The First Time – Lipstick, That Is
With another birthday fast approaching, I thought I’d share this old post written way back in 2011.
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THE HISTORY OF LIPSTICK – CHAPTER ONE
I wore lipstick on Easter Sunday, 1963. I was twelve.
In 1963, twelve was young for lipstick. None of my classmates were allowed. Only the grown-up girls. The eighth graders.
But that was the point. I had older sisters. I needed to be a teenager long before I was one.
My lipstick was pink. “Pink Cameo”, I think, from Cutex.
This was Jackie Kennedy’s shade, or so I had read.
I bought it at McClelland’s Five and Ten for 39 cents. My first makeup purchase.
The makeup aisle at McClelland’s did not have all the makeup hanging from hooks, like stores today. Instead were long tables, with cubes holding the different products and brands: Maybelline, Cutex, Helen Rubenstein.
From the time I was nine, I had visited that table weekly, transfixed. How I coveted all those little tubes and compacts. I waited for the day when I could spend my allowance here, rather than at the candy counter.
I didn’t buy Pink Cameo on the sly. I had my mother’s permission. My mother was, and still is, wise. She knew I was heartbroken that my sisters were teenagers. And lipstick was a small consolation.
My mother didn’t worry. I looked like this:
Sort of a vacuous Anne Frank, with stupider hair. Pink Cameo wouldn’t make the older boys start hanging around my front yard.
And so I wore lipstick on Easter Sunday, 1963. I sang in the church choir. “Alleluia” – a skinny flat-chested daydreamer with bright pink lips.
Ten months later I turned into a teenager. The Beatles sang on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 – my thirteenth birthday.
I still love The Beatles. I still love lipstick.
- Posted in: Humor
notquiteold 
I love lipstick too Nancy. it just seems to freshen our aging wee faces!
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My first lipstick was by Rimmel, ‘ Coral shimmer’ I think it was called. I was never one for makeup though, and don’t wear any at all now..
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I love makeup more than ever! I don’t think I’ll ever change… my mom is 92 and still loves makeup.
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Just looked at Buzzfeed article on yahoo about makeup looks through the ages. Didn’t go much on the uni-brow, but the 60s were a smash! The models look better as their normal selves though.
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I especially loved the sixties makeup – I even did the Twiggy eyelashes!
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Good memories! I was seven in 1963. My parents made me watch the Ed Sullivan Show and the Beatles US debut. And yes, my first lipstick was pink — I can still smell it “in my mind!”
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I was having a birthday party- all my relatives – but we stopped the party and my sisters and I watched the Beatles. We were mesmerized. I will never forget it.
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My first lipstick was Rimmnel but I do t recall the colour. My mother never wore makeup but she bought it for me on my 13thbirthday. So long ago. Thanks for bringing another happy memory to light
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Can you make sense of that comment? I don’t recall the colour. And when I received that gift you were just about entering the world
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It’s such a strong good memory – putting on that lipstick for the first time – feeling so grown up.
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My first makeup purchase was hot pink nail polish, purchased on the sly from Walgreens. It was unforgivable contraband so I only painted my toenails. My mother had fears that nail polish would eat holes in the couch? I still don’t understand, but to this day I always have my toenails painted.
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Well, toenail polish lasts a lot longer than fingernail – so you’re also getting more bang for your buck!
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Slightly tardy to this entry/topic; Just saw Lady Gaga do the national anthem for the Super Bowl. Don’t care one whit for the game, but really like the Lady. And I think she should have had a lipstick color to match her dress, as she did her nails. Just saying.
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I just dicovered your blog and I am two days late, but… happy birthday !!! 🙂
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If nothing else, I always put on my lipstick before going out. I had an aunt who refreshed hers often during the day, pulling a tube from nowhere. It was bright red and suited her. Your mother was wise Nancy…~Elle
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Got to have the Lippy in the bag at all times, handbag that is…..I have always been cranky that I can’t wear red lippy, I could wear it but I really look frightful. Like all the comments here I agree if we wear no other make-up at all just a bit of Lippy does the trick!!
Annie from Australia loving your blogs!! Cheers 🌞 🌴 🌊
P.S. I am new to the blogging world, I have a lot to learn in the art of writing a good blog. Hope you can follow my site and give me some feedback and tips. I am stumbling along finding my way around everything still…..Kind Regards
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