a small (about 1″ x 2″) red plastic container. It had a small brush that had to be moistened with water and scrubbed across the cake in order to pick up the pigment. How do I feel about it now? That was over 65 years ago! Thankfully, mascara nowadays is nothing like it was back in the fifties 🙂 BTW, that cake mascara was invented more than 100 years ago.

Nancy T Avatar

Even though no one called it a makeup “haul” back in 1972, it actually was! My Mom brought me to our downtown Pharmacy where I was allowed to pick out my 13th birthday gift of makeup. As I recall, it consisted of two Yardley cream eyeshadow sticks in mint green and lilac, Max Factor turquoise matte eyeshadow, a Revlon eyeshadow duo in frosty blue and pale peach, powder foundation, a peachy pink blush and a lipstick, mascara and black eyeliner.

Pearl Avatar

Probably mascara or some bonne bell flavored chapstick or roller ball gloss in my teens.

My first considered purchase in my 20s was from Ultima II at JC Penney’s and I bought this whole set of browns, creams and taupes for eyes and lips. I didn’t wear blush,concealer or foundation so it was all eyeshadows and these really silicone-heavy, drying slender lipsticks. It was the 1st time I had ever bought fancy makeup and I was very excited. I pretty much bathed in that make up for 6 months. When I went back to repurchase 6 months later, they were not there anymore. I think Revlon absorbed them. I found MAC shortly afterwards and felt like I hit makeup Nirvana.

Rachel R. Avatar

I think it was a Maybelline Kissing Potion when I was in the third grade (’78-’79). Strawberry scented, and clear. It fell and broke at school and I was heartbroken. My parents wouldn’t buy me another one.

I’m not into clear glosses, so I wouldn’t be into them now, other than for nostalgia. It’s a moot point since they stopped making them a long time ago.

Stephanie Avatar

My first purchase was an Azizza reddish eyeshadow (circa 1978) And with it a Bonne Belle cheek stick that changed colours to match your skin, apparently. It turned orange on me to go with the wine eyeshadow. I am sure I got a mascara and lipstick too. I picked the items and my mom paid. I am pretty sure she didn’t approved of my choices. I saw an Azizza shadow in a dollar store a couple of years ago and almost bought it for old times sake.

Gilad Avatar

Late 60’s early 70’s – Bonnie Bell gel blush in a tube. It was bright but sheer with a wonderfully natural effect. I’d buy it again in a heartbeat – I now think of it as a very elegant formula. Also colored mascaras in green, purple, navy and cobalt. Less elegant, but lots of fun. Might repeat the navy or a deeper green now.

Erica Avatar

Well technically it was a set of Tinkerbell rollerball lipglosses my older sister bought me for Christmas. They tasted like grape, cherry & strawberry

But as for what I bought myself it was Cover Girl Eyeshadow duo that was absolutely perfection and I used every last bit of to create the perfect brown 90s eyelook. The closest I’ve come to it is MAC Cork and Brule but it doesn’t live up to the shades in my mind’s eye ?

Debbie Avatar

I remember it was a palette of creme eye shadows from an off brand that I bought at my local drugstore for a whole dollar. I begged my mother to let me have a dollar to buy it. Was she furious. I did love it at the time and I do think of it fondly to this day since it was the one that started it all.

Maria I. Limardo PhD Avatar

I bought a wet & wild lipstick 527B a Fuschia with blue pearl undertone, it was the 80’s and the color was all the rage. It cost me 99c and I used so much, even for my cheeks, so every time I had a dollar I would buy another one. I recently bought one again just for the nostalgia.

Genevieve Avatar

One of my first makeup products that I can remember was a Rimmel pastel frosty quad, which I absolutely adored at the time. The shades were frosty blue, purple, pink and green. I thought I was so fabulous wearing it. I would use all the shades at one go too. I can recall my father looking at me in total amazement…I was twelve or thirteen at the time.

Lisa Avatar

Back in the 70’s my very first product was an all blue eyeshadow quad from Maybelline. Not much bigger in size than the new $3 ELF palettes. I loved that quad so much, but I’m sure that back then it was fairly good. Probably not so much now. Not soon after, I picked up a huge loose powder from Merle Norman which I still have. Not sure why I hung on to it, but it’s kinda cool to see the old packaging!

heavymetaljess Avatar

jane Eye Zing in Blue Jeans. It looked very similar to Urban Decay’s Heroine eyeshadow from one of the Vice palettes.

My parents wouldn’t let me buy black eyeshadow so I got around the rule by buying really REALLY dark navy blue. It wasn’t super pigmented, but was matte so easy to build up to really dark. I wore it quite a lot but never hit pan.

I actually still have it. I think I’ll always keep it around as a reminder of where my journey started. I don’t use it, though.

ShariP Avatar

Mine was a kit by Maybelline that my grandma bought for me. I was almost 10. My dad was furious with his mother and forbid me from wearing it outside the house. It was a legitimate kit. It had four matte eyeshadows, mauve, light blue, brown, and green, an eyebrow pencil and a mascara.

Nikki Avatar

I had to buy makeup to match my dance recital costumes every year starting in 1st grade, so I don’t remember what my very first makeup product was, but my first mascaras were CoverGirl LashBlast Luxe in Black Cabernet and Black Royale. It was 10-15 years ago, and long before she created her own brand, Rihanna was modeling them.

Nikki Avatar

Drew Barrymore also modeled LashBlast Luxe-it looks like a lot of CoverGirl models end up creating their own makeup lines! Those two mascaras got me into colored mascara, to the point where I’d never feel comfortable wearing black.

Laura Pekofsky Avatar

I remember going to Mac with my mother to buy my first lipstick. I don’t remember the name, but it was a dark gothic like purple. My mother chose it. The first thing I ever chose was vellum eyeshadow, an iridescent purple. It was during the cyber punk phase in the 90s.

Missy Avatar

What a fun question. My aunt used to give me her old makeup when I was a kid so I won’t count that. And of course my collection of Bonne Bell rollerball lip glosses 😉 I miss those! My first real makeup purchase was those little wooden black Cover Girl eye pencils that came in a 2-pack. I had to hide them from my mom of course. They were so hard, you had to wet them to get them to line (of course we would wet them with saliva, ugh!!) we used those to tightline our lower lash line. I checked and they still make a version of them, now they’re called ‘Professional Brow and Eye Maker’ (what a joke) I would use a little Vaseline on my lashes to enhance them, then I graduated to using real mascara (Maybelline Great Lash haha). My senior yearbook picture from 1990 shows me with black eyeliner all around the eye, black mascara, eyebrows filled in, powder (I didn’t use foundation) some light pink blush and a horrific light pink frosted lipstick.

Yen.Lin Avatar

Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer Kit was my first high-end makeup purchase, back in 2012. I was looking for a good undereye concealer and browsing tons of beauty blogs to find the right one. It was through that search that I ended up discovering Temptalia, too (I believe Christine gave the concealer a good review, which is what influenced me to get it!).
I might revisit this product in the future! I’m mostly using liquid concealers with a doe foot applicator right now.

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