Beauty Items Women Couldn't Live Without In The '80s

Every generation has a set of beauty items woven into the fabric of its pop culture. For '80s folks, these beauty staples reflected the decade's bigger-is-better obsession and its love of maximalist, colorful trends. Most of the things people actually found attractive in the '80s were big, bold, and beautiful. Beauty was meant to be noticed, and women embraced products that helped them create the out-there looks that defined the era.

Celebrities and pop stars also played a major role in determining what women wanted to wear, buy, and recreate. Icons like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Prince, to name a few, inspired fans to experiment with everything from bold makeup and dramatic hairstyles to statement-making accessories. They were the beauty influencers of that decade, so it's not surprising that the products and tools that became popular weren't for blending in; they were about being the main character. Some of those items have remained staples decades later, while others are now nostalgic reminders of just how different beauty routines were in the '80s.

The higher the hair, the closer to God was the '80s unofficial rule for hair, and keeping those gravity-defying styles in place required plenty of hairspray. Women didn't just spritz it on once and call it a day. A typical '80s hair routine involved spraying hair before, during, and after styling. Everyone wanted hair that would stay in place, and while products like mousse and gel helped with texture, the hairspray was the real star of the show. The result of the hairspray obsession was often stiff and crunchy hair, but that was hardly a dealbreaker when the goal was hair that refused to fall flat.

One of the most common hairspray brands of the era was Aqua Net, which came in multiple colors that represented different strengths. There was the basic all-purpose orange can, the unscented green can, and the Aqua Net Super Extra Hold in the purple can, which was basically like liquid glue for hair. Eventually, scientific discoveries revealed that all that spraying was damaging the ozone layer, not to mention the hair, so the formulas changed and, thankfully, the trends shifted toward more natural hairstyles. Side-by-side pics of '80s stars' voluminous styles versus the cuts they wear today really highlight that change.

One item that every makeup user had in their stash in the '80s was a bright eyeshadow palette. These days, eyeshadow is usually used to enhance the eyes, but in the '80s, it was another part of your look that had to match your outfit. And unlike the way we apply eyeshadow today, where color is usually kept to the lids, '80s eyeshadow was taken all the way up to the brow bone.

With eyeshadow playing such a major role in the overall look, the brighter and more noticeable the shade, the better. Of all the vivid colors, bright blue was arguably the most popular hue of the decade. Some close contenders were frosted colors, pink, turquoise, and magenta. By 1984, Cyndi Lauper had taken the trend even further by popularizing color-blocked eyeshadow, which basically meant mixing some of the most out-there shades to create wild and crazy looks.

Skincare culture wasn't as informed as it is now back in the '80s, but one product that everyone seemed to deem necessary was astringents. We're not talking about toners with trace amounts of alcohol; we're talking about those alcohol-heavy formulations that stung when you applied them. Sea Breeze and Bonnie Bell Ten-O-Six Lotion, anyone? While modern-day astringents take care not to completely strip the face of its natural oils, that was practically the selling point of '80s astringents.

They were typically applied with cotton balls, which would come away looking dirty and made you feel like the product must be working. They were marketed to people with oily skin as a way to deeply cleanse and get rid of excess oil. We now know that stripping oily skin so harshly can actually cause irritation and make the skin compensate by producing more oil, which can leave you feeling like you need to use even more of it. At the time, they were all the rage.

With the big hair craze of the '80s in full swing, no beauty kit was complete without a crimping iron. This tool created those distinctive zigzag waves that instantly added texture and volume to otherwise flat hair. Of course, the iron was only one part of the routine. While it heated the hair into those signature waves, you'd also need an intense amount of hairspray to hold the shape.

Beyond the regular crimping irons, there were also those that let you bake shapes into your hair. Most of them didn't last more than a few minutes, but even then, they were incredibly popular. Crimping, unfortunately, was bad for the hair. The heat combined with the copious amount of hairspray meant that the style could fry your locks and leave them unhealthy. However, in the '80s, it was all worth it for the look. If this has you feeling a bit nostalgic, the good news is that hair crimping is back, and you can modernize the look without damaging your locks.

Another key part of '80s beauty culture was facial scrubs. One brand in particular, St. Ives Apricot Scrub, had most of the decade in a chokehold. It was coarse, heavily fragranced, and felt like it removed three layers of skin cells in one go whenever you used it. Of course, in hindsight, the truth about walnut scrubs is that they were way too harsh for the skin and probably did more harm than good. But to '80s folks, no skincare routine was complete without some serious scrubbing.

If you didn't have a jar of scrub sitting in your bathroom, you could always reach for a Buf-Puf, pictured on the right. These exfoliating sponges were akin to modern-day Scrub Daddies, except they were designed to be used on your face. One of the biggest ads for the sponge came in 1987, starring Sharon Stone. Per the ad, it was meant to be used with your favorite cleansing bar every day. Such frequent exfoliation was incredibly harsh on the skin, but these scrubs were marketed as "gentle," even though nothing could have been further from the truth.