My meaningful item to wear today is a sparkle eye powder that I have actually worn here and there since I bought it in 1979. It is essentially pink-shaded mica, and it was such an extravagance for me at the time. I used to use it not only on my eyes but as a highlighter, and it caught the bright night lights of its era perfectly. I have looked up the ingredients and none of them are banned. I don’t have any negative reaction to the use of this, and I certainly can’t use it up in my lifetime, it’s that intense.
Once when I had a coaching with a former model, an expert on make-up application, she offered to help me out by tossing this ancient eye powder. I practically screamed NOoooo! It is a meaningful piece of history to me.
I don’t even know who made this anymore because that name has worn off the side of the container.
I was so glad to see the great Lisa Eldridge has a video about her collection of vintage cosmetics (
). It makes me feel a little less strange hanging onto a cosmetic item even though it’s much more about the memory than the use of it. As a matter of fact Lisa strongly warns that you
should not use
vintage cosmetics, and that preserving them, their beautiful containers and their era-evoking colors, is precisely the point. So I’m not obeying her wisdom and caveats for today—I just had to remember my own life in 1979.
Oh, and if you have a love of vintage makeup looks and a few minutes, you really must see Lisa Eldridge recapturing a Biba face with Barbara Hulanicki’s most original colors: