Can Lip Gloss Teach Us About Friendship?

And I think in some ways the sharing of lip glass is akin to girls sharing secrets, like there's something sweet about it, even though you, Susie, may think that is also repulsive.

I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Bannakam.

And this is in retrospect, where each week we revisit a cultural moment that shaped.

Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.

Most of the time we're digging deep into moments or artifacts from the past, but today I thought we could talk about something that applies to.

Both past and present.

That is the extremely journalistic and.

Very hard hitting subject of lip glass.

So, Susie, I recently found myself in the bathroom of a high school girlfriend in Seattle, and I was instinctively rummaging through her medicine cabinet.

But you instinctively rude.

I'm going to just make a note of that for when you're I needed lip gloss.

You were just gonna take her lip gloss and use it.

Yes, Oh my god, I have a lot of fun.

So I just went, you know, it's like we've been sharing lip glass since we were teenagers. So I was like, you know, she may be like a mother of three now and an adult person and a.

Very successful lawyer. But like, she's got to have some lift glass.

In her medicine cabinet, and so I went in there searching for it, and then there was a moment when I did stop.

She say, wait, is this is this weird?

I have like a touch of the OCD, as you're aware, which means that I'm a little germophobic. So I don't share lip gloss because I don't want to have something like on my lips that someone else.

Has had on their lips.

Did you, let's just be honest for a second, were you looking for anything else in the medicine cabinet, because there are people who are just like snoops who look in the medicine cabinet.

Just I mean, she's one of my best friends, Like I know it's in her medicine. I think it was like I felt comfortable enough yeah, because she's one of my best friends to be like, yeah, obviously I'm gonna yeah or like.

Like take a tilet all if you need it or whatever that exactly. Then I think it's kosher.

Okay, thank you.

But it got me thinking about well, lip gloss and also about friendship because to me in that bathroom, needing some glass from my lips, and also knowing this is one of my best friends since childhood. Those two things were kind of intrinsically linked.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I think makeup for me in general, is something that really makes me think of female friendship. Like I just remember in college getting ready together, or like I did my sister's makeup for her wedding, So it's like this very like intimate moment.

When you put makeup on someone else's face.

So I think lip gloss is like a representation of that kind of larger phenomenon, which is that makeup is a thing girls do with each other from a very young age, Like it's sleepovers. Even before you're wearing makeup in public, you're playing with makeup.

I just have been thinking about this a lot begare because we all have these kind of funny rituals, a lot of them that probably happen in our youth, that establish closeness, They show intimacy, They are like bonding exercises.

And I think for me anyway.

Sharing lift gloss like I did with that friend whose bathroom I found myself in, was one of these rituals to establish closeness. It was a bonding exercise of our era.

Yeah, and I think also one thing that needs to be said is that lift gloss was a cultural artifact of the eighties and nineties. As you said when we started this show, it's like I have a very vivid recollection of those lang Comb juicy tubes, you.

Know in the smell, and those are for the fancy. I had one of those, So I guess I was.

Ay, that's actually interesting. You should raise that because I was gonna take us through a little bit of the hierarchy of chapstick and less, and then because it's almost like you could organize the chirety of middle and high school girls based on their chapstick.

Yeah.

It's actually sort of similar to how you could kind of put smokers in categories.

I don't know if you ever smoked cigarettes, but I did.

And like, if you were an American spirit girl, that meant something different than if you were a Marble lights girl.

What did your lip glass say?

Yeah, so what did your loop glass say about you?

So let me just talk through some tears here.

First.

There's like the kind so lipsmackers. Yeah, lipsmackers are still popular. They were invented in the nineteen seventies, but they were super popular in the eighties.

You could get like.

The small ones that you put in your pocket, or you could get these really big ones that were often attached around a string round.

I remember those.

Yeah, Lipsmackers were almost like a gateway drug. Under rib gloss, you could get flavors, and they had amazing flavors. Coca Cola, Doctor pepper was my favorite cherry.

And they would give a little tint to your lip, yes, but it wasn't full fledged makeup.

Yeah.

So I think part of this is kind of around what your parents' rules were, right, Like I was allowed to buy Lipsmackers or like chapstick and stuff at the drug store before I was allowed to wear makeup, right.

And that was the big difference between Lipsmacker goals who got their makeup at the drug store and Juicy Tube gals who had to go to the departments. Yeah, which is why I was like, oh, so you were fancy, because I remember saving up for Juicy Tube and going to the mall in the North Stoum or whatever and having to go to that counter. And I can still taste the smell of that water melon juicy tube.

I mean they actually did smell and taste amazing.

Oh, I mean I remember them as smelling and tasting amazing too. I wonder if I would feel that way now, just because I think we met.

I feel like I found an old one recently, because that was the other thing too, Like lip glass doesn't go bad, I don't think.

Well, so this is an interesting thing about makeup in general. It does actually technically go back. There's us to throw away makeup so much more often than I do. So as someone who's just mentioned that I have German issues, it's probably not a great sign that I probably do have some lip glasses that I've had for too long.

I mean I've found some in my parents' house from actual middle school. There was a soft Lips that is still in my parents recently. Those ones camp They were like the Caprice cigarette. They were really, really and cheek.

Say goodbye to waxy, greasy lips, introducing soft lips.

But okay, wait, I want to finish taking it through the other higher hierarchies. So I was on acutane, which was that acting medication that so many people are. It's like part of the reason I have all sorts of stomach issues.

It turned out to be very bad but beautiful skid, thank you.

It made your face and your lips really dry, so Lipsmackers was not cutting it.

So I also had to have CarMax.

Oh, I was just going to ask if you ever used carbax, And so carmacs came in the tub.

Yeah, it was like a little tub with a yellow and.

Your finger in it and so like sharing that probably equally gross, honestly, but a friend wasn't touching it to their lips.

Yeah, I still was okay with.

That, but so okay, so they were like Carmacks people who had actually chapped, Like but.

Do you remember also that then people started to tell us that, like Carmacks actually was addicted to it, like there was something in it that your lips to sue or was that just honestly, I can't imagine, but it was like literally like it was making your lips more trapped, so you were like addicted to it. And then there was blistecks, which was like a similar kind of thing.

Yeah, so that was always the warning. But then if you wanted to have some tint to your lips, you always had a Lipsmacker with you, and then later Lipsmacker also created these rollie ball ones where it had like one of those little balls in the end, and those are a littletier glossy, yeah glossier, And so then there were the actual variations of lip gloss which were stickier, more glossy, shinier. When I was in high school, the Philosophy brand vanilla birthday cake one.

Was what we all used.

It came and that like it was like a sparkly yellowish tint and it smelled like actual birthday cake, which is so nauseating to even think about.

Like I remember, Glass makes a birthday cake flavor now of their lip gloss.

And the thing with that one that I distinctly remember is it was so sticky, which for my really chapped acuitane lips was actually good, Like you wanted to stick on your lips all day, maybe sometimes more effective actually

So I never.

Used that in particular, but I used mac lip glass.

Do you remember that? That was like another sort of like in the Juicy Tubes.

It wasn't as popular as Juicy tubes, but in New York at least, it was like very popular for a time, okay, And that stuff was like literally like putting glue on your lips and then you would just have like hair stuck to your lips all day, but it gave you a really high sheet well.

And then later on this was before the age of Sephora, So then later on Sephora came around and you could get do you remember lip venom, which was it? And so it was like putting cinnamon straight on your lips and it was supposed to plump your lips, like pre the age of filler.

So lip plumpers apparently are like having a comeback. Like lip pumpers were very popular when I was I think in my early twenties, and I actually kind of love that feeling, like it makes your lips feel like stung almost and.

Some people really hate that. I love that feeling.

So I bought a limp pumper again recently and I've been using it and I just was reminded by how much I enjoy that tangle.

Okay, interesting, Okay, so that's the taxonomy of types.

Yeah, I'm probably forgetting sun.

Well, you didn't mention one of my favorites, which was when chapsticks started adding flavors and colors. So for a long time, trapstick was just like one plane chapstick. But I think partially because of the rise of lipsmackers and all those things, although I mean, I'm not one hundred percent shore, so.

Maybe someone should fact check us. But they started to add.

Colors and like flavors to trapstick, which is like where we get the Katie Perry song I kissed a girl and I like.

It, and she mentioned the cherry of her cherry chapstick, which we can all I think remember the scent, yeah, or the flavor.

Yeah.

Then there was this taxonomy of who your friends were based on your Trapstick habits with them, your Chared chapstick habits, and I almost feel like there were friendship tears based on lip glass habits. Oh, okay, your best friends. This is my high school girlfriend like best friends.

These were the people you'd share your lift class with tube.

To mouth finger in like however you wanted to do it. You are sharing your live class with them. They were your real friends. You knew their signature scent.

That's so funny, they knew yours.

Maybe you would swap sometimes, but this was a known thing.

It was like being in the inner circle.

So we didn't have this.

This is so interesting to hear like someone else's kind of like middle school and.

High school rituals. Because I don't have this.

I mean, I'm, as you know, obsessed with makeup, Like I have way more than I need and actually interestingly than I wear. Like I don't think if you just hung out with me, you would automatically be like, this is someone who loves makeup. Yeah, but I don't have a lot of memories around this kind of sharing, Like I definitely have memories around makeup in general. But it's interesting that for you there was like this real like relationship with lip gloss that indicated also your relationship to.

Your friendssolutely and and so then there were you know, the cool, popular girls who didn't share lip glass with but you kind of wished that.

You did, and they all had the fancy stuff.

And they probably all had the fancy stuff, or you know, just so many like people would come to school with baggies full of every flavor of Flipsmacker or whatever it might be, or the ones that you put her on

I was probably the one dramatically like wiping in well for everyone.

Yes, for everyone.

And I mean the other thing too, is this was the era of like cold sores, so you are also pretty conscious I think of like what people's mouths were looking like when they asked to use your lip glass.

So I have a point of clarification something I need to ask, which is was there an era of cold soores, Like, are we out of the cold store?

Ara, Like, I think people still get cold soores?

Right, Well, but in middle school, wasn't everyone like kissing for the first time, And like, I don't know, I.

See what you're saying.

I think it was the first time you became aware of cold stores as a thing, because you are.

Do you know anyone like that's like full blown, Like I feel like a lot of people in middle in high school, they would come to school and maybe this is also a relic of a time I need'd be like, hmm, some.

And so has got one on their lip.

Well, I think it's because we've aged out of like making out with a lot of people.

Maybe, you know what I mean.

It's like, Okay, I'm definitely not making out with like as many people as I might have at certain point.

There's you're doing others stuff like yeah, you're middle school's age, when you were just spending a lot of time kissing.

I mean there was a lot I.

Would say for the record that I was not spending a lot of time kissing in middle school.

I did a little kissing. Even you might have been more popular with the boys.

Well, but even in high school, I mean if it was before you were having sex, there just would be more kissing at all, because what you know, right, yes, it doesn't mean like prolonged time with mouth to mouth contact.

Wow. Okay, that's an image.

That's an image anyway.

So I so that was another thing that you were conscious of.

In terms of sharing lip glass.

There was always a friend and maybe this was sometimes me, where like they would fish out their glass and there would be like crumbs stuck around, you know, and you kind of knew, you learned who those people were. I mean, for what's I don't think we were conscious of all this at the time, but now thinking back to it, I'm like, yeah, you totally knew who the person with the clift gross with the crumbs in it was. You didn't ask to use theirs and all of it. Just there was like a girl code too.

Yeah.

I mean that's what I'm thinking about a lot while you're talking, Like, what's interesting to me about this is this idea that there is sort of just like these unspoken rituals and language among girls, and I think they're all very identifiable. Like, even though I did not have this particular relationship to lip gloss, you had when you explain the hierarchy, or you talk about that friend, I

Yeah, I mean, I do think makeup is really intimate and this is sort of the era before because you're not wearing full fledged makeup in middle school.

Yeah.

No, I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. And I think that's another reason why lip gloss was so appealing to me, because I was still allowed to buy it, but I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. So I would go to school and I would go to the bathroom and like put on my lip gloss.

And I think I had like a little bit of other contraband I was using, like makeup contraband.

Maybe mascare I can't even remember, but I remember we would all be lined out in the mirror in the bathroom at Stanley Middle School in Lafia, California, and there'd just be like a row of us and we'd be like teasing our hair because I don't you might not have had this, but I was the era where you just spiked your bangs, like you just like put hairspray just in it's like one patch of hair.

I don't know why we thought this.

Was an attractive vite. Also, that was air where you would do just one earring, like the one like cubic is their conia earring.

That was like a very cool thing to do.

I remember they did like a whole episode of Family Ties about how one of the daughters did that really because she was like trying to be cool, so she was like, I have one earring on.

Oh wow.

So there were these things that you know, made you part of the inn group.

Yeah, all the women and even today.

So you'll go to an event, You'll be in the bathroom, there's another woman next to you applying lipstick, and there's a bit of a shared extra.

There's a moment.

Yeah, that's kind of bondish. And the other thing is I think because this makes me think of something, which is because this was pre lipstick. Like lipstick, you need a mirror to apply to your face. For the most part, there is a very specific in between type of lipstick clip glass, which is Clinique black Honey.

Oh I love black honey, which I.

Believe you do not need a mirror to put it, like a very hair hint.

This was wildly popular in the nineties.

Now it's popular on TikTok again because everything is back. But with all of these things, you could kind of stand in a group and apply them together, like there was a communalness to it because you didn't need to individually go look in a mirror. You could just sit there and apply your lip glass while you were talking about like last night's episode of Dawson's Creek or whatever. And you could do it in any place, so you could do it like in the back of the school

Well, I think also wearing lipstick indicated again it was sort of like a marker of being a different.

Kind of girl.

Like I never really wore lipstick in the traditional sense until probably after high school, probably, And I think like a girl who was wearing like a bright red lip in middle school was telling you something about like was either really fashionable or was making some kind of statement, like lipstick felt like a strong choice, whereas.

I don't think anyone was wearing lipstick in my I can't remember any I mean, also, it wasn't.

As popular then like dark.

Well, I guess we were a little bit different eras like goth eish.

Yeah, I guess if you were into goth.

Yes, But nobody was doing a red lip back then.

Yeah, like the Taylor Smith red lip that didn't yet I don't think so, I just call her Taylor Smith. I think I just wanted to be clear that, I mean, Taylor's the wift God.

What is happening to my bread?

So?

Okay?

In going down this rabbit hole of all these different intricacies and minutia and nuanced to lift Glass, I looked up some pop culture references because.

Almost I love a pop culture reference, and you know, so.

Many of the films and shows from this era reference Lift Glass in some way. It's usually not a focal point of the plot, but like there's always a live glass moment.

Yeah, so Penn fifteen. I don't know if you I watched.

Ale episodes, but I'm not like a diehard. It's so many of my friends.

It's such a good show.

And if people haven't watched, the creators play themselves as teenagers, so they're like women in their thirties playing teenagers.

How do I look at you look so good? Yes? You do, like so good.

It's just like And there's an amazing scene in one of the stars of the episodes where it's kind of panning to the different groups at school on the first day of school, and it's middle school and there's like the group who's all applying their lip gloss and and lip smack of perslowly.

My god, honey, I was totally best friends with Heather now your god.

It's true, and that very much was like the vibe in my middle school. Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing? Do you remember that movie?

Did you?

I mean, I vaguely remember that movie. I think I did see it when it came out, but I haven't seen it since.

Well, so it's kind of this rom com and she and Christina Applegate are close friends, and there's this scene where they're driving in the car and Christina Applegate's character has dropped her lip gloss onto the floor and Cameron Diaz is going to pick it up and she's sort of like bobbing as she's doing so, and there's like some gross guy on a Harley driving by who just sees her head bobbing up and down and like gives them a thumbs up, like you.

But you know, kind of funny, kay, I found it. Jesus almost got smothered down there. There's also a scene in Me and Girls.

I don't know if you'll remember this, but this is after they've performed at the school commer or whatever.

Yeah, they do the like Christmas dance, the Chrystmas.

Dance and Regina George, her boyfriend's trying to kiss her and she stops him and she's like lip.

Glass the gus that ever lip class, which fair.

So yeah, it's like, do not mess this up, do not smear it all over my face. This stuff is sticky, it will get everywhere. So that was really funny. And then a more recent show, Euphoria, there is a scene when Maddie is putting lip glass on Lexi, and it felt very kind of share and tie to me in that there it's this intimate moment they're doing each other's makeup. She's telling her that ninety percent of life is confidence.

They see, yeah, of life confidence. The thing about confidence is no one knows if it's real or not.

You know, maybe that's true. And some of that also is connected to the flip glass.

Well, there's also two things in Breakfast Club that I remember having to do with lipgloss. One is the scene where the Ali Sety character is having like the makeover, and so Molly Ringwald is like doing her makeup, and I think the last thing is she's like, you know,

Yes, can't fully actually doing this, and they really give her a hard time about it. My image of you is totally blown.

It's kind of this thing where she's considered this princess character, and the way in which they're indicating that is her relationship to makeup and lipstick and lip gloss, which I think sort of gets again to this idea that we kind of categorize girls as like the things they're into, so like, if you're in to make up, it means something, which is sort of interesting because I feel like I was kind of a nerdy, bookish girl, like I collected stamps. I was like, I was not some like princess, but

Well, I mean I think that was true of almost which kind of chance we're backpack you were wearing.

I definitely did not have a chance we're back at I mean.

It's worth mentioning here that I went to boarding school in New England, so a lot of things that were traditional rights of passage or kids in America just don't really apply.

To boarding school. So I think some of these things.

No, I went from ninth grade to you know, like I did it for all of high school. But like, for example, we didn't have prom, we didn't have cheerleaders, and also we didn't have I have a lot of the things that would make girls popular in other schools. Like the thing that was really revered was this like very specific New England look, very natural, blonde girl next.

Door plays field hockey.

That's not I think what like the popular girl archetype is based on all the high school movies I've seen, So we just had less slightly different, Like I wore less makeup I think in high school than I probably wore in middle school, which I think is very uncommon. So that's especially why some of this stuff doesn't resonate for me in the same way.

I mean, really, what this is about to me at the core is something you mentioned at the top, which is makeup is intimate and girls And this is true of research, this has been documented. But girls find interesting ways to bond when they're growing up, Like telling secrets is a really important way that girls bond when they're in elementary and middle school, and.

For boys it's really different.

They're often playing there's like more action associated less talking, but telling someone a secret indicates that you are close. Yeah, and I think in some ways the sharing of lip glass is akin to girls sharing secrets, Like there's something sweet about it, even though you, Susie, may think that it is also repulsive.

Well, I don't know that I was as insane as I am now about the germ thing back then, because I also like, don't share drinks, which I think people find odd. But I will say that I also think a big part of this language was sleepovers.

Did you do a lot of sleepovers?

I had this best friend in middle school who I've stayed friends with and who was just like a really important part of my.

Life, and she would sleep over.

We would sleep over to each other's houses, like almost every night of the week.

We just switched from house.

To house, even on weeknights.

Yeah, because we didn't have a lot of rules either of us. Our parents were pretty lax, so we would literally spend weeks at a time together.

Oh wow, And that was also part of this.

Way in which you indicated that someone was your best friend, Right, It's like how much time you spent with them Because we didn't have social media, so you know, like that amount of time spent with someone was just like time with them, you weren't like doing a million other things right together.

So there's this linguist that I love. And I was looking back at a couple of her books because I thought they might apply to this. Her name is Deborah Tannan, and she's written a number of books about the sexes and linguistic differences. And she also wrote a book called The Power of Talk. She's a professor, and she also wrote a book specifically about the language of women's friendships called You're the Only One I Can Tell. And so I was paging through trying to get some context for Lipglass,

It I think has the power.

To you know, I'm maybe taking this a little bit too seriously, but like also with the grain of salt, like it can be intimacy, it can reinforce closeness that I think is central to the lives of girls.

You know. It's making me think also of the other thing you share that sort of in this category is clothes, right, Like I remember in college getting ready with my friends and sharing skirts and tops, and that was another way in which you indicated like this was a close friend. That was like the line, right if some random girl in your dorm came in and was like, what I borrow this, you'd be like, no.

Though there always was someone who wanted to buy out that was not a cur that's brand too.

Yeah, or like your jewelry like we would your jewelry. So they are all these things that you indicate closeness by sharing with another person.

And the one other thing I.

Thought of when you were saying that is that we talked on the phone a lot, which isn't a thing now, but like when we were growing up, you know, one way in which you were like this is a close friend is they called you on the literal phone, like your house phone, and then you would just like stay up for hours. I don't know what we talked about for so long.

Well, sometimes you weren't even taught, Like there would just be long silences where you'd be, like, I just remember doing.

Other things, like you would be like lying.

On the floor on the carpet of your bedroom with your phone to your heat, just sort of living on the phone with another.

Yeah, like sometimes you play songs for each other, or you'd watch TV together. And I was wondering, you know, you did this thing for the Times about being thirteen, and I'm curious because they don't obviously talk on the phone.

I'm sure they would think that was crazy.

Yeah, so what are the ways in which they are sharing?

Like are they also sharing lip gloss? Still? Is that still a thing? Yeah?

Actually, that's funny. So the piece it was this big interactive project it's called Being thirteen, and I followed three thirteen year old girls throughout the course of their eighth grade year to try to understand what life is like to be thirteen with a cell phone at a time when girls self esteem tends to really be under threat, and so I wanted to see the intersection of that. So there were many findings, but they absolutely share lip glass.

Like, do you guys still share it? And she was like, oh, of course yes.

And in fact, I went back to some of the girls kept diaries for me, and they also shared voice memos about their days.

So I went back to some.

Of my notes and there was a whole passage about she and her best friend sharing their lip glasses. I think they were more like chapsticks or lip smackers, and they each had a signature sent one was cocoa, one was lavender, and they knew that about each other. And so yeah, I think it absolutely slapens. I mean there's,

That's really kind of heartworming in a way that it sort of transcends time that girls today still have some of the same rituals we did. That's really what I loved about that piece is that I expected to feel like their lives were so different from mine in middle school, but I could relate to each of them so much, like so many of the issues are the same, sometimes the way in which they play out are different because

The minute you say.

That, I know it's I mean, I can channel my thirteen year old's self pretty clearly, and I don't remember anything, like my memory is terrible, but that year, like seventh eighth grade of middle school, I remember so vividly, I think because your feelings are just so intense.

And that's not you know, that's estrogen.

That's why moons Like that is a fundamental fact of being that.

Age as a girl.

But yeah, for these girls, it was fascinating to see them go through many of those same things, like trying to figure out who you are, trying on different identities, figuring out your place in the social hierarchy, whether that is related to lip glass or not. Yeah, puberty, boys, girls, friendships, all of it against the backdrop of having this phone that makes everything feel like you have an audience at all times.

Well, I'm glad to hear that there are still some physical things that connect girls, and I feel like we can leave it there and hopefully everyone who's listening can think back to their favorite lip gloss and scent and this will have taken them down like sort of a nice memory hole. Although you know, middle school is rough, so if it's bringing up sad things for you, go find a new lip gloss to change.

Your life with.

Susie. We have a really great episode next week, a two parter. Can you tell us about it?

Yes, we are talking about a college women's basketball team that was dragged into a national political debate about racism. After shockjock Don Ims called them an offensive slur and we have two really great guests, Essence Carson, who is a WNBA superstar, and Jamel Hill, who is an acclaimed sports journalist.

I just really felt for those young people because they had achieved something really, really spectacular, and it just felt like the moment was stolen from them.

This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening.

Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking about and want us to explore in a future episode? Email us at Inretropod at gmail dot com or find us on Instagram at in retropod.

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You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books Feminist Fight Club and This Is eighteen.

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