The first makeup item I remember buying was a lip gloss. It was a small pot of purple goo, made by Japanese brand Shu Uemura, and – even by today’s standards – pretty expensive at £16. I saved up for it, like I did for my Vivienne Westwood bustier and Air Max 98s. Because, like them, it was a status item. I applied it, performatively, any chance I got. This was in the late 90s – probably the last time I gave a second thought to lip gloss. These days, I’m more of lip balm person.
That may be about to change, though. Lip gloss, forgotten and gathering lint at the bottom of handbags for decades, is back. Possibly down to a nostalgia for the 90s and early 00s – and no doubt boosted by the phasing-out of masks – shiny lips are the beauty detail to focus on this spring, seen on catwalks at Fendi, Victoria Beckham and Blumarine, on celebrities ranging from Dua Lipa to Vanessa Hudgens, and on TikTok – where #lipgloss has more than 6bn views. Superdrug reports the category “flying off the shelves” the past year, while online retailer LookFantastic says there was an 11% rise in searches for lip gloss from 2020 to 2021.
