Why I ONLY Wear 1950s Old Hollywood Era Lipstick

Not only because they’re superior to everything else on the market.

Old Hollywood lipsticks (1950s & earlier) were made with pure heavy waxes and oils that stay in place, with 1-2 touchups per day, after eating and drinking.

1950s vintage lipsticks were formulated with bromo acids that stained deeply, heavy waxes that sealed in pigment, prevented feathering and fading, and heavy oils such as castor & lanolin that never evaporated, allowing the lipstick to melt into lips.

I stopped wearing modern lipsticks because I hated how they looked on me; clownish, ashy, chalky or brash despite lining with a pencil or nude brown lipstick.

I didn’t wake up one day and declare that modern lipsticks are terrible, that took 22 years, but it took comparing vintage lipstick advertisements to modern, that modern lipsticks sat on the lips overly artificially while vintage lips became natural, as a second skin.

My first vintage lipstick was 1961 Revlon Cherries in the Snow, in the original color formulation as the debut shade in 1953. I researched for 4 months what vintage lipsticks commonly consisted of, and the myths that followed them, before I pressed “buy now.”

1961 Revlon Cherries in the Snow melted in so beautifully, and lasted all day that fateful November 2025 day, and I was truly hooked.

Compared to modern lipstick, vintage stained and melted, fading gradually versus modern that smeared, slid off and disappeared completely after a sip of water or eating non-oily food.

It was coincidental that my affinity for old Hollywood expanded into the era’s lipsticks that outlast modern in almost every way.

I’ve never seen the same iconic lipstick ads on my skintone, and here I am, reviving the same shades through a modern lens.