STILL SHIMMERING, THE COLOUR OF THE EIGHTIES

I FEEL great and enduring love for Rimmel (now Rimmel London), a brand that’s managed to remain cool and current from day one. And so I find it rather ironic that Rimmel’s most memorable product is not their wonderful Kate Moss collection of mattes and nudes that look as sophisticated and luxe as a department store shade, or the wonderful and affordable brow, lip and kajal pencils, or the thousand other cutting-edge Rimmel products I’ve worn and loved in my lifetime. No, Rimmel’s greatest icon is the deliciously naff Heather Shimmer lipstick. While this long-lasting, frosty purple-mauve deserves our congratulations in managing somehow to combine both brown and silver undertones in one shade (I mean, it’s not something I’d think to aim for, but bravo to them in getting there), but also for its undeniable status as the lip colour of the Eighties. We snuck Heather Shimmer into our school bags, we wore it to discos in the hope of pulling boys, used it to add weight to our fake IDs when attempting to score alcopops in pubs. But more than that, what made Heather Shimmer such a juggernaut of a product was its rare cross-generational appeal. Truly, our grandmothers and mothers were just as likely to wear it as we were, all of us united in our inexplicable desire to look as though dead from hypothermia. And I note, with some admiration, that the decade never really ended for some. I admire any make-up item that transcends fad to become a classic, soldiering on year after year, ensuring its manufacturers daren’t retire it for fear of customer revolt. Heather Shimmer, rather impressively, is still among Rimmel’s bestsellers and, for me, spotting it on a 21st-century mouth is as satisfying and comforting as finding a surprise double yolker in a box of eggs. I will never again wear it, but I’d be deeply saddened ever to see it go.