In the mid-90s, it was the only makeup that mattered. Photograph by Andrea Blanch.

Back to Black Honey

Clinique’s angsty blackberry balm was the seminal shade of the 90s. Why did it ever go away?

By Ashley Baker

In my family, we wear Clinique. When I was 13 and wanting in, my grandmother tried to appease me with what she called “the yellow lotion.” Fat chance. What I needed, and needed desperately, was Almost Lipstick in Black Honey.

In the mid-90s, Black Honey was the only makeup that mattered, at least to my friends and me. The good people at Dillard’s department store understood this and processed the exchange. In my slip dress and flower-printed Doc Martens, I strode out to the acre-size parking lot, newly interesting lips glinting under the Kansas sun. Teenage me was launched.