12 Beauty Products Only Women Born Before 1970 Will Actually Remember
There’s a specific kind of beauty memory that only women born before 1970 carry. It smells like Love’s Baby Soft and menthol astringent. It looks like a pink-and-green mascara tube and a yellow bottle of body splash. It sounds like an aerosol hairspray can being pumped in the junior high bathroom before first period. This list is for anyone who grew up in that era and wants to see the exact products that stocked your vanity in 1978 or 1985.
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Some of these are still on drugstore shelves, mostly unchanged. Others were discontinued and we’re still bummed about it. A couple have been resurrected by modern brands riding the nostalgia wave. Here are twelve iconic beauty products from the era women born before 1970 remember best, and where each of them lives now.
1. Love’s Baby Soft
Launched in 1974 by Dana Fragrances, Love’s Baby Soft was the signature perfume of late-70s and early-80s teen girlhood. The scent itself was powdery, soft, slightly vanilla, and unmistakably gentle. Nothing like the heavier florals their mothers wore. It came in a milky pink bottle with a thin spray nozzle, sold at every drugstore, and cost a few dollars. It was the first grown-up purchase for a generation of girls.
The brand’s original advertising line, “Because innocence is sexier than you think,” has not aged gracefully, and it’s the kind of ad copy that would never run today. But the scent itself kept its cultural hold. On TikTok right now there are thousands of videos of women in their 50s opening a bottle and tearing up at the first spray.
Where Is It Now?
Still around. Dana Classic Fragrances sells the original formula under its vintage label, and the bottle design is nearly identical to the 1974 version. A full-size bottle runs $10 to $15 on Amazon, which is a quarter of what most nostalgia-bait relaunches cost.
Love’s Baby Soft Cologne Mist
The 1974 original is still available as a throwback from Dana Classic Fragrances.
2. Bonne Bell Lip Smackers (Dr. Pepper Flavor)
Bonne Bell launched Lip Smackers in 1973, and the Dr. Pepper flavor arrived in 1975 through what was reportedly the very first major cosmetics co-branding deal. The tube was oversized (about four times the size of any other lip gloss), the flavor was sticky-sweet and unmistakably cola-adjacent, and every girl in every junior high between 1975 and 1990 owned at least one. Most of us owned three.
Per Allure’s reporting, the original Dr. Pepper flavor was quietly discontinued in recent years, while the brand kept selling its other legacy flavors (Bubble Gum, Strawberry, Watermelon). The co-branding trick Bonne Bell invented has since been copied by every major cosmetics brand, but Dr. Pepper Lip Smacker is the one that still comes up in every nostalgia thread.
Where Is It Now?
The Dr. Pepper flavor specifically is gone. The brand still sells Lip Smackers in variety packs with the original core flavors, and the packaging and texture are almost identical to what you remember from the Cambridge mall in 1982.
Lip Smackers Original Best Flavors Variety Pack
Dr. Pepper flavor specifically is gone, but the classic variety pack (Bubble Gum, Strawberry, Watermelon) is still around.
3. Maybelline Great Lash Mascara
Great Lash launched in 1971 and never changed its packaging. The pink tube with the green cap is one of the most-recognized pieces of cosmetics design in the world, and per Fashionista’s oral history, one of these tubes crosses a cash register somewhere on the planet every 2.5 seconds. It has been sold continuously at drugstores for over 50 years at a price that is almost always under $10.
The formula is the same simple pink-and-green tube every mother, sister, and aunt in America seemingly owned. It’s not a technical miracle and it’s not trying to be. It’s the mascara everyone remembers their first tube of, and a significant number of professional makeup artists still carry it in their kits for exactly that reason.
Where Is It Now?
Still on every drugstore shelf. The formula has had small updates over the decades, but the tube is identical to the 1971 original and you can buy it right now for the same inflation-adjusted price as in 1978.
Maybelline Great Lash Mascara
The 1971 original in the pink and green tube, unchanged for over 50 years.
4. Sea Breeze Astringent Original Formula
Sea Breeze was the acne ritual of the late-70s and 80s. The formula was loaded with menthol, eucalyptus, and alcohol, and it came in a big blue plastic bottle that smelled strongly of everything in it from ten feet away. You poured it onto a cotton ball, swiped it across your teenage face, and waited for the sting to subside before applying Oil of Olay over the rest of the burned skin.
The brand leaned hard into the “tingle means it’s working” marketing, which dermatologists now uniformly describe as actively damaging. But a generation of women spent their teenage years convinced that Sea Breeze was the thing keeping their pores closed, and the specific menthol-sting memory is one of the most universal sensory flashbacks for anyone born before 1970.
Where Is It Now?
Still sold at drugstores in the same blue bottle. The formula is largely unchanged, which is a mixed blessing (gentler formulations exist now), but it remains a loyal repurchase for a certain kind of Sea Breeze diehard who thinks modern cleansers are too mild.
Sea Breeze Astringent Original Formula
The mentholated astringent that stung your face into clean. Same formula, same blue bottle.
5. Charlie by Revlon
Charlie launched in 1973 and became the first mass-market fragrance built for the Working Woman with a capital W. The campaign starred Shelley Hack striding around in a pantsuit, and the tagline was some version of “Kinda young, kinda now, Charlie.” For a generation of women in their 20s in the mid-70s, Charlie wasn’t a perfume so much as a declaration. Your mother wore Shalimar. You wore Charlie.
The scent itself was green, galbanum-forward, and slightly ambery, which was considered aggressively modern at the time. Revlon has spun off several flanker fragrances over the years (Charlie White, Charlie Red, Charlie Blue, Charlie Gold), and the original has quietly fallen out of rotation in most US retailers.
Where Is It Now?
Mostly gone from US drugstore shelves. Overseas retailers still stock the original, and several Charlie flankers (especially Charlie Blue) are still available on Amazon and through fragrance resale sites. Vintage original bottles from the 70s command collector prices on eBay.
Revlon Charlie Blue EDT
The 1973 Shelley Hack fragrance is mostly gone from US stores but the Charlie Blue flanker is still available online.
6. Clinique Black Honey Almost Lipstick
Clinique Black Honey launched in 1971 as a dark raisin-toned gloss, in a gooey little honey pot, created by Clinique founder Carol Phillips as “mouth makeup for the modern woman.” (Fun fact: It was the lipstick Molly Ringwald famously put on in The Breakfast Club.) In 1989 the brand reformulated the shade into the Almost Lipstick format we know today, which was the first lip color to use transparent waxes structured with oils for a balmy, your-lips-but-deeper finish. Per Fashionista’s oral history, Black Honey has been Clinique’s number-one selling lipstick continuously, and seven tubes of it are sold every minute.
For women who came of age in the 70s, Black Honey was the prestige lip that actually got used, not saved. The color was subtle enough to wear to work but pigmented enough to read as deliberate makeup. More recently the shade had a massive TikTok revival, with the product selling out multiple times in 2021 and 2022 as younger generations discovered what women born before 1970 had been quietly repurchasing for fifty years.
Where Is It Now?
Still sold, still in the same Almost Lipstick tube, still the same shade. Clinique has expanded the line with flanker shades (Pink Honey, Nude Honey), but the original Black Honey formula is unchanged from 1989 and widely considered to look good on every skin tone. A tube runs about $23.
Clinique Black Honey Almost Lipstick
The 1971 Carol Phillips original in its 1989 Almost Lipstick form. Clinique’s number-one seller and one of the rare shades that reads as flattering on every skin tone.
7. Guerlain Météorites Pearls of Powder
Guerlain Météorites launched in 1987 as the most recognizable prestige makeup of the late 80s and 90s. The round gold box held a pile of multicolored powder pearls (pinks, mauves, greens, ivory, and gold) that blended on a fluffy brush into one luminous setting powder. The scent was a powdery violet, and per Fashionista’s oral history of the product, the fragrance has never been changed in the 37 years since launch. Only four artisans in the world are trained to produce the pearls, and the rolling, sizing, and mixing is still done by hand in Guerlain’s factory.
For women who came of age at the tail end of the 80s, Météorites were the aspirational prestige-counter purchase. A box cost roughly $60 to $70 at Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus, which is still at the top-end for makeup, and it usually arrived as a 30th birthday gift, a graduation present, or a “first grown-up makeup bag” splurge. You didn’t wear Météorites every day. You wore them for occasions.
Where Is It Now?
Still made, still in the round gold box, still containing the same multicolored pearls. Guerlain has added variants over the years (Perles de Légende, Blooming Glow, Midnight Glow), but the classic Light-Revealing Pearls of Powder is the unchanged hero product. A box now runs about $75 to $100, which is roughly inflation-adjusted from the 1987 price.
Guerlain Météorites Light-Revealing Pearls of Powder
The 1987 original is still made the same way by four artisans, in the same round gold box. The powdery violet scent is unchanged.
8. Noxzema Classic Clean Cream
The Noxzema blue jar has been in American bathrooms for over a century, but it hit peak cultural saturation in the 70s and 80s, when its eucalyptus-menthol scent became inseparable from the idea of “cleansing.” Every mother had a jar on the bathroom counter. Every teenager at some point used it to clean their face, their back, and (inadvisedly) a mild sunburn.
The signature tingle came from the menthol and camphor, and the jar itself was a specific shade of sky blue that has not been redesigned in any meaningful way since your parents were applying it. The texture was thicker than any modern cleanser, and using it required washing it off afterward, which is exactly what made it feel like a real skincare ritual in an era when “skincare” wasn’t a category.
Where Is It Now?
Still on shelves, still in the blue jar, still smells exactly the same. It’s moved from the beauty aisle to the generic drugstore shelf at some stores, but the product itself hasn’t meaningfully changed.
Noxzema Classic Clean Original Cream
Same eucalyptus-menthol scent, same iconic blue jar, still a dollar-store staple.
9. Clairol Herbal Essence (the 1971 Original)
The original Clairol Herbal Essence launched in 1971 in a bottle covered in hand-drawn hippie flowers, with a formula built around a blend of twenty-something herbs and botanicals. It smelled like a meadow in a green liquid form, and the ad copy promised that a single bottle could “return you to the earth.” It was the first mass-market shampoo to market itself as natural, which was a largely new positioning at the time.
The brand went through multiple overhauls in the decades since. It was discontinued, resurrected, split into sub-lines, acquired by Procter & Gamble, and eventually rebuilt around a different floral-herbal identity entirely. The shampoo currently on shelves under the Herbal Essences name shares almost nothing with the 1971 version except the brand.
Where Is It Now?
Technically still sold, but not in any form that would be recognizable to someone who used the original 1971 bottle. The modern Herbal Essences Rose Hips Smooth Collection is the closest current relative in the line, and it’s a decent product, but the original is gone for good.
Herbal Essences Rose Hips Smooth Collection
Completely reformulated from the 1971 original, but the Rose Hips variety keeps some of the floral DNA. Certified cruelty-free (PETA).
10. Sun In Hair Lightener
Sun In was the summer staple of every teenage beach bag between 1975 and 1995. You sprayed it on wet hair, sat in the sun for four hours, and hoped for beachy blonde highlights. What you often got was orange, brassy, or patchily lighter-in-places hair, because the product worked by combining lemon juice and hydrogen peroxide and then relying on UV to activate them. The results depended heavily on your starting hair color and how even the sun was that afternoon.
The brand’s ad copy in the late 80s was cheerful and extremely direct: “Put sun in your hair.” Per CNN’s recent coverage, videos tagged with hair-lightening sprays have over a billion views on TikTok, and Sun In has come back as a nostalgia buy even as gentler modern alternatives (Sun Bum, Sunbabe) have entered the category.
Where Is It Now?
Still sold at basically every drugstore for $4.99. The bottle design is slightly modernized. The formula is almost identical to the 1980s version, and it will still turn red hair orange.
Sun In Hair Lightener Spray
Still $4.99 at most drugstores. Still turns red hair orange.
11. Bain de Soleil Orange Gelée
The orange tanning gel with the tagline “For the St. Tropez tan” was the most aspirational sun product of the 1970s and 80s. The gel was a specific Creamsicle-orange color, the scent was heavy on coconut and coppertone-era beach memory, and every woman who bought it believed she was about to look like a French model by Saturday. The SPF rating was low, because the point was getting a tan, not preventing one.
Bayer, which owned the Bain de Soleil brand, quietly discontinued the Orange Gelée formula in 2019. The backlash was enormous: per multiple industry reports, more than 10,000 people signed a petition demanding its return, and unopened vintage tubes were reselling for up to $400 on eBay. In 2024, the heritage-sunscreen brand Vacation bought the rights and relaunched the product at SPF 30 with the original scent recreated from the 1970s formula.
Where Is It Now?
The original Bain de Soleil is gone. Vacation’s Orange Gelée SPF 30 is the modern revival, and the company worked with an advisory panel of original Orange Gelée fans and beauty industry historians to get the scent right. It’s not a dupe. It’s the same product with a grown-up SPF.
Vacation Orange Gelée SPF 30 (the modern revival)
The brand Vacation brought back the original 1970s scent at SPF 30. Not the exact old Bain de Soleil, but closer than you’d expect.
12. Jean Naté After Bath Splash
Jean Naté launched in 1935 but hit peak ubiquity in the 70s, when the yellow bottle and lemon-verbena scent became a standard fixture on American bathroom vanities. The product was a “splash” rather than a perfume, meaning you poured it on after a bath or shower and let it air-dry, and it smelled like clean citrus for a few hours afterward. A large bottle cost a few dollars and lasted until your children were in junior high.
The brand’s appeal was that it wasn’t perfume. It was an after-bath ritual, priced to use generously, scented to feel refreshed rather than glamorous. Every mother of a girl born before 1970 had a bottle on her vanity, and most daughters eventually bought their own.
Where Is It Now?
Still sold in the exact same yellow bottle. The scent is nearly identical to the 1970s version, and it’s still drugstore-priced. It remains one of the most-repurchased heritage products in the entire after-bath category.
Jean Naté After Bath Splash
The same yellow bottle every mom had on her vanity in 1978. Still sold, still smells identical.
A cruelty-free mark means the brand is certified by PETA, Leaping Bunny, or both at the time of writing. A missing mark doesn’t mean a brand tests on animals; it just means the brand isn’t certified by these programs.
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