March 29, 2024 • 33 mins
For a certain generation of girls, the trading of lip gloss was akin to sharing secrets — there was hierarchy, and subtlety, and hidden messages all in one. In this mini episode, Jess reminisces about middle school makeup rituals and what they can tell us about female friendship, while Susie wonders how it’s possible to be so nonchalant about the spreading of germs (lol!).
FOR MORE:
- Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton and… Lip Gloss? (by Jessica Bennett, NYT)
- Makeup As Meditation, Skincare As 'Girl Therapy' (by Jessica Defino, Substack)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
And I think in some ways the sharing of lip
glass is akin to girls sharing secrets, like there's something
sweet about it, even though you, Susie, may think that
is also repulsive.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Bannakam.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And this is in retrospect, where each week we revisit
a cultural moment that shaped.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Most of the time we're digging deep into moments or
artifacts from the past, but today I thought we could
talk about something that applies to.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Both past and present.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
That is the extremely journalistic and.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Very hard hitting subject of lip glass.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So, Susie, I recently found myself in the bathroom of
a high school girlfriend in Seattle, and I was instinctively
rummaging through her medicine cabinet.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But you instinctively rude.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm going to just make a note of that for
when you're I needed lip gloss.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You were just gonna take her lip gloss and use it.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yes, Oh my god, I have a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So I just went, you know, it's like we've been
sharing lip glass since we were teenagers. So I was like,
you know, she may be like a mother of three
now and an adult person and a.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Very successful lawyer. But like, she's got to have some
lift glass.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
In her medicine cabinet, and so I went in there
searching for it, and then there was a moment when
I did stop.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
She say, wait, is this is this weird?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I have like a touch of the OCD, as you're aware,
which means that I'm a little germophobic. So I don't
share lip gloss because I don't want to have something
like on my lips that someone else.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Has had on their lips.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Did you, let's just be honest for a second, were
you looking for anything else in the medicine cabinet, because
there are people who are just like snoops who look
in the medicine cabinet.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Just I mean, she's one of my best friends, Like
I know it's in her medicine. I think it was
like I felt comfortable enough yeah, because she's one of
my best friends to be like, yeah, obviously I'm gonna
yeah or like.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Like take a tilet all if you need it or
whatever that exactly. Then I think it's kosher.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
But it got me thinking about well, lip gloss and
also about friendship because to me in that bathroom, needing
some glass from my lips, and also knowing this is
one of my best friends since childhood. Those two things
were kind of intrinsically linked.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
I think makeup for me in general, is something that
really makes me think of female friendship. Like I just
remember in college getting ready together, or like I did
my sister's makeup for her wedding, So it's like this
very like intimate moment.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
When you put makeup on someone else's face.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
So I think lip gloss is like a representation of
that kind of larger phenomenon, which is that makeup is
a thing girls do with each other from a very
young age, Like it's sleepovers. Even before you're wearing makeup
in public, you're playing with makeup.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I just have been thinking about this a lot begare
because we all have these kind of funny rituals, a
lot of them that probably happen in our youth, that
establish closeness, They show intimacy, They are like bonding exercises.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And I think for me anyway.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Sharing lift gloss like I did with that friend whose
bathroom I found myself in, was one of these rituals
to establish closeness. It was a bonding exercise of our era.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yeah, and I think also one thing that needs to
be said is that lift gloss was a cultural artifact
of the eighties and nineties. As you said when we
started this show, it's like I have a very vivid
recollection of those lang Comb juicy tubes, you.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Know in the smell, and those are for the fancy.
I had one of those, So I guess I was.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Ay, that's actually interesting. You should raise that because I
was gonna take us through a little bit of the
hierarchy of chapstick and less, and then because it's almost
like you could organize the chirety of middle and high
school girls based on their chapstick.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
It's actually sort of similar to how you could kind
of put smokers in categories.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I don't know if you ever smoked cigarettes, but I did.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
And like, if you were an American spirit girl, that
meant something different than if you were a Marble lights girl.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
What did your lip glass say?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, so what did your loop glass say about you?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
So let me just talk through some tears here.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
First.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
There's like the kind so lipsmackers. Yeah, lipsmackers are still popular.
They were invented in the nineteen seventies, but they were
super popular in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
You could get like.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
The small ones that you put in your pocket, or
you could get these really big ones that were often
attached around a string round.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I remember those.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, Lipsmackers were almost like a gateway drug. Under rib gloss,
you could get flavors, and they had amazing flavors. Coca Cola,
Doctor pepper was my favorite cherry.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And they would give a little tint to your lip, yes,
but it wasn't full fledged makeup.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
So I think part of this is kind of around
what your parents' rules were, right, Like I was allowed
to buy Lipsmackers or like chapstick and stuff at the
drug store before I was allowed to wear makeup, right.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
And that was the big difference between Lipsmacker goals who
got their makeup at the drug store and Juicy Tube
gals who had to go to the departments. Yeah, which
is why I was like, oh, so you were fancy,
because I remember saving up for Juicy Tube and going
to the mall in the North Stoum or whatever and
having to go to that counter. And I can still
(05:36):
taste the smell of that water melon juicy tube.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I mean they actually did smell and taste amazing.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Oh, I mean I remember them as smelling and tasting
amazing too. I wonder if I would feel that way now,
just because I think we met.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I feel like I found an old one recently, because
that was the other thing too, Like lip glass doesn't
go bad, I don't think.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Well, so this is an interesting thing about makeup in general.
It does actually technically go back. There's us to throw
away makeup so much more often than I do. So
as someone who's just mentioned that I have German issues,
it's probably not a great sign that I probably do
have some lip glasses that I've had for too long.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I mean I've found some in my parents' house from
actual middle school. There was a soft Lips that is
still in my parents recently. Those ones camp They were
like the Caprice cigarette. They were really, really and cheek.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Say goodbye to waxy, greasy lips, introducing soft lips.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
But okay, wait, I want to finish taking it through
the other higher hierarchies. So I was on acutane, which
was that acting medication that so many people are. It's
like part of the reason I have all sorts of
stomach issues.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It turned out to be very bad but beautiful skid,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
It made your face and your lips really dry, so
Lipsmackers was not cutting it.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So I also had to have CarMax.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Oh, I was just going to ask if you ever
used carbax, And so carmacs came in the tub.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, it was like a little tub with a yellow and.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Your finger in it and so like sharing that probably
equally gross, honestly, but a friend wasn't touching it to
their lips.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I still was okay with.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
That, but so okay, so they were like Carmacks people
who had actually chapped, Like but.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Do you remember also that then people started to tell
us that, like Carmacks actually was addicted to it, like
there was something in it that your lips to sue
or was that just honestly, I can't imagine, but it
was like literally like it was making your lips more trapped,
so you were like addicted to it. And then there
was blistecks, which was like a similar kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, so that was always the warning. But then if
you wanted to have some tint to your lips, you
always had a Lipsmacker with you, and then later Lipsmacker
also created these rollie ball ones where it had like
one of those little balls in the end, and those
are a littletier glossy, yeah glossier, And so then there
were the actual variations of lip gloss which were stickier,
(07:55):
more glossy, shinier. When I was in high school, the
Philosophy brand vanilla birthday cake one.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Was what we all used.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
It came and that like it was like a sparkly
yellowish tint and it smelled like actual birthday cake, which
is so nauseating to even think about.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Like I remember, Glass makes a birthday cake flavor now
of their lip gloss.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And the thing with that one that I distinctly remember
is it was so sticky, which for my really chapped
acuitane lips was actually good, Like you wanted to stick
on your lips all day, maybe sometimes more effective actually
than gas. But I would drive to school and I
would get out of the car and then I would
be walking to the front door, and it would be windy,
and all of the grime in the air would and
(08:39):
the hair would stick to your lips, and so you
would walk in to class and you would see your
friend and you'd be like trying to get the grime
out of your lips because you'd have this like disgustingly
sticky lip gloss.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
So I never.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Used that in particular, but I used mac lip glass.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Do you remember that? That was like another sort of
like in the Juicy Tubes.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
It wasn't as popular as Juicy tubes, but in New
York at least, it was like very popular for a time, okay,
And that stuff was like literally like putting glue on
your lips and then you would just have like hair
stuck to your lips all day, but it gave you
a really high sheet well.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And then later on this was before the age of Sephora,
So then later on Sephora came around and you could
get do you remember lip venom, which was it? And
so it was like putting cinnamon straight on your lips
and it was supposed to plump your lips, like pre
the age of filler.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
So lip plumpers apparently are like having a comeback. Like
lip pumpers were very popular when I was I think
in my early twenties, and I actually kind of love
that feeling, like it makes your lips feel like stung
almost and.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Some people really hate that. I love that feeling.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So I bought a limp pumper again recently and I've
been using it and I just was reminded by how
much I enjoy that tangle.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Okay, interesting, Okay, so that's the taxonomy of types.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, I'm probably forgetting sun.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Well, you didn't mention one of my favorites, which was
when chapsticks started adding flavors and colors. So for a
long time, trapstick was just like one plane chapstick. But
I think partially because of the rise of lipsmackers and
all those things, although I mean, I'm not one hundred
percent shore, so.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Maybe someone should fact check us. But they started to add.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Colors and like flavors to trapstick, which is like where
we get the Katie Perry song I kissed a girl
and I like.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
It, and she mentioned the cherry of her cherry chapstick,
which we can all I think remember the scent, yeah,
or the flavor.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Then there was this taxonomy of who your friends were
based on your Trapstick habits with them, your Chared chapstick habits,
and I almost feel like there were friendship tears based
on lip glass habits. Oh, okay, your best friends. This
is my high school girlfriend like best friends.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
These were the people you'd share your lift class with tube.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
To mouth finger in like however you wanted to do it.
You are sharing your live class with them. They were
your real friends. You knew their signature scent.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
That's so funny, they knew yours.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Maybe you would swap sometimes, but this was a known thing.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It was like being in the inner circle.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So we didn't have this.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
This is so interesting to hear like someone else's kind
of like middle school and.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
High school rituals. Because I don't have this.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I mean, I'm, as you know, obsessed with makeup, Like
I have way more than I need and actually interestingly
than I wear. Like I don't think if you just
hung out with me, you would automatically be like, this
is someone who loves makeup. Yeah, but I don't have
a lot of memories around this kind of sharing, Like
I definitely have memories around makeup in general. But it's
interesting that for you there was like this real like
(11:55):
relationship with lip gloss that indicated also your relationship to.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Your friendssolutely and and so then there were you know,
the cool, popular girls who didn't share lip glass with
but you kind of wished that.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
You did, and they all had the fancy stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And they probably all had the fancy stuff, or you know,
just so many like people would come to school with
baggies full of every flavor of Flipsmacker or whatever it
might be, or the ones that you put her on
your neck where you'd have multiple flavors. And then there
was always, I think in every friend group, like the
one friend that probably was sort of on the outside,
(12:30):
and she always wanted to share the lip gloss kind
of annoyingly, and you didn't really want to share with her,
and then you would do it reluctantly and then like
talk shit about her, Sorry for this poor girl, I know,
and you'd like, you know, dramatically wipe the or the
top off.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I was probably the one dramatically like wiping in well
for everyone.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yes, for everyone.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And I mean the other thing too, is this was
the era of like cold sores, so you are also
pretty conscious I think of like what people's mouths were
looking like when they asked to use your lip glass.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
So I have a point of clarification something I need
to ask, which is was there an era of cold soores, Like,
are we out of the cold store?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Ara, Like, I think people still get cold soores?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Right, Well, but in middle school, wasn't everyone like kissing
for the first time, And like, I don't know, I.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
See what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
I think it was the first time you became aware
of cold stores as a thing, because you are.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Do you know anyone like that's like full blown, Like
I feel like a lot of people in middle in
high school, they would come to school and maybe this
is also a relic of a time I need'd be like, hmm, some.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
And so has got one on their lip.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Well, I think it's because we've aged out of like
making out with a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Maybe, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
It's like, Okay, I'm definitely not making out with like
as many people as I might have at certain point.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
There's you're doing others stuff like yeah, you're middle school's age,
when you were just spending a lot of time kissing.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I mean there was a lot I.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Would say for the record that I was not spending
a lot of time kissing in middle school.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I did a little kissing. Even you might have been
more popular with the boys.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, but even in high school, I mean if it
was before you were having sex, there just would be
more kissing at all, because what you know, right, yes,
it doesn't mean like prolonged time with mouth to mouth contact.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Wow. Okay, that's an image.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
That's an image anyway.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
So I so that was another thing that you were
conscious of.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
In terms of sharing lip glass.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
There was always a friend and maybe this was sometimes me,
where like they would fish out their glass and there
would be like crumbs stuck around, you know, and you
kind of knew, you learned who those people were. I mean,
for what's I don't think we were conscious of all
this at the time, but now thinking back to it,
I'm like, yeah, you totally knew who the person with
the clift gross with the crumbs in it was. You
(14:43):
didn't ask to use theirs and all of it. Just
there was like a girl code too.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I mean that's what I'm thinking about a lot while
you're talking, Like, what's interesting to me about this is
this idea that there is sort of just like these
unspoken rituals and language among girls, and I think they're
all very identifiable. Like, even though I did not have
this particular relationship to lip gloss, you had when you
explain the hierarchy, or you talk about that friend, I
(15:10):
automatically can picture exactly who you mean, right. And there's
lots of little ways in which girls have indicators for
each other, Like you know, part of what you're doing
in middle school is figuring out who you are and
how you fit in and how everyone else fits in.
So there are these little ways in which you categorize people,
like you're like, that's that kind of girl, and I'm
(15:31):
this kind of girl, and what does that mean? So
it's just interesting, like I'm trying to think of other
things that would fall into this category.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, I mean, I do think makeup is really intimate
and this is sort of the era before because you're
not wearing full fledged makeup in middle school.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
No, I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. And I think
that's another reason why lip gloss was so appealing to me,
because I was still allowed to buy it, but I
wasn't allowed to wear makeup. So I would go to
school and I would go to the bathroom and like
put on my lip gloss.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
And I think I had like a little bit of
other contraband I was using, like makeup contraband.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Maybe mascare I can't even remember, but I remember we
would all be lined out in the mirror in the
bathroom at Stanley Middle School in Lafia, California, and there'd
just be like a row of us and we'd be
like teasing our hair because I don't you might not
have had this, but I was the era where you
just spiked your bangs, like you just like put hairspray
just in it's like one patch of hair.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I don't know why we thought this.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Was an attractive vite. Also, that was air where you
would do just one earring, like the one like cubic
is their conia earring.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
That was like a very cool thing to do.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
I remember they did like a whole episode of Family
Ties about how one of the daughters did that really
because she was like trying to be cool, so she
was like, I have one earring on.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
So there were these things that you know, made you
part of the inn group.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, all the women and even today.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So you'll go to an event, You'll be in the bathroom,
there's another woman next to you applying lipstick, and there's
a bit of a shared extra.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
There's a moment.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, that's kind of bondish. And the other thing is
I think because this makes me think of something, which
is because this was pre lipstick. Like lipstick, you need
a mirror to apply to your face. For the most part,
there is a very specific in between type of lipstick
clip glass, which is Clinique black Honey.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Oh I love black honey, which I.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Believe you do not need a mirror to put it,
like a very hair hint.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
This was wildly popular in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Now it's popular on TikTok again because everything is back.
But with all of these things, you could kind of
stand in a group and apply them together, like there
was a communalness to it because you didn't need to
individually go look in a mirror. You could just sit
there and apply your lip glass while you were talking
about like last night's episode of Dawson's Creek or whatever.
(17:53):
And you could do it in any place, so you
could do it like in the back of the school
bus on your way to school. You could do it
during first period. You could do it during lune, like
on the soccer field. I remember taking breaks to go
apply chapstick.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Well, I think also wearing lipstick indicated again it was
sort of like a marker of being a different.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Kind of girl.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Like I never really wore lipstick in the traditional sense
until probably after high school, probably, And I think like
a girl who was wearing like a bright red lip
in middle school was telling you something about like was
either really fashionable or was making some kind of statement,
like lipstick felt like a strong choice, whereas.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I don't think anyone was wearing lipstick in my I
can't remember any I mean, also, it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
As popular then like dark.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Well, I guess we were a little bit different eras
like goth eish.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yeah, I guess if you were into goth.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yes, But nobody was doing a red lip back then.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Yeah, like the Taylor Smith red lip that didn't yet
I don't think so, I just call her Taylor Smith.
I think I just wanted to be clear that, I mean,
Taylor's the wift God.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
What is happening to my bread?
Speaker 5 (19:10):
So?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
In going down this rabbit hole of all these different
intricacies and minutia and nuanced to lift Glass, I looked
up some pop culture references because.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Almost I love a pop culture reference, and you know, so.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Many of the films and shows from this era reference
Lift Glass in some way. It's usually not a focal
point of the plot, but like there's always a live
glass moment.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, so Penn fifteen. I don't know if you I watched.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Ale episodes, but I'm not like a diehard. It's so
many of my friends.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
It's such a good show.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And if people haven't watched, the creators play themselves as teenagers,
so they're like women in their thirties playing teenagers.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
How do I look at you look so good? Yes?
You do, like so good.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
It's just like And there's an amazing scene in one
of the stars of the episodes where it's kind of
panning to the different groups at school on the first
day of school, and it's middle school and there's like
the group who's all applying their lip gloss and and
lip smack of perslowly.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
My god, honey, I was totally best friends with Heather
now your god.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
It's true, and that very much was like the vibe
in my middle school. Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing?
Do you remember that movie?
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Did you?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I mean, I vaguely remember that movie. I think I
did see it when it came out, but I haven't
seen it since.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Well, so it's kind of this rom com and she
and Christina Applegate are close friends, and there's this scene
where they're driving in the car and Christina Applegate's character
has dropped her lip gloss onto the floor and Cameron
Diaz is going to pick it up and she's sort
of like bobbing as she's doing so, and there's like
some gross guy on a Harley driving by who just
(20:54):
sees her head bobbing up and down and like gives
them a thumbs up, like you.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
But you know, kind of funny, kay, I found it.
Jesus almost got smothered down there. There's also a scene
in Me and Girls.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I don't know if you'll remember this, but this is
after they've performed at the school commer or whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, they do the like Christmas dance, the Chrystmas.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Dance and Regina George, her boyfriend's trying to kiss her
and she stops him and she's like lip.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Glass the gus that ever lip class, which fair.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
So yeah, it's like, do not mess this up, do
not smear it all over my face. This stuff is sticky,
it will get everywhere. So that was really funny. And
then a more recent show, Euphoria, there is a scene
when Maddie is putting lip glass on Lexi, and it
felt very kind of share and tie to me in
(21:51):
that there it's this intimate moment they're doing each other's makeup.
She's telling her that ninety percent of life is confidence.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
They see, yeah, of life confidence. The thing about confidence
is no one knows if it's real or not.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know, maybe that's true. And some of that also
is connected to the flip glass.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Well, there's also two things in Breakfast Club that I
remember having to do with lipgloss. One is the scene
where the Ali Sety character is having like the makeover,
and so Molly Ringwald is like doing her makeup, and
I think the last thing is she's like, you know,
she does her lipstick or her masscara. But also I
don't know if you remember this, but there's this thing
where they're talking about like what special skills they have,
(22:29):
and Molly Ringold puts her like twos into her boobs
and then she can like put it on like with
a hands freeze.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yes, can't fully actually doing this, and they really give
her a hard time about it. My image of you
is totally blown.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
It's kind of this thing where she's considered this princess character,
and the way in which they're indicating that is her
relationship to makeup and lipstick and lip gloss, which I
think sort of gets again to this idea that we
kind of categorize girls as like the things they're into,
so like, if you're in to make up, it means something,
which is sort of interesting because I feel like I
was kind of a nerdy, bookish girl, like I collected stamps.
(23:10):
I was like, I was not some like princess, but
I just loved makeup. And I think there's this like
kind of interesting way in which we'd put girls into categories,
but they don't really hold right, Like we can be
all sorts of things. But in that era, you know,
you were making a statement if you were into a
certain thing versus another.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Well, I mean I think that was true of almost
which kind of chance we're backpack you were wearing.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I definitely did not have a chance we're back at
I mean.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
It's worth mentioning here that I went to boarding school
in New England, so a lot of things that were
traditional rights of passage or kids in America just don't
really apply.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
To boarding school. So I think some of these things.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
No, I went from ninth grade to you know, like
I did it for all of high school. But like,
for example, we didn't have prom, we didn't have cheerleaders,
and also we didn't have I have a lot of
the things that would make girls popular in other schools.
Like the thing that was really revered was this like
very specific New England look, very natural, blonde girl next.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Door plays field hockey.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
That's not I think what like the popular girl archetype
is based on all the high school movies I've seen,
So we just had less slightly different, Like I wore
less makeup I think in high school than I probably
wore in middle school, which I think is very uncommon.
So that's especially why some of this stuff doesn't resonate
for me in the same way.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I mean, really, what this is about to me at
the core is something you mentioned at the top, which
is makeup is intimate and girls And this is true
of research, this has been documented. But girls find interesting
ways to bond when they're growing up, Like telling secrets
is a really important way that girls bond when they're
(24:48):
in elementary and middle school, and.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
For boys it's really different.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
They're often playing there's like more action associated less talking,
but telling someone a secret indicates that you are close. Yeah,
and I think in some ways the sharing of lip
glass is akin to girls sharing secrets, Like there's something
sweet about it, even though you, Susie, may think that
it is also repulsive.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Well, I don't know that I was as insane as
I am now about the germ thing back then, because
I also like, don't share drinks, which I think people
find odd. But I will say that I also think
a big part of this language was sleepovers.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Did you do a lot of sleepovers?
Speaker 4 (25:27):
I had this best friend in middle school who I've
stayed friends with and who was just like a really
important part of my.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Life, and she would sleep over.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
We would sleep over to each other's houses, like almost
every night of the week.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
We just switched from house.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
To house, even on weeknights.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah, because we didn't have a lot of rules either
of us. Our parents were pretty lax, so we would
literally spend weeks at a time together.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Oh wow, And that was also part of this.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Way in which you indicated that someone was your best friend, Right,
It's like how much time you spent with them Because
we didn't have social media, so you know, like that
amount of time spent with someone was just like time
with them, you weren't like doing a million other things
right together.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So there's this linguist that I love. And I was
looking back at a couple of her books because I
thought they might apply to this. Her name is Deborah Tannan,
and she's written a number of books about the sexes
and linguistic differences. And she also wrote a book called
The Power of Talk. She's a professor, and she also
wrote a book specifically about the language of women's friendships
called You're the Only One I Can Tell. And so
(26:23):
I was paging through trying to get some context for Lipglass,
and I was emailing with her as well. And so
the way she describes how girls communicate and bond is that,
like we said, they tend to share secrets. They often
play with a single best friend or in small groups,
and they really spend a lot of time talking, like
they use language to negotiate how close they are. And
(26:46):
as she puts it in the book, the girl you
tell your secrets to can become your best friend. So
I almost see lip gloss as analogous in some way
to sharing secrets like you do it in an into
at space. Often it's in a bedroom or in a bathroom.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
It I think has the power.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
To you know, I'm maybe taking this a little bit
too seriously, but like also with the grain of salt,
like it can be intimacy, it can reinforce closeness that
I think is central to the lives of girls.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
You know. It's making me think also of the other
thing you share that sort of in this category is clothes, right,
Like I remember in college getting ready with my friends
and sharing skirts and tops, and that was another way
in which you indicated like this was a close friend.
That was like the line, right if some random girl
in your dorm came in and was like, what I
borrow this, you'd be like, no.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Though there always was someone who wanted to buy out
that was not a cur that's brand too.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Yeah, or like your jewelry like we would your jewelry.
So they are all these things that you indicate closeness
by sharing with another person.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
And the one other thing I.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Thought of when you were saying that is that we
talked on the phone a lot, which isn't a thing now,
but like when we were growing up, you know, one
way in which you were like this is a close
friend is they called you on the literal phone, like
your house phone, and then you would just like stay
up for hours. I don't know what we talked about
for so long.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Well, sometimes you weren't even taught, Like there would just
be long silences where you'd be, like, I just remember doing.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Other things, like you would be like lying.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
On the floor on the carpet of your bedroom with
your phone to your heat, just sort of living on
the phone with another.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Yeah, like sometimes you play songs for each other, or
you'd watch TV together. And I was wondering, you know,
you did this thing for the Times about being thirteen,
and I'm curious because they don't obviously talk on the phone.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I'm sure they would think that was crazy.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Yeah, so what are the ways in which they are sharing?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Like are they also sharing lip gloss? Still? Is that
still a thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Actually, that's funny. So the piece it was this big
interactive project it's called Being thirteen, and I followed three
thirteen year old girls throughout the course of their eighth
grade year to try to understand what life is like
to be thirteen with a cell phone at a time
when girls self esteem tends to really be under threat,
(29:04):
and so I wanted to see the intersection of that.
So there were many findings, but they absolutely share lip glass.
It's actually funny. When we were thinking about this, I
texted one of them to be.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Like, do you guys still share it? And she was like, oh,
of course yes.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And in fact, I went back to some of the
girls kept diaries for me, and they also shared voice
memos about their days.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
So I went back to some.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Of my notes and there was a whole passage about
she and her best friend sharing their lip glasses. I
think they were more like chapsticks or lip smackers, and
they each had a signature sent one was cocoa, one
was lavender, and they knew that about each other. And
so yeah, I think it absolutely slapens. I mean there's,
(29:47):
of course, the ways that people bond are different. Now, yeah,
they're not talking on the phone, But I do think
these little moments of closeness can be a central ritual
of growing up female.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
That's really kind of heartworming in a way that it
sort of transcends time that girls today still have some
of the same rituals we did. That's really what I
loved about that piece is that I expected to feel
like their lives were so different from mine in middle school,
but I could relate to each of them so much,
like so many of the issues are the same, sometimes
the way in which they play out are different because
(30:21):
they're happening online. But you know, being a middle school
girl is so evocative of a very specific feeling, and
we all know what that feeling is.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
The minute you say.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
That, I know it's I mean, I can channel my
thirteen year old's self pretty clearly, and I don't remember anything,
like my memory is terrible, but that year, like seventh
eighth grade of middle school, I remember so vividly, I
think because your feelings are just so intense.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
And that's not you know, that's estrogen.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
That's why moons Like that is a fundamental fact of
being that.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Age as a girl.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
But yeah, for these girls, it was fascinating to see
them go through many of those same things, like trying
to figure out who you are, trying on different identities,
figuring out your place in the social hierarchy, whether that
is related to lip glass or not. Yeah, puberty, boys, girls, friendships,
all of it against the backdrop of having this phone
(31:16):
that makes everything feel like you have an audience at
all times.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Well, I'm glad to hear that there are still some
physical things that connect girls, and I feel like we
can leave it there and hopefully everyone who's listening can
think back to their favorite lip gloss and scent and
this will have taken them down like sort of a
nice memory hole. Although you know, middle school is rough,
so if it's bringing up sad things for you, go
(31:40):
find a new lip gloss to change.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Your life with.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Susie. We have a really great episode next week, a
two parter. Can you tell us about it?
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Yes, we are talking about a college women's basketball team
that was dragged into a national political debate about racism.
After shockjock Don Ims called them an offensive slur and
we have two really great guests, Essence Carson, who is
a WNBA superstar, and Jamel Hill, who is an acclaimed
(32:12):
sports journalist.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
I just really felt for those young people because they
had achieved something really, really spectacular, and it just felt
like the moment was stolen from them.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
about and want us to explore in a future episode?
Email us at Inretropod at gmail dot com or find
us on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books
Feminist Fight Club and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
In Retrospect is.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
A production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media. Lauren Hanson
is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our engineer and
sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Sharon Atia is
our researcher and associate producer.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
executive producer from iHeart are Anna Stem and Katrina Norbel.
Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda
Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We are
your hosts Susie Bannacarum.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
And Jessica Bennett. We are also executive producers for even more.
Check out inretropod dot com. See you next week.
And I think in some ways the sharing of lip
glass is akin to girls sharing secrets, like there's something
sweet about it, even though you, Susie, may think that
is also repulsive.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Bannakam.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And this is in retrospect, where each week we revisit
a cultural moment that shaped.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Most of the time we're digging deep into moments or
artifacts from the past, but today I thought we could
talk about something that applies to.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Both past and present.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
That is the extremely journalistic and.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Very hard hitting subject of lip glass.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So, Susie, I recently found myself in the bathroom of
a high school girlfriend in Seattle, and I was instinctively
rummaging through her medicine cabinet.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But you instinctively rude.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm going to just make a note of that for
when you're I needed lip gloss.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You were just gonna take her lip gloss and use it.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yes, Oh my god, I have a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So I just went, you know, it's like we've been
sharing lip glass since we were teenagers. So I was like,
you know, she may be like a mother of three
now and an adult person and a.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Very successful lawyer. But like, she's got to have some
lift glass.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
In her medicine cabinet, and so I went in there
searching for it, and then there was a moment when
I did stop.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
She say, wait, is this is this weird?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I have like a touch of the OCD, as you're aware,
which means that I'm a little germophobic. So I don't
share lip gloss because I don't want to have something
like on my lips that someone else.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Has had on their lips.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Did you, let's just be honest for a second, were
you looking for anything else in the medicine cabinet, because
there are people who are just like snoops who look
in the medicine cabinet.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Just I mean, she's one of my best friends, Like
I know it's in her medicine. I think it was
like I felt comfortable enough yeah, because she's one of
my best friends to be like, yeah, obviously I'm gonna
yeah or like.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Like take a tilet all if you need it or
whatever that exactly. Then I think it's kosher.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
But it got me thinking about well, lip gloss and
also about friendship because to me in that bathroom, needing
some glass from my lips, and also knowing this is
one of my best friends since childhood. Those two things
were kind of intrinsically linked.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
I think makeup for me in general, is something that
really makes me think of female friendship. Like I just
remember in college getting ready together, or like I did
my sister's makeup for her wedding, So it's like this
very like intimate moment.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
When you put makeup on someone else's face.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
So I think lip gloss is like a representation of
that kind of larger phenomenon, which is that makeup is
a thing girls do with each other from a very
young age, Like it's sleepovers. Even before you're wearing makeup
in public, you're playing with makeup.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I just have been thinking about this a lot begare
because we all have these kind of funny rituals, a
lot of them that probably happen in our youth, that
establish closeness, They show intimacy, They are like bonding exercises.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And I think for me anyway.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Sharing lift gloss like I did with that friend whose
bathroom I found myself in, was one of these rituals
to establish closeness. It was a bonding exercise of our era.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yeah, and I think also one thing that needs to
be said is that lift gloss was a cultural artifact
of the eighties and nineties. As you said when we
started this show, it's like I have a very vivid
recollection of those lang Comb juicy tubes, you.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Know in the smell, and those are for the fancy.
I had one of those, So I guess I was.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Ay, that's actually interesting. You should raise that because I
was gonna take us through a little bit of the
hierarchy of chapstick and less, and then because it's almost
like you could organize the chirety of middle and high
school girls based on their chapstick.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
It's actually sort of similar to how you could kind
of put smokers in categories.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I don't know if you ever smoked cigarettes, but I did.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
And like, if you were an American spirit girl, that
meant something different than if you were a Marble lights girl.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
What did your lip glass say?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, so what did your loop glass say about you?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
So let me just talk through some tears here.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
First.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
There's like the kind so lipsmackers. Yeah, lipsmackers are still popular.
They were invented in the nineteen seventies, but they were
super popular in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
You could get like.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
The small ones that you put in your pocket, or
you could get these really big ones that were often
attached around a string round.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I remember those.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, Lipsmackers were almost like a gateway drug. Under rib gloss,
you could get flavors, and they had amazing flavors. Coca Cola,
Doctor pepper was my favorite cherry.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And they would give a little tint to your lip, yes,
but it wasn't full fledged makeup.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
So I think part of this is kind of around
what your parents' rules were, right, Like I was allowed
to buy Lipsmackers or like chapstick and stuff at the
drug store before I was allowed to wear makeup, right.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
And that was the big difference between Lipsmacker goals who
got their makeup at the drug store and Juicy Tube
gals who had to go to the departments. Yeah, which
is why I was like, oh, so you were fancy,
because I remember saving up for Juicy Tube and going
to the mall in the North Stoum or whatever and
having to go to that counter. And I can still
(05:36):
taste the smell of that water melon juicy tube.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I mean they actually did smell and taste amazing.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Oh, I mean I remember them as smelling and tasting
amazing too. I wonder if I would feel that way now,
just because I think we met.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I feel like I found an old one recently, because
that was the other thing too, Like lip glass doesn't
go bad, I don't think.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Well, so this is an interesting thing about makeup in general.
It does actually technically go back. There's us to throw
away makeup so much more often than I do. So
as someone who's just mentioned that I have German issues,
it's probably not a great sign that I probably do
have some lip glasses that I've had for too long.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I mean I've found some in my parents' house from
actual middle school. There was a soft Lips that is
still in my parents recently. Those ones camp They were
like the Caprice cigarette. They were really, really and cheek.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Say goodbye to waxy, greasy lips, introducing soft lips.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
But okay, wait, I want to finish taking it through
the other higher hierarchies. So I was on acutane, which
was that acting medication that so many people are. It's
like part of the reason I have all sorts of
stomach issues.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It turned out to be very bad but beautiful skid,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
It made your face and your lips really dry, so
Lipsmackers was not cutting it.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So I also had to have CarMax.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Oh, I was just going to ask if you ever
used carbax, And so carmacs came in the tub.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, it was like a little tub with a yellow and.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Your finger in it and so like sharing that probably
equally gross, honestly, but a friend wasn't touching it to
their lips.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I still was okay with.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
That, but so okay, so they were like Carmacks people
who had actually chapped, Like but.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Do you remember also that then people started to tell
us that, like Carmacks actually was addicted to it, like
there was something in it that your lips to sue
or was that just honestly, I can't imagine, but it
was like literally like it was making your lips more trapped,
so you were like addicted to it. And then there
was blistecks, which was like a similar kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, so that was always the warning. But then if
you wanted to have some tint to your lips, you
always had a Lipsmacker with you, and then later Lipsmacker
also created these rollie ball ones where it had like
one of those little balls in the end, and those
are a littletier glossy, yeah glossier, And so then there
were the actual variations of lip gloss which were stickier,
(07:55):
more glossy, shinier. When I was in high school, the
Philosophy brand vanilla birthday cake one.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Was what we all used.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
It came and that like it was like a sparkly
yellowish tint and it smelled like actual birthday cake, which
is so nauseating to even think about.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Like I remember, Glass makes a birthday cake flavor now
of their lip gloss.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And the thing with that one that I distinctly remember
is it was so sticky, which for my really chapped
acuitane lips was actually good, Like you wanted to stick
on your lips all day, maybe sometimes more effective actually
than gas. But I would drive to school and I
would get out of the car and then I would
be walking to the front door, and it would be windy,
and all of the grime in the air would and
(08:39):
the hair would stick to your lips, and so you
would walk in to class and you would see your
friend and you'd be like trying to get the grime
out of your lips because you'd have this like disgustingly
sticky lip gloss.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
So I never.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Used that in particular, but I used mac lip glass.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Do you remember that? That was like another sort of
like in the Juicy Tubes.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
It wasn't as popular as Juicy tubes, but in New
York at least, it was like very popular for a time, okay,
And that stuff was like literally like putting glue on
your lips and then you would just have like hair
stuck to your lips all day, but it gave you
a really high sheet well.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And then later on this was before the age of Sephora,
So then later on Sephora came around and you could
get do you remember lip venom, which was it? And
so it was like putting cinnamon straight on your lips
and it was supposed to plump your lips, like pre
the age of filler.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
So lip plumpers apparently are like having a comeback. Like
lip pumpers were very popular when I was I think
in my early twenties, and I actually kind of love
that feeling, like it makes your lips feel like stung
almost and.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Some people really hate that. I love that feeling.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So I bought a limp pumper again recently and I've
been using it and I just was reminded by how
much I enjoy that tangle.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Okay, interesting, Okay, so that's the taxonomy of types.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, I'm probably forgetting sun.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Well, you didn't mention one of my favorites, which was
when chapsticks started adding flavors and colors. So for a
long time, trapstick was just like one plane chapstick. But
I think partially because of the rise of lipsmackers and
all those things, although I mean, I'm not one hundred
percent shore, so.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Maybe someone should fact check us. But they started to add.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Colors and like flavors to trapstick, which is like where
we get the Katie Perry song I kissed a girl
and I like.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
It, and she mentioned the cherry of her cherry chapstick,
which we can all I think remember the scent, yeah,
or the flavor.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Then there was this taxonomy of who your friends were
based on your Trapstick habits with them, your Chared chapstick habits,
and I almost feel like there were friendship tears based
on lip glass habits. Oh, okay, your best friends. This
is my high school girlfriend like best friends.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
These were the people you'd share your lift class with tube.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
To mouth finger in like however you wanted to do it.
You are sharing your live class with them. They were
your real friends. You knew their signature scent.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
That's so funny, they knew yours.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Maybe you would swap sometimes, but this was a known thing.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It was like being in the inner circle.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So we didn't have this.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
This is so interesting to hear like someone else's kind
of like middle school and.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
High school rituals. Because I don't have this.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I mean, I'm, as you know, obsessed with makeup, Like
I have way more than I need and actually interestingly
than I wear. Like I don't think if you just
hung out with me, you would automatically be like, this
is someone who loves makeup. Yeah, but I don't have
a lot of memories around this kind of sharing, Like
I definitely have memories around makeup in general. But it's
interesting that for you there was like this real like
(11:55):
relationship with lip gloss that indicated also your relationship to.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Your friendssolutely and and so then there were you know,
the cool, popular girls who didn't share lip glass with
but you kind of wished that.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
You did, and they all had the fancy stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And they probably all had the fancy stuff, or you know,
just so many like people would come to school with
baggies full of every flavor of Flipsmacker or whatever it
might be, or the ones that you put her on
your neck where you'd have multiple flavors. And then there
was always, I think in every friend group, like the
one friend that probably was sort of on the outside,
(12:30):
and she always wanted to share the lip gloss kind
of annoyingly, and you didn't really want to share with her,
and then you would do it reluctantly and then like
talk shit about her, Sorry for this poor girl, I know,
and you'd like, you know, dramatically wipe the or the
top off.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I was probably the one dramatically like wiping in well
for everyone.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yes, for everyone.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And I mean the other thing too, is this was
the era of like cold sores, so you are also
pretty conscious I think of like what people's mouths were
looking like when they asked to use your lip glass.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
So I have a point of clarification something I need
to ask, which is was there an era of cold soores, Like,
are we out of the cold store?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Ara, Like, I think people still get cold soores?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Right, Well, but in middle school, wasn't everyone like kissing
for the first time, And like, I don't know, I.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
See what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
I think it was the first time you became aware
of cold stores as a thing, because you are.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Do you know anyone like that's like full blown, Like
I feel like a lot of people in middle in
high school, they would come to school and maybe this
is also a relic of a time I need'd be like, hmm, some.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
And so has got one on their lip.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Well, I think it's because we've aged out of like
making out with a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Maybe, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
It's like, Okay, I'm definitely not making out with like
as many people as I might have at certain point.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
There's you're doing others stuff like yeah, you're middle school's age,
when you were just spending a lot of time kissing.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I mean there was a lot I.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Would say for the record that I was not spending
a lot of time kissing in middle school.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I did a little kissing. Even you might have been
more popular with the boys.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, but even in high school, I mean if it
was before you were having sex, there just would be
more kissing at all, because what you know, right, yes,
it doesn't mean like prolonged time with mouth to mouth contact.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Wow. Okay, that's an image.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
That's an image anyway.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
So I so that was another thing that you were
conscious of.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
In terms of sharing lip glass.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
There was always a friend and maybe this was sometimes me,
where like they would fish out their glass and there
would be like crumbs stuck around, you know, and you
kind of knew, you learned who those people were. I mean,
for what's I don't think we were conscious of all
this at the time, but now thinking back to it,
I'm like, yeah, you totally knew who the person with
the clift gross with the crumbs in it was. You
(14:43):
didn't ask to use theirs and all of it. Just
there was like a girl code too.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I mean that's what I'm thinking about a lot while
you're talking, Like, what's interesting to me about this is
this idea that there is sort of just like these
unspoken rituals and language among girls, and I think they're
all very identifiable. Like, even though I did not have
this particular relationship to lip gloss, you had when you
explain the hierarchy, or you talk about that friend, I
(15:10):
automatically can picture exactly who you mean, right. And there's
lots of little ways in which girls have indicators for
each other, Like you know, part of what you're doing
in middle school is figuring out who you are and
how you fit in and how everyone else fits in.
So there are these little ways in which you categorize people,
like you're like, that's that kind of girl, and I'm
(15:31):
this kind of girl, and what does that mean? So
it's just interesting, like I'm trying to think of other
things that would fall into this category.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, I mean, I do think makeup is really intimate
and this is sort of the era before because you're
not wearing full fledged makeup in middle school.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
No, I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. And I think
that's another reason why lip gloss was so appealing to me,
because I was still allowed to buy it, but I
wasn't allowed to wear makeup. So I would go to
school and I would go to the bathroom and like
put on my lip gloss.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
And I think I had like a little bit of
other contraband I was using, like makeup contraband.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Maybe mascare I can't even remember, but I remember we
would all be lined out in the mirror in the
bathroom at Stanley Middle School in Lafia, California, and there'd
just be like a row of us and we'd be
like teasing our hair because I don't you might not
have had this, but I was the era where you
just spiked your bangs, like you just like put hairspray
just in it's like one patch of hair.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I don't know why we thought this.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Was an attractive vite. Also, that was air where you
would do just one earring, like the one like cubic
is their conia earring.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
That was like a very cool thing to do.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
I remember they did like a whole episode of Family
Ties about how one of the daughters did that really
because she was like trying to be cool, so she
was like, I have one earring on.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
So there were these things that you know, made you
part of the inn group.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, all the women and even today.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So you'll go to an event, You'll be in the bathroom,
there's another woman next to you applying lipstick, and there's
a bit of a shared extra.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
There's a moment.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, that's kind of bondish. And the other thing is
I think because this makes me think of something, which
is because this was pre lipstick. Like lipstick, you need
a mirror to apply to your face. For the most part,
there is a very specific in between type of lipstick
clip glass, which is Clinique black Honey.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Oh I love black honey, which I.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Believe you do not need a mirror to put it,
like a very hair hint.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
This was wildly popular in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Now it's popular on TikTok again because everything is back.
But with all of these things, you could kind of
stand in a group and apply them together, like there
was a communalness to it because you didn't need to
individually go look in a mirror. You could just sit
there and apply your lip glass while you were talking
about like last night's episode of Dawson's Creek or whatever.
(17:53):
And you could do it in any place, so you
could do it like in the back of the school
bus on your way to school. You could do it
during first period. You could do it during lune, like
on the soccer field. I remember taking breaks to go
apply chapstick.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Well, I think also wearing lipstick indicated again it was
sort of like a marker of being a different.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Kind of girl.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Like I never really wore lipstick in the traditional sense
until probably after high school, probably, And I think like
a girl who was wearing like a bright red lip
in middle school was telling you something about like was
either really fashionable or was making some kind of statement,
like lipstick felt like a strong choice, whereas.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I don't think anyone was wearing lipstick in my I
can't remember any I mean, also, it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
As popular then like dark.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Well, I guess we were a little bit different eras
like goth eish.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yeah, I guess if you were into goth.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yes, But nobody was doing a red lip back then.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Yeah, like the Taylor Smith red lip that didn't yet
I don't think so, I just call her Taylor Smith.
I think I just wanted to be clear that, I mean,
Taylor's the wift God.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
What is happening to my bread?
Speaker 5 (19:10):
So?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
In going down this rabbit hole of all these different
intricacies and minutia and nuanced to lift Glass, I looked
up some pop culture references because.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Almost I love a pop culture reference, and you know, so.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Many of the films and shows from this era reference
Lift Glass in some way. It's usually not a focal
point of the plot, but like there's always a live
glass moment.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, so Penn fifteen. I don't know if you I watched.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Ale episodes, but I'm not like a diehard. It's so
many of my friends.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
It's such a good show.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And if people haven't watched, the creators play themselves as teenagers,
so they're like women in their thirties playing teenagers.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
How do I look at you look so good? Yes?
You do, like so good.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
It's just like And there's an amazing scene in one
of the stars of the episodes where it's kind of
panning to the different groups at school on the first
day of school, and it's middle school and there's like
the group who's all applying their lip gloss and and
lip smack of perslowly.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
My god, honey, I was totally best friends with Heather
now your god.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
It's true, and that very much was like the vibe
in my middle school. Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing?
Do you remember that movie?
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Did you?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I mean, I vaguely remember that movie. I think I
did see it when it came out, but I haven't
seen it since.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Well, so it's kind of this rom com and she
and Christina Applegate are close friends, and there's this scene
where they're driving in the car and Christina Applegate's character
has dropped her lip gloss onto the floor and Cameron
Diaz is going to pick it up and she's sort
of like bobbing as she's doing so, and there's like
some gross guy on a Harley driving by who just
(20:54):
sees her head bobbing up and down and like gives
them a thumbs up, like you.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
But you know, kind of funny, kay, I found it.
Jesus almost got smothered down there. There's also a scene
in Me and Girls.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I don't know if you'll remember this, but this is
after they've performed at the school commer or whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, they do the like Christmas dance, the Chrystmas.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Dance and Regina George, her boyfriend's trying to kiss her
and she stops him and she's like lip.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Glass the gus that ever lip class, which fair.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
So yeah, it's like, do not mess this up, do
not smear it all over my face. This stuff is sticky,
it will get everywhere. So that was really funny. And
then a more recent show, Euphoria, there is a scene
when Maddie is putting lip glass on Lexi, and it
felt very kind of share and tie to me in
(21:51):
that there it's this intimate moment they're doing each other's makeup.
She's telling her that ninety percent of life is confidence.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
They see, yeah, of life confidence. The thing about confidence
is no one knows if it's real or not.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know, maybe that's true. And some of that also
is connected to the flip glass.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Well, there's also two things in Breakfast Club that I
remember having to do with lipgloss. One is the scene
where the Ali Sety character is having like the makeover,
and so Molly Ringwald is like doing her makeup, and
I think the last thing is she's like, you know,
she does her lipstick or her masscara. But also I
don't know if you remember this, but there's this thing
where they're talking about like what special skills they have,
(22:29):
and Molly Ringold puts her like twos into her boobs
and then she can like put it on like with
a hands freeze.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yes, can't fully actually doing this, and they really give
her a hard time about it. My image of you
is totally blown.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
It's kind of this thing where she's considered this princess character,
and the way in which they're indicating that is her
relationship to makeup and lipstick and lip gloss, which I
think sort of gets again to this idea that we
kind of categorize girls as like the things they're into,
so like, if you're in to make up, it means something,
which is sort of interesting because I feel like I
was kind of a nerdy, bookish girl, like I collected stamps.
(23:10):
I was like, I was not some like princess, but
I just loved makeup. And I think there's this like
kind of interesting way in which we'd put girls into categories,
but they don't really hold right, Like we can be
all sorts of things. But in that era, you know,
you were making a statement if you were into a
certain thing versus another.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Well, I mean I think that was true of almost
which kind of chance we're backpack you were wearing.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I definitely did not have a chance we're back at
I mean.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
It's worth mentioning here that I went to boarding school
in New England, so a lot of things that were
traditional rights of passage or kids in America just don't
really apply.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
To boarding school. So I think some of these things.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
No, I went from ninth grade to you know, like
I did it for all of high school. But like,
for example, we didn't have prom, we didn't have cheerleaders,
and also we didn't have I have a lot of
the things that would make girls popular in other schools.
Like the thing that was really revered was this like
very specific New England look, very natural, blonde girl next.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Door plays field hockey.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
That's not I think what like the popular girl archetype
is based on all the high school movies I've seen,
So we just had less slightly different, Like I wore
less makeup I think in high school than I probably
wore in middle school, which I think is very uncommon.
So that's especially why some of this stuff doesn't resonate
for me in the same way.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I mean, really, what this is about to me at
the core is something you mentioned at the top, which
is makeup is intimate and girls And this is true
of research, this has been documented. But girls find interesting
ways to bond when they're growing up, Like telling secrets
is a really important way that girls bond when they're
(24:48):
in elementary and middle school, and.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
For boys it's really different.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
They're often playing there's like more action associated less talking,
but telling someone a secret indicates that you are close. Yeah,
and I think in some ways the sharing of lip
glass is akin to girls sharing secrets, Like there's something
sweet about it, even though you, Susie, may think that
it is also repulsive.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Well, I don't know that I was as insane as
I am now about the germ thing back then, because
I also like, don't share drinks, which I think people
find odd. But I will say that I also think
a big part of this language was sleepovers.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Did you do a lot of sleepovers?
Speaker 4 (25:27):
I had this best friend in middle school who I've
stayed friends with and who was just like a really
important part of my.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Life, and she would sleep over.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
We would sleep over to each other's houses, like almost
every night of the week.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
We just switched from house.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
To house, even on weeknights.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah, because we didn't have a lot of rules either
of us. Our parents were pretty lax, so we would
literally spend weeks at a time together.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Oh wow, And that was also part of this.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Way in which you indicated that someone was your best friend, Right,
It's like how much time you spent with them Because
we didn't have social media, so you know, like that
amount of time spent with someone was just like time
with them, you weren't like doing a million other things
right together.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So there's this linguist that I love. And I was
looking back at a couple of her books because I
thought they might apply to this. Her name is Deborah Tannan,
and she's written a number of books about the sexes
and linguistic differences. And she also wrote a book called
The Power of Talk. She's a professor, and she also
wrote a book specifically about the language of women's friendships
called You're the Only One I Can Tell. And so
(26:23):
I was paging through trying to get some context for Lipglass,
and I was emailing with her as well. And so
the way she describes how girls communicate and bond is that,
like we said, they tend to share secrets. They often
play with a single best friend or in small groups,
and they really spend a lot of time talking, like
they use language to negotiate how close they are. And
(26:46):
as she puts it in the book, the girl you
tell your secrets to can become your best friend. So
I almost see lip gloss as analogous in some way
to sharing secrets like you do it in an into
at space. Often it's in a bedroom or in a bathroom.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
It I think has the power.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
To you know, I'm maybe taking this a little bit
too seriously, but like also with the grain of salt,
like it can be intimacy, it can reinforce closeness that
I think is central to the lives of girls.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
You know. It's making me think also of the other
thing you share that sort of in this category is clothes, right,
Like I remember in college getting ready with my friends
and sharing skirts and tops, and that was another way
in which you indicated like this was a close friend.
That was like the line, right if some random girl
in your dorm came in and was like, what I
borrow this, you'd be like, no.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Though there always was someone who wanted to buy out
that was not a cur that's brand too.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Yeah, or like your jewelry like we would your jewelry.
So they are all these things that you indicate closeness
by sharing with another person.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
And the one other thing I.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Thought of when you were saying that is that we
talked on the phone a lot, which isn't a thing now,
but like when we were growing up, you know, one
way in which you were like this is a close
friend is they called you on the literal phone, like
your house phone, and then you would just like stay
up for hours. I don't know what we talked about
for so long.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Well, sometimes you weren't even taught, Like there would just
be long silences where you'd be, like, I just remember doing.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Other things, like you would be like lying.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
On the floor on the carpet of your bedroom with
your phone to your heat, just sort of living on
the phone with another.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Yeah, like sometimes you play songs for each other, or
you'd watch TV together. And I was wondering, you know,
you did this thing for the Times about being thirteen,
and I'm curious because they don't obviously talk on the phone.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I'm sure they would think that was crazy.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Yeah, so what are the ways in which they are sharing?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Like are they also sharing lip gloss? Still? Is that
still a thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Actually, that's funny. So the piece it was this big
interactive project it's called Being thirteen, and I followed three
thirteen year old girls throughout the course of their eighth
grade year to try to understand what life is like
to be thirteen with a cell phone at a time
when girls self esteem tends to really be under threat,
(29:04):
and so I wanted to see the intersection of that.
So there were many findings, but they absolutely share lip glass.
It's actually funny. When we were thinking about this, I
texted one of them to be.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Like, do you guys still share it? And she was like, oh,
of course yes.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And in fact, I went back to some of the
girls kept diaries for me, and they also shared voice
memos about their days.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
So I went back to some.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Of my notes and there was a whole passage about
she and her best friend sharing their lip glasses. I
think they were more like chapsticks or lip smackers, and
they each had a signature sent one was cocoa, one
was lavender, and they knew that about each other. And
so yeah, I think it absolutely slapens. I mean there's,
(29:47):
of course, the ways that people bond are different. Now, yeah,
they're not talking on the phone, But I do think
these little moments of closeness can be a central ritual
of growing up female.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
That's really kind of heartworming in a way that it
sort of transcends time that girls today still have some
of the same rituals we did. That's really what I
loved about that piece is that I expected to feel
like their lives were so different from mine in middle school,
but I could relate to each of them so much,
like so many of the issues are the same, sometimes
the way in which they play out are different because
(30:21):
they're happening online. But you know, being a middle school
girl is so evocative of a very specific feeling, and
we all know what that feeling is.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
The minute you say.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
That, I know it's I mean, I can channel my
thirteen year old's self pretty clearly, and I don't remember anything,
like my memory is terrible, but that year, like seventh
eighth grade of middle school, I remember so vividly, I
think because your feelings are just so intense.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
And that's not you know, that's estrogen.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
That's why moons Like that is a fundamental fact of
being that.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Age as a girl.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
But yeah, for these girls, it was fascinating to see
them go through many of those same things, like trying
to figure out who you are, trying on different identities,
figuring out your place in the social hierarchy, whether that
is related to lip glass or not. Yeah, puberty, boys, girls, friendships,
all of it against the backdrop of having this phone
(31:16):
that makes everything feel like you have an audience at
all times.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Well, I'm glad to hear that there are still some
physical things that connect girls, and I feel like we
can leave it there and hopefully everyone who's listening can
think back to their favorite lip gloss and scent and
this will have taken them down like sort of a
nice memory hole. Although you know, middle school is rough,
so if it's bringing up sad things for you, go
(31:40):
find a new lip gloss to change.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Your life with.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Susie. We have a really great episode next week, a
two parter. Can you tell us about it?
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Yes, we are talking about a college women's basketball team
that was dragged into a national political debate about racism.
After shockjock Don Ims called them an offensive slur and
we have two really great guests, Essence Carson, who is
a WNBA superstar, and Jamel Hill, who is an acclaimed
(32:12):
sports journalist.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
I just really felt for those young people because they
had achieved something really, really spectacular, and it just felt
like the moment was stolen from them.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
about and want us to explore in a future episode?
Email us at Inretropod at gmail dot com or find
us on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books
Feminist Fight Club and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
In Retrospect is.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
A production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media. Lauren Hanson
is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our engineer and
sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Sharon Atia is
our researcher and associate producer.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
executive producer from iHeart are Anna Stem and Katrina Norbel.
Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda
Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We are
your hosts Susie Bannacarum.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
And Jessica Bennett. We are also executive producers for even more.
Check out inretropod dot com. See you next week.
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