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.