Speaker 1: And I think in some ways the sharing of lip
Speaker 1: glass is akin to girls sharing secrets, like there's something
Speaker 1: sweet about it, even though you, Susie, may think that
Speaker 1: is also repulsive.
Speaker 2: I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Bannakam.
Speaker 1: And this is in retrospect, where each week we revisit
Speaker 1: a cultural moment that shaped.
Speaker 2: Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 1: Most of the time we're digging deep into moments or
Speaker 1: artifacts from the past, but today I thought we could
Speaker 1: talk about something that applies to.
Speaker 3: Both past and present.
Speaker 1: That is the extremely journalistic and.
Speaker 3: Very hard hitting subject of lip glass.
Speaker 1: So, Susie, I recently found myself in the bathroom of
Speaker 1: a high school girlfriend in Seattle, and I was instinctively
Speaker 1: rummaging through her medicine cabinet.
Speaker 2: But you instinctively rude.
Speaker 4: I'm going to just make a note of that for
Speaker 4: when you're I needed lip gloss.
Speaker 2: You were just gonna take her lip gloss and use it.
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh my god, I have a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: So I just went, you know, it's like we've been
Speaker 1: sharing lip glass since we were teenagers. So I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, she may be like a mother of three
Speaker 1: now and an adult person and a.
Speaker 5: Very successful lawyer. But like, she's got to have some
Speaker 5: lift glass.
Speaker 1: In her medicine cabinet, and so I went in there
Speaker 1: searching for it, and then there was a moment when
Speaker 1: I did stop.
Speaker 3: She say, wait, is this is this weird?
Speaker 4: I have like a touch of the OCD, as you're aware,
Speaker 4: which means that I'm a little germophobic. So I don't
Speaker 4: share lip gloss because I don't want to have something
Speaker 4: like on my lips that someone else.
Speaker 2: Has had on their lips.
Speaker 4: Did you, let's just be honest for a second, were
Speaker 4: you looking for anything else in the medicine cabinet, because
Speaker 4: there are people who are just like snoops who look
Speaker 4: in the medicine cabinet.
Speaker 1: Just I mean, she's one of my best friends, Like
Speaker 1: I know it's in her medicine. I think it was
Speaker 1: like I felt comfortable enough yeah, because she's one of
Speaker 1: my best friends to be like, yeah, obviously I'm gonna
Speaker 1: yeah or like.
Speaker 4: Like take a tilet all if you need it or
Speaker 4: whatever that exactly. Then I think it's kosher.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1: But it got me thinking about well, lip gloss and
Speaker 1: also about friendship because to me in that bathroom, needing
Speaker 1: some glass from my lips, and also knowing this is
Speaker 1: one of my best friends since childhood. Those two things
Speaker 1: were kind of intrinsically linked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: I think makeup for me in general, is something that
Speaker 4: really makes me think of female friendship. Like I just
Speaker 4: remember in college getting ready together, or like I did
Speaker 4: my sister's makeup for her wedding, So it's like this
Speaker 4: very like intimate moment.
Speaker 2: When you put makeup on someone else's face.
Speaker 4: So I think lip gloss is like a representation of
Speaker 4: that kind of larger phenomenon, which is that makeup is
Speaker 4: a thing girls do with each other from a very
Speaker 4: young age, Like it's sleepovers. Even before you're wearing makeup
Speaker 4: in public, you're playing with makeup.
Speaker 1: I just have been thinking about this a lot begare
Speaker 1: because we all have these kind of funny rituals, a
Speaker 1: lot of them that probably happen in our youth, that
Speaker 1: establish closeness, They show intimacy, They are like bonding exercises.
Speaker 3: And I think for me anyway.
Speaker 1: Sharing lift gloss like I did with that friend whose
Speaker 1: bathroom I found myself in, was one of these rituals
Speaker 1: to establish closeness. It was a bonding exercise of our era.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think also one thing that needs to
Speaker 4: be said is that lift gloss was a cultural artifact
Speaker 4: of the eighties and nineties. As you said when we
Speaker 4: started this show, it's like I have a very vivid
Speaker 4: recollection of those lang Comb juicy tubes, you.
Speaker 2: Know in the smell, and those are for the fancy.
Speaker 2: I had one of those, So I guess I was.
Speaker 1: Ay, that's actually interesting. You should raise that because I
Speaker 1: was gonna take us through a little bit of the
Speaker 1: hierarchy of chapstick and less, and then because it's almost
Speaker 1: like you could organize the chirety of middle and high
Speaker 1: school girls based on their chapstick.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's actually sort of similar to how you could kind
Speaker 4: of put smokers in categories.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you ever smoked cigarettes, but I did.
Speaker 4: And like, if you were an American spirit girl, that
Speaker 4: meant something different than if you were a Marble lights girl.
Speaker 3: What did your lip glass say?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what did your loop glass say about you?
Speaker 3: So let me just talk through some tears here.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 1: There's like the kind so lipsmackers. Yeah, lipsmackers are still popular.
Speaker 1: They were invented in the nineteen seventies, but they were
Speaker 1: super popular in the eighties.
Speaker 3: You could get like.
Speaker 1: The small ones that you put in your pocket, or
Speaker 1: you could get these really big ones that were often
Speaker 1: attached around a string round.
Speaker 2: I remember those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lipsmackers were almost like a gateway drug. Under rib gloss,
Speaker 1: you could get flavors, and they had amazing flavors. Coca Cola,
Speaker 1: Doctor pepper was my favorite cherry.
Speaker 3: And they would give a little tint to your lip, yes,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't full fledged makeup.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I think part of this is kind of around
Speaker 4: what your parents' rules were, right, Like I was allowed
Speaker 4: to buy Lipsmackers or like chapstick and stuff at the
Speaker 4: drug store before I was allowed to wear makeup, right.
Speaker 1: And that was the big difference between Lipsmacker goals who
Speaker 1: got their makeup at the drug store and Juicy Tube
Speaker 1: gals who had to go to the departments. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is why I was like, oh, so you were fancy,
Speaker 1: because I remember saving up for Juicy Tube and going
Speaker 1: to the mall in the North Stoum or whatever and
Speaker 1: having to go to that counter. And I can still
Speaker 1: taste the smell of that water melon juicy tube.
Speaker 3: I mean they actually did smell and taste amazing.
Speaker 4: Oh, I mean I remember them as smelling and tasting
Speaker 4: amazing too. I wonder if I would feel that way now,
Speaker 4: just because I think we met.
Speaker 1: I feel like I found an old one recently, because
Speaker 1: that was the other thing too, Like lip glass doesn't
Speaker 1: go bad, I don't think.
Speaker 4: Well, so this is an interesting thing about makeup in general.
Speaker 4: It does actually technically go back. There's us to throw
Speaker 4: away makeup so much more often than I do. So
Speaker 4: as someone who's just mentioned that I have German issues,
Speaker 4: it's probably not a great sign that I probably do
Speaker 4: have some lip glasses that I've had for too long.
Speaker 1: I mean I've found some in my parents' house from
Speaker 1: actual middle school. There was a soft Lips that is
Speaker 1: still in my parents recently. Those ones camp They were
Speaker 1: like the Caprice cigarette. They were really, really and cheek.
Speaker 3: Say goodbye to waxy, greasy lips, introducing soft lips.
Speaker 1: But okay, wait, I want to finish taking it through
Speaker 1: the other higher hierarchies. So I was on acutane, which
Speaker 1: was that acting medication that so many people are. It's
Speaker 1: like part of the reason I have all sorts of
Speaker 1: stomach issues.
Speaker 3: It turned out to be very bad but beautiful skid,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 1: It made your face and your lips really dry, so
Speaker 1: Lipsmackers was not cutting it.
Speaker 3: So I also had to have CarMax.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was just going to ask if you ever
Speaker 1: used carbax, And so carmacs came in the tub.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like a little tub with a yellow and.
Speaker 1: Your finger in it and so like sharing that probably
Speaker 1: equally gross, honestly, but a friend wasn't touching it to
Speaker 1: their lips.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still was okay with.
Speaker 1: That, but so okay, so they were like Carmacks people
Speaker 1: who had actually chapped, Like but.
Speaker 4: Do you remember also that then people started to tell
Speaker 4: us that, like Carmacks actually was addicted to it, like
Speaker 4: there was something in it that your lips to sue
Speaker 4: or was that just honestly, I can't imagine, but it
Speaker 4: was like literally like it was making your lips more trapped,
Speaker 4: so you were like addicted to it. And then there
Speaker 4: was blistecks, which was like a similar kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was always the warning. But then if
Speaker 1: you wanted to have some tint to your lips, you
Speaker 1: always had a Lipsmacker with you, and then later Lipsmacker
Speaker 1: also created these rollie ball ones where it had like
Speaker 1: one of those little balls in the end, and those
Speaker 1: are a littletier glossy, yeah glossier, And so then there
Speaker 1: were the actual variations of lip gloss which were stickier,
Speaker 1: more glossy, shinier. When I was in high school, the
Speaker 1: Philosophy brand vanilla birthday cake one.
Speaker 3: Was what we all used.
Speaker 1: It came and that like it was like a sparkly
Speaker 1: yellowish tint and it smelled like actual birthday cake, which
Speaker 1: is so nauseating to even think about.
Speaker 4: Like I remember, Glass makes a birthday cake flavor now
Speaker 4: of their lip gloss.
Speaker 1: And the thing with that one that I distinctly remember
Speaker 1: is it was so sticky, which for my really chapped
Speaker 1: acuitane lips was actually good, Like you wanted to stick
Speaker 1: on your lips all day, maybe sometimes more effective actually
Speaker 1: than gas. But I would drive to school and I
Speaker 1: would get out of the car and then I would
Speaker 1: be walking to the front door, and it would be windy,
Speaker 1: and all of the grime in the air would and
Speaker 1: the hair would stick to your lips, and so you
Speaker 1: would walk in to class and you would see your
Speaker 1: friend and you'd be like trying to get the grime
Speaker 1: out of your lips because you'd have this like disgustingly
Speaker 1: sticky lip gloss.
Speaker 2: So I never.
Speaker 4: Used that in particular, but I used mac lip glass.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that? That was like another sort of
Speaker 2: like in the Juicy Tubes.
Speaker 4: It wasn't as popular as Juicy tubes, but in New
Speaker 4: York at least, it was like very popular for a time, okay,
Speaker 4: And that stuff was like literally like putting glue on
Speaker 4: your lips and then you would just have like hair
Speaker 4: stuck to your lips all day, but it gave you
Speaker 4: a really high sheet well.
Speaker 1: And then later on this was before the age of Sephora,
Speaker 1: So then later on Sephora came around and you could
Speaker 1: get do you remember lip venom, which was it? And
Speaker 1: so it was like putting cinnamon straight on your lips
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to plump your lips, like pre
Speaker 1: the age of filler.
Speaker 4: So lip plumpers apparently are like having a comeback. Like
Speaker 4: lip pumpers were very popular when I was I think
Speaker 4: in my early twenties, and I actually kind of love
Speaker 4: that feeling, like it makes your lips feel like stung
Speaker 4: almost and.
Speaker 2: Some people really hate that. I love that feeling.
Speaker 4: So I bought a limp pumper again recently and I've
Speaker 4: been using it and I just was reminded by how
Speaker 4: much I enjoy that tangle.
Speaker 1: Okay, interesting, Okay, so that's the taxonomy of types.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm probably forgetting sun.
Speaker 4: Well, you didn't mention one of my favorites, which was
Speaker 4: when chapsticks started adding flavors and colors. So for a
Speaker 4: long time, trapstick was just like one plane chapstick. But
Speaker 4: I think partially because of the rise of lipsmackers and
Speaker 4: all those things, although I mean, I'm not one hundred
Speaker 4: percent shore, so.
Speaker 2: Maybe someone should fact check us. But they started to add.
Speaker 4: Colors and like flavors to trapstick, which is like where
Speaker 4: we get the Katie Perry song I kissed a girl
Speaker 4: and I like.
Speaker 1: It, and she mentioned the cherry of her cherry chapstick,
Speaker 1: which we can all I think remember the scent, yeah,
Speaker 1: or the flavor.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then there was this taxonomy of who your friends were
Speaker 1: based on your Trapstick habits with them, your Chared chapstick habits,
Speaker 1: and I almost feel like there were friendship tears based
Speaker 1: on lip glass habits. Oh, okay, your best friends. This
Speaker 1: is my high school girlfriend like best friends.
Speaker 3: These were the people you'd share your lift class with tube.
Speaker 1: To mouth finger in like however you wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: You are sharing your live class with them. They were
Speaker 1: your real friends. You knew their signature scent.
Speaker 3: That's so funny, they knew yours.
Speaker 1: Maybe you would swap sometimes, but this was a known thing.
Speaker 3: It was like being in the inner circle.
Speaker 2: So we didn't have this.
Speaker 4: This is so interesting to hear like someone else's kind
Speaker 4: of like middle school and.
Speaker 2: High school rituals. Because I don't have this.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm, as you know, obsessed with makeup, Like
Speaker 4: I have way more than I need and actually interestingly
Speaker 4: than I wear. Like I don't think if you just
Speaker 4: hung out with me, you would automatically be like, this
Speaker 4: is someone who loves makeup. Yeah, but I don't have
Speaker 4: a lot of memories around this kind of sharing, Like
Speaker 4: I definitely have memories around makeup in general. But it's
Speaker 4: interesting that for you there was like this real like
Speaker 4: relationship with lip gloss that indicated also your relationship to.
Speaker 1: Your friendssolutely and and so then there were you know,
Speaker 1: the cool, popular girls who didn't share lip glass with
Speaker 1: but you kind of wished that.
Speaker 2: You did, and they all had the fancy stuff.
Speaker 1: And they probably all had the fancy stuff, or you know,
Speaker 1: just so many like people would come to school with
Speaker 1: baggies full of every flavor of Flipsmacker or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be, or the ones that you put her on
Speaker 1: your neck where you'd have multiple flavors. And then there
Speaker 1: was always, I think in every friend group, like the
Speaker 1: one friend that probably was sort of on the outside,
Speaker 1: and she always wanted to share the lip gloss kind
Speaker 1: of annoyingly, and you didn't really want to share with her,
Speaker 1: and then you would do it reluctantly and then like
Speaker 1: talk shit about her, Sorry for this poor girl, I know,
Speaker 1: and you'd like, you know, dramatically wipe the or the
Speaker 1: top off.
Speaker 4: I was probably the one dramatically like wiping in well
Speaker 4: for everyone.
Speaker 3: Yes, for everyone.
Speaker 1: And I mean the other thing too, is this was
Speaker 1: the era of like cold sores, so you are also
Speaker 1: pretty conscious I think of like what people's mouths were
Speaker 1: looking like when they asked to use your lip glass.
Speaker 4: So I have a point of clarification something I need
Speaker 4: to ask, which is was there an era of cold soores, Like,
Speaker 4: are we out of the cold store?
Speaker 2: Ara, Like, I think people still get cold soores?
Speaker 1: Right, Well, but in middle school, wasn't everyone like kissing
Speaker 1: for the first time, And like, I don't know, I.
Speaker 2: See what you're saying.
Speaker 4: I think it was the first time you became aware
Speaker 4: of cold stores as a thing, because you are.
Speaker 1: Do you know anyone like that's like full blown, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people in middle in
Speaker 1: high school, they would come to school and maybe this
Speaker 1: is also a relic of a time I need'd be like, hmm, some.
Speaker 3: And so has got one on their lip.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's because we've aged out of like
Speaker 4: making out with a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Maybe, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like, Okay, I'm definitely not making out with like
Speaker 4: as many people as I might have at certain point.
Speaker 1: There's you're doing others stuff like yeah, you're middle school's age,
Speaker 1: when you were just spending a lot of time kissing.
Speaker 3: I mean there was a lot I.
Speaker 4: Would say for the record that I was not spending
Speaker 4: a lot of time kissing in middle school.
Speaker 2: I did a little kissing. Even you might have been
Speaker 2: more popular with the boys.
Speaker 1: Well, but even in high school, I mean if it
Speaker 1: was before you were having sex, there just would be
Speaker 1: more kissing at all, because what you know, right, yes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean like prolonged time with mouth to mouth contact.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, that's an image.
Speaker 3: That's an image anyway.
Speaker 1: So I so that was another thing that you were
Speaker 1: conscious of.
Speaker 3: In terms of sharing lip glass.
Speaker 1: There was always a friend and maybe this was sometimes me,
Speaker 1: where like they would fish out their glass and there
Speaker 1: would be like crumbs stuck around, you know, and you
Speaker 1: kind of knew, you learned who those people were. I mean,
Speaker 1: for what's I don't think we were conscious of all
Speaker 1: this at the time, but now thinking back to it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, you totally knew who the person with
Speaker 1: the clift gross with the crumbs in it was. You
Speaker 1: didn't ask to use theirs and all of it. Just
Speaker 1: there was like a girl code too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean that's what I'm thinking about a lot while
Speaker 4: you're talking, Like, what's interesting to me about this is
Speaker 4: this idea that there is sort of just like these
Speaker 4: unspoken rituals and language among girls, and I think they're
Speaker 4: all very identifiable. Like, even though I did not have
Speaker 4: this particular relationship to lip gloss, you had when you
Speaker 4: explain the hierarchy, or you talk about that friend, I
Speaker 4: automatically can picture exactly who you mean, right. And there's
Speaker 4: lots of little ways in which girls have indicators for
Speaker 4: each other, Like you know, part of what you're doing
Speaker 4: in middle school is figuring out who you are and
Speaker 4: how you fit in and how everyone else fits in.
Speaker 4: So there are these little ways in which you categorize people,
Speaker 4: like you're like, that's that kind of girl, and I'm
Speaker 4: this kind of girl, and what does that mean? So
Speaker 4: it's just interesting, like I'm trying to think of other
Speaker 4: things that would fall into this category.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I do think makeup is really intimate
Speaker 1: and this is sort of the era before because you're
Speaker 1: not wearing full fledged makeup in middle school.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. And I think
Speaker 4: that's another reason why lip gloss was so appealing to me,
Speaker 4: because I was still allowed to buy it, but I
Speaker 4: wasn't allowed to wear makeup. So I would go to
Speaker 4: school and I would go to the bathroom and like
Speaker 4: put on my lip gloss.
Speaker 2: And I think I had like a little bit of
Speaker 2: other contraband I was using, like makeup contraband.
Speaker 4: Maybe mascare I can't even remember, but I remember we
Speaker 4: would all be lined out in the mirror in the
Speaker 4: bathroom at Stanley Middle School in Lafia, California, and there'd
Speaker 4: just be like a row of us and we'd be
Speaker 4: like teasing our hair because I don't you might not
Speaker 4: have had this, but I was the era where you
Speaker 4: just spiked your bangs, like you just like put hairspray
Speaker 4: just in it's like one patch of hair.
Speaker 2: I don't know why we thought this.
Speaker 4: Was an attractive vite. Also, that was air where you
Speaker 4: would do just one earring, like the one like cubic
Speaker 4: is their conia earring.
Speaker 2: That was like a very cool thing to do.
Speaker 4: I remember they did like a whole episode of Family
Speaker 4: Ties about how one of the daughters did that really
Speaker 4: because she was like trying to be cool, so she
Speaker 4: was like, I have one earring on.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: So there were these things that you know, made you
Speaker 4: part of the inn group.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all the women and even today.
Speaker 1: So you'll go to an event, You'll be in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: there's another woman next to you applying lipstick, and there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a shared extra.
Speaker 2: There's a moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of bondish. And the other thing is
Speaker 1: I think because this makes me think of something, which
Speaker 1: is because this was pre lipstick. Like lipstick, you need
Speaker 1: a mirror to apply to your face. For the most part,
Speaker 1: there is a very specific in between type of lipstick
Speaker 1: clip glass, which is Clinique black Honey.
Speaker 3: Oh I love black honey, which I.
Speaker 1: Believe you do not need a mirror to put it,
Speaker 1: like a very hair hint.
Speaker 3: This was wildly popular in the nineties.
Speaker 1: Now it's popular on TikTok again because everything is back.
Speaker 1: But with all of these things, you could kind of
Speaker 1: stand in a group and apply them together, like there
Speaker 1: was a communalness to it because you didn't need to
Speaker 1: individually go look in a mirror. You could just sit
Speaker 1: there and apply your lip glass while you were talking
Speaker 1: about like last night's episode of Dawson's Creek or whatever.
Speaker 1: And you could do it in any place, so you
Speaker 1: could do it like in the back of the school
Speaker 1: bus on your way to school. You could do it
Speaker 1: during first period. You could do it during lune, like
Speaker 1: on the soccer field. I remember taking breaks to go
Speaker 1: apply chapstick.
Speaker 4: Well, I think also wearing lipstick indicated again it was
Speaker 4: sort of like a marker of being a different.
Speaker 2: Kind of girl.
Speaker 4: Like I never really wore lipstick in the traditional sense
Speaker 4: until probably after high school, probably, And I think like
Speaker 4: a girl who was wearing like a bright red lip
Speaker 4: in middle school was telling you something about like was
Speaker 4: either really fashionable or was making some kind of statement,
Speaker 4: like lipstick felt like a strong choice, whereas.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone was wearing lipstick in my I
Speaker 1: can't remember any I mean, also, it wasn't.
Speaker 3: As popular then like dark.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess we were a little bit different eras
Speaker 1: like goth eish.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess if you were into goth.
Speaker 3: Yes, But nobody was doing a red lip back then.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like the Taylor Smith red lip that didn't yet
Speaker 4: I don't think so, I just call her Taylor Smith.
Speaker 4: I think I just wanted to be clear that, I mean,
Speaker 4: Taylor's the wift God.
Speaker 2: What is happening to my bread?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: In going down this rabbit hole of all these different
Speaker 1: intricacies and minutia and nuanced to lift Glass, I looked
Speaker 1: up some pop culture references because.
Speaker 2: Almost I love a pop culture reference, and you know, so.
Speaker 1: Many of the films and shows from this era reference
Speaker 1: Lift Glass in some way. It's usually not a focal
Speaker 1: point of the plot, but like there's always a live
Speaker 1: glass moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Penn fifteen. I don't know if you I watched.
Speaker 2: Ale episodes, but I'm not like a diehard. It's so
Speaker 2: many of my friends.
Speaker 3: It's such a good show.
Speaker 1: And if people haven't watched, the creators play themselves as teenagers,
Speaker 1: so they're like women in their thirties playing teenagers.
Speaker 2: How do I look at you look so good? Yes?
Speaker 2: You do, like so good.
Speaker 1: It's just like And there's an amazing scene in one
Speaker 1: of the stars of the episodes where it's kind of
Speaker 1: panning to the different groups at school on the first
Speaker 1: day of school, and it's middle school and there's like
Speaker 1: the group who's all applying their lip gloss and and
Speaker 1: lip smack of perslowly.
Speaker 4: My god, honey, I was totally best friends with Heather
Speaker 4: now your god.
Speaker 1: It's true, and that very much was like the vibe
Speaker 1: in my middle school. Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing?
Speaker 1: Do you remember that movie?
Speaker 2: Did you?
Speaker 4: I mean, I vaguely remember that movie. I think I
Speaker 4: did see it when it came out, but I haven't
Speaker 4: seen it since.
Speaker 1: Well, so it's kind of this rom com and she
Speaker 1: and Christina Applegate are close friends, and there's this scene
Speaker 1: where they're driving in the car and Christina Applegate's character
Speaker 1: has dropped her lip gloss onto the floor and Cameron
Speaker 1: Diaz is going to pick it up and she's sort
Speaker 1: of like bobbing as she's doing so, and there's like
Speaker 1: some gross guy on a Harley driving by who just
Speaker 1: sees her head bobbing up and down and like gives
Speaker 1: them a thumbs up, like you.
Speaker 3: But you know, kind of funny, kay, I found it.
Speaker 3: Jesus almost got smothered down there. There's also a scene
Speaker 3: in Me and Girls.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you'll remember this, but this is
Speaker 1: after they've performed at the school commer or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do the like Christmas dance, the Chrystmas.
Speaker 1: Dance and Regina George, her boyfriend's trying to kiss her
Speaker 1: and she stops him and she's like lip.
Speaker 3: Glass the gus that ever lip class, which fair.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's like, do not mess this up, do
Speaker 1: not smear it all over my face. This stuff is sticky,
Speaker 1: it will get everywhere. So that was really funny. And
Speaker 1: then a more recent show, Euphoria, there is a scene
Speaker 1: when Maddie is putting lip glass on Lexi, and it
Speaker 1: felt very kind of share and tie to me in
Speaker 1: that there it's this intimate moment they're doing each other's makeup.
Speaker 1: She's telling her that ninety percent of life is confidence.
Speaker 2: They see, yeah, of life confidence. The thing about confidence
Speaker 2: is no one knows if it's real or not.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe that's true. And some of that also
Speaker 3: is connected to the flip glass.
Speaker 4: Well, there's also two things in Breakfast Club that I
Speaker 4: remember having to do with lipgloss. One is the scene
Speaker 4: where the Ali Sety character is having like the makeover,
Speaker 4: and so Molly Ringwald is like doing her makeup, and
Speaker 4: I think the last thing is she's like, you know,
Speaker 4: she does her lipstick or her masscara. But also I
Speaker 4: don't know if you remember this, but there's this thing
Speaker 4: where they're talking about like what special skills they have,
Speaker 4: and Molly Ringold puts her like twos into her boobs
Speaker 4: and then she can like put it on like with
Speaker 4: a hands freeze.
Speaker 2: Yes, can't fully actually doing this, and they really give
Speaker 2: her a hard time about it. My image of you
Speaker 2: is totally blown.
Speaker 4: It's kind of this thing where she's considered this princess character,
Speaker 4: and the way in which they're indicating that is her
Speaker 4: relationship to makeup and lipstick and lip gloss, which I
Speaker 4: think sort of gets again to this idea that we
Speaker 4: kind of categorize girls as like the things they're into,
Speaker 4: so like, if you're in to make up, it means something,
Speaker 4: which is sort of interesting because I feel like I
Speaker 4: was kind of a nerdy, bookish girl, like I collected stamps.
Speaker 4: I was like, I was not some like princess, but
Speaker 4: I just loved makeup. And I think there's this like
Speaker 4: kind of interesting way in which we'd put girls into categories,
Speaker 4: but they don't really hold right, Like we can be
Speaker 4: all sorts of things. But in that era, you know,
Speaker 4: you were making a statement if you were into a
Speaker 4: certain thing versus another.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I think that was true of almost
Speaker 1: which kind of chance we're backpack you were wearing.
Speaker 2: I definitely did not have a chance we're back at
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 4: It's worth mentioning here that I went to boarding school
Speaker 4: in New England, so a lot of things that were
Speaker 4: traditional rights of passage or kids in America just don't
Speaker 4: really apply.
Speaker 2: To boarding school. So I think some of these things.
Speaker 4: No, I went from ninth grade to you know, like
Speaker 4: I did it for all of high school. But like,
Speaker 4: for example, we didn't have prom, we didn't have cheerleaders,
Speaker 4: and also we didn't have I have a lot of
Speaker 4: the things that would make girls popular in other schools.
Speaker 4: Like the thing that was really revered was this like
Speaker 4: very specific New England look, very natural, blonde girl next.
Speaker 2: Door plays field hockey.
Speaker 4: That's not I think what like the popular girl archetype
Speaker 4: is based on all the high school movies I've seen,
Speaker 4: So we just had less slightly different, Like I wore
Speaker 4: less makeup I think in high school than I probably
Speaker 4: wore in middle school, which I think is very uncommon.
Speaker 4: So that's especially why some of this stuff doesn't resonate
Speaker 4: for me in the same way.
Speaker 1: I mean, really, what this is about to me at
Speaker 1: the core is something you mentioned at the top, which
Speaker 1: is makeup is intimate and girls And this is true
Speaker 1: of research, this has been documented. But girls find interesting
Speaker 1: ways to bond when they're growing up, Like telling secrets
Speaker 1: is a really important way that girls bond when they're
Speaker 1: in elementary and middle school, and.
Speaker 3: For boys it's really different.
Speaker 1: They're often playing there's like more action associated less talking,
Speaker 1: but telling someone a secret indicates that you are close. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think in some ways the sharing of lip
Speaker 1: glass is akin to girls sharing secrets, Like there's something
Speaker 1: sweet about it, even though you, Susie, may think that
Speaker 1: it is also repulsive.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know that I was as insane as
Speaker 4: I am now about the germ thing back then, because
Speaker 4: I also like, don't share drinks, which I think people
Speaker 4: find odd. But I will say that I also think
Speaker 4: a big part of this language was sleepovers.
Speaker 2: Did you do a lot of sleepovers?
Speaker 4: I had this best friend in middle school who I've
Speaker 4: stayed friends with and who was just like a really
Speaker 4: important part of my.
Speaker 2: Life, and she would sleep over.
Speaker 4: We would sleep over to each other's houses, like almost
Speaker 4: every night of the week.
Speaker 2: We just switched from house.
Speaker 3: To house, even on weeknights.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because we didn't have a lot of rules either
Speaker 4: of us. Our parents were pretty lax, so we would
Speaker 4: literally spend weeks at a time together.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, And that was also part of this.
Speaker 4: Way in which you indicated that someone was your best friend, Right,
Speaker 4: It's like how much time you spent with them Because
Speaker 4: we didn't have social media, so you know, like that
Speaker 4: amount of time spent with someone was just like time
Speaker 4: with them, you weren't like doing a million other things
Speaker 4: right together.
Speaker 1: So there's this linguist that I love. And I was
Speaker 1: looking back at a couple of her books because I
Speaker 1: thought they might apply to this. Her name is Deborah Tannan,
Speaker 1: and she's written a number of books about the sexes
Speaker 1: and linguistic differences. And she also wrote a book called
Speaker 1: The Power of Talk. She's a professor, and she also
Speaker 1: wrote a book specifically about the language of women's friendships
Speaker 1: called You're the Only One I Can Tell. And so
Speaker 1: I was paging through trying to get some context for Lipglass,
Speaker 1: and I was emailing with her as well. And so
Speaker 1: the way she describes how girls communicate and bond is that,
Speaker 1: like we said, they tend to share secrets. They often
Speaker 1: play with a single best friend or in small groups,
Speaker 1: and they really spend a lot of time talking, like
Speaker 1: they use language to negotiate how close they are. And
Speaker 1: as she puts it in the book, the girl you
Speaker 1: tell your secrets to can become your best friend. So
Speaker 1: I almost see lip gloss as analogous in some way
Speaker 1: to sharing secrets like you do it in an into
Speaker 1: at space. Often it's in a bedroom or in a bathroom.
Speaker 3: It I think has the power.
Speaker 1: To you know, I'm maybe taking this a little bit
Speaker 1: too seriously, but like also with the grain of salt,
Speaker 1: like it can be intimacy, it can reinforce closeness that
Speaker 1: I think is central to the lives of girls.
Speaker 4: You know. It's making me think also of the other
Speaker 4: thing you share that sort of in this category is clothes, right,
Speaker 4: Like I remember in college getting ready with my friends
Speaker 4: and sharing skirts and tops, and that was another way
Speaker 4: in which you indicated like this was a close friend.
Speaker 4: That was like the line, right if some random girl
Speaker 4: in your dorm came in and was like, what I
Speaker 4: borrow this, you'd be like, no.
Speaker 1: Though there always was someone who wanted to buy out
Speaker 1: that was not a cur that's brand too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or like your jewelry like we would your jewelry.
Speaker 4: So they are all these things that you indicate closeness
Speaker 4: by sharing with another person.
Speaker 2: And the one other thing I.
Speaker 4: Thought of when you were saying that is that we
Speaker 4: talked on the phone a lot, which isn't a thing now,
Speaker 4: but like when we were growing up, you know, one
Speaker 4: way in which you were like this is a close
Speaker 4: friend is they called you on the literal phone, like
Speaker 4: your house phone, and then you would just like stay
Speaker 4: up for hours. I don't know what we talked about
Speaker 4: for so long.
Speaker 1: Well, sometimes you weren't even taught, Like there would just
Speaker 1: be long silences where you'd be, like, I just remember doing.
Speaker 3: Other things, like you would be like lying.
Speaker 1: On the floor on the carpet of your bedroom with
Speaker 1: your phone to your heat, just sort of living on
Speaker 1: the phone with another.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like sometimes you play songs for each other, or
Speaker 4: you'd watch TV together. And I was wondering, you know,
Speaker 4: you did this thing for the Times about being thirteen,
Speaker 4: and I'm curious because they don't obviously talk on the phone.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they would think that was crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so what are the ways in which they are sharing?
Speaker 2: Like are they also sharing lip gloss? Still? Is that
Speaker 2: still a thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Actually, that's funny. So the piece it was this big
Speaker 1: interactive project it's called Being thirteen, and I followed three
Speaker 1: thirteen year old girls throughout the course of their eighth
Speaker 1: grade year to try to understand what life is like
Speaker 1: to be thirteen with a cell phone at a time
Speaker 1: when girls self esteem tends to really be under threat,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to see the intersection of that.
Speaker 1: So there were many findings, but they absolutely share lip glass.
Speaker 1: It's actually funny. When we were thinking about this, I
Speaker 1: texted one of them to be.
Speaker 3: Like, do you guys still share it? And she was like, oh,
Speaker 3: of course yes.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I went back to some of the
Speaker 1: girls kept diaries for me, and they also shared voice
Speaker 1: memos about their days.
Speaker 3: So I went back to some.
Speaker 1: Of my notes and there was a whole passage about
Speaker 1: she and her best friend sharing their lip glasses. I
Speaker 1: think they were more like chapsticks or lip smackers, and
Speaker 1: they each had a signature sent one was cocoa, one
Speaker 1: was lavender, and they knew that about each other. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think it absolutely slapens. I mean there's,
Speaker 1: of course, the ways that people bond are different. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not talking on the phone, But I do think
Speaker 1: these little moments of closeness can be a central ritual
Speaker 1: of growing up female.
Speaker 4: That's really kind of heartworming in a way that it
Speaker 4: sort of transcends time that girls today still have some
Speaker 4: of the same rituals we did. That's really what I
Speaker 4: loved about that piece is that I expected to feel
Speaker 4: like their lives were so different from mine in middle school,
Speaker 4: but I could relate to each of them so much,
Speaker 4: like so many of the issues are the same, sometimes
Speaker 4: the way in which they play out are different because
Speaker 4: they're happening online. But you know, being a middle school
Speaker 4: girl is so evocative of a very specific feeling, and
Speaker 4: we all know what that feeling is.
Speaker 2: The minute you say.
Speaker 1: That, I know it's I mean, I can channel my
Speaker 1: thirteen year old's self pretty clearly, and I don't remember anything,
Speaker 1: like my memory is terrible, but that year, like seventh
Speaker 1: eighth grade of middle school, I remember so vividly, I
Speaker 1: think because your feelings are just so intense.
Speaker 3: And that's not you know, that's estrogen.
Speaker 1: That's why moons Like that is a fundamental fact of
Speaker 1: being that.
Speaker 3: Age as a girl.
Speaker 1: But yeah, for these girls, it was fascinating to see
Speaker 1: them go through many of those same things, like trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who you are, trying on different identities,
Speaker 1: figuring out your place in the social hierarchy, whether that
Speaker 1: is related to lip glass or not. Yeah, puberty, boys, girls, friendships,
Speaker 1: all of it against the backdrop of having this phone
Speaker 1: that makes everything feel like you have an audience at
Speaker 1: all times.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad to hear that there are still some
Speaker 4: physical things that connect girls, and I feel like we
Speaker 4: can leave it there and hopefully everyone who's listening can
Speaker 4: think back to their favorite lip gloss and scent and
Speaker 4: this will have taken them down like sort of a
Speaker 4: nice memory hole. Although you know, middle school is rough,
Speaker 4: so if it's bringing up sad things for you, go
Speaker 4: find a new lip gloss to change.
Speaker 2: Your life with.
Speaker 3: Susie. We have a really great episode next week, a
Speaker 3: two parter. Can you tell us about it?
Speaker 4: Yes, we are talking about a college women's basketball team
Speaker 4: that was dragged into a national political debate about racism.
Speaker 4: After shockjock Don Ims called them an offensive slur and
Speaker 4: we have two really great guests, Essence Carson, who is
Speaker 4: a WNBA superstar, and Jamel Hill, who is an acclaimed
Speaker 4: sports journalist.
Speaker 6: I just really felt for those young people because they
Speaker 6: had achieved something really, really spectacular, and it just felt
Speaker 6: like the moment was stolen from them.
Speaker 2: This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4: Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
Speaker 4: about and want us to explore in a future episode?
Speaker 4: Email us at Inretropod at gmail dot com or find
Speaker 4: us on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 5: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
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Speaker 5: which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
Speaker 4: and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books
Speaker 4: Feminist Fight Club and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 3: In Retrospect is.
Speaker 5: A production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media. Lauren Hanson
Speaker 5: is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our engineer and
Speaker 5: sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Sharon Atia is
Speaker 5: our researcher and associate producer.
Speaker 4: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
Speaker 4: executive producer from iHeart are Anna Stem and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 4: Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda
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