Bonne Bell Lipsmackers
I saw this ad and I immediately thought of fifth grade. That was the year Bonne Bell’s Lipsmackers were THE most popular thing.
This advertisement doesn’t do them justice because you can’t see how freakishly large they were. They just look like a normal chapstick-sized lip gloss. But NO, they were at least three inches tall and an inch in diameter. They were large and the cool girls would have them sitting on their desk like a plastic column of Dr. Pepper scented popularity.
Dr. Pepper was the cool flavor, by the way. If you were unlucky and your mom bought you a 7-Up Lipsmacker instead, you might as well leave it at home. The Hires rootbeer flavor was a close second, but I never saw the Tootsie Roll or Good N Plenty flavors.
When my grandmother was starving me in Montana, I used to put on the Dr. Pepper Lipsmacker on my lips and pretend I was eating something sweet. I was tempted to eat it so many times. If you licked your lips, they tasted sweet.
I can almost smell it now…
Photo via: Stuck in the ’70s — 1970s products
Funny, when I saw the picture I instantly thought “but I remember them being SO much bigger!” then I scrolled down to your text!
In my school I remember the fruit flavors being particularly desirable, not so much the sodas. All the cool girls HAD to have Cherry or Strawberry; I think in hopes that the parentally forbidden red color would show up on their grade school lips…which it never did no matter how much you slathered on. By the time I got to Woolworth’s there was nothing left but Raspberry. Not. Cool.
But I loved my behemoth lip balm anyway! It was on a lanyard around my neck that I didn’t take off till it was empty.
Thanks for the memory. I had totally forgotten about them!
Comment by missbhavens — 5/21/2008 @ 12:33 pm
I remember that stuff. I remember having a crush on a girl who had… I can’t remember what flavor. Since you said that about Dr. Pepper it’s all I can remember. Funny how that works. Still a great blast from the past! Good times. I remember EXACTLY what you described about them on the desk as a fetish of fashionability.
-M
Comment by Wolfy — 5/21/2008 @ 7:38 pm