Vintage Beauty Products: Rachel Perry Lip Lover
By Glinda
It was sometime in the late 1970′s.
I was a young girl who was forbidden by my parents to wear makeup. Except for Halloween, when I would be a Gypsy, as politically incorrect as that was, and get to wear blue eyeshadow and blush and lots of necklaces.
But to a lassie such as myself, one night a year just wasn’t good enough. I yearned for cosmetics, but my parents and their iron fist (not to mention the Catholic nuns who would certainly inform my parents if I showed up at school looking like a harlot with makeup on) kept me from them.
So in a distant second place finish, I was allowed to wear Rachel Perry Lip Lover. Oh, it didn’t color your lips, but it did have a wonderful texture, lasted for ages, and have I mentioned the smell? So many different to choose from, all of them great. My favorite was the cantaloupe, and it was heady stuff indeed. It was the kind of lip balm where you would deliberately pucker your lips under your nose all day in order to get the full scent, rather than take a chance that at whatever wafted randomly.
It was all natural and therefore parent-approved, but I didn’t even care. The smell was what kept me coming back for more.
I thought about Lip Lover the other week, and decided to go online and see if it was even being made lo these thirty or so years later.
Alack and alas! It seems I am too late.
Discontinued! And only last year!
Damn. I hate it when that happens.
February 17th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Oh, Glinda, my heart bleeds for you! I discovered Rachel Perry 10 years ago (ish), and the vanilla was/is my go-to lip balm. Yes, I wear lipstick and lip gloss, but when my lips get dried out I get cold sores, so every night a swipe of Rchel Perry vanilla sends me to bed happy. Nobody can touch the Rachel Perry texture, and as you say, the flavors were magnificent. I have snatched up a stash on eBay to see me through quite a few more years.
However, stick lip balms have their uses, and my currently-sold favorite is Alba; their coconut and passion fruit flavors are very nice. I cannot recommend the pineapple.
February 17th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Wow I totally had the grape! It was good stuff, but honestly, there are so many natural and fruity-scented lip balms out there nowadays that I hop from one to the next and don’t feel a huge difference among them. Have you ever tried “Say Yes to Carrots”? It is also natural and has almost absurdly strong fruit flavors, if that’s what you dig.
I use lip balm for other things besides lips–on chapped hands, on my nose and cheekbones before going out in sub-freezing weather, on a healing scab; I think keeping scabs moist helps minimize scarring. Also… do you ever get those dry skin patches that look like permanent goose bumps? Lip balm does the trick on those, too.
February 17th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
LipSmackers Dr. Pepper is my go-to for a decade and counting. I’ve tried the more grown-up stuff, really I’ve tried, but nothing compares. It’s really moisturizing, feels great on, and for someone as super pale as I am, the eensy bit of red tint makes me look alive, rather than like Casper the friendly ghost.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Anyone remember the Village Lip Lickers in the gold tin with the sliding cover? I had the orange juice flavor – check out the pic at this page http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf16059640.tip.html