As a “teenager,” the glossy images in Seventeen magazine, movies like “She’s All That,” and clothing catalogs like Alloy and Delias were my guides to what was cool in 1999. Well, that and anything my older sister said it was great. If you are around my age, you may remember these trends with fondness, like me, or you may remember them with horror, like me too. Here’s a list to look back on and shrug.
Lips
Bonne Bell’s Lip Smackers were essential for any tween. My favorites were the jumbo sized versions with flecks of glitter. Shine aside, the biggest selling point for these balms was the crazy flavors. We’re talking Kool Aid, Dr. Pepper, Starburst, Cotton Candy, and even birthstone-inspired flavors. For those of us who were too young to wear lipstick, Lip Smackers were our favorite beauty tool that accompanied us wherever we went.
glow in the dark nail polish
I wish I could remember the exact brand I first used as a kid. The idea of playing Bloody Mary in a dark bathroom with luminescent hands seemed like the coolest thing in the world. As lovely as this polish was, it had a horrible chalky texture that felt horrible when rubbed against anything.
glitter eye gel
As the millennium approached, all tweens looked to the future and envisioned the dazzling opportunities that awaited us in the year 2000. In preparation, we used celebratory glitter. Glitter is still popular, as long as it’s used extremely sparingly, but the type I, and many others, used to use was anything but user-friendly. The gel would separate the glitter pieces so you end up with lots of goo and no sparkles. The gel took hours to dry, and sadly, you never looked like the pop star you aspired to be.
butterfly hair clips
If there was one hair accessory you had in 1999 other than elastics, it was butterfly barrettes. They came in all different colors and were essentially decorative mini claw clips. They were mainly great for cutting small strands of hair, as horrible as that sounds, but the worst thing is that most people used them in conjunction with mini buns. This particular look was cute and playful on a child, but let’s not pretend we’ve never seen grown women sporting this look as well.
Plastic tattoo chokers
Wearing these drove me crazy. As soon as he put one on me, he was eager to take it off. It didn’t matter that these looked nothing like tattoos, they were a HUGE trend. These might have been more popular than puka shell necklaces, multicolored rubber bracelets, and toe rings. While these might have been the quintessential jewelry of choice for late ’90s tweens, my favorites were BFF bracelets and mood rings.
