Kissing Potion.

Do you remember Maybelline Kissing Potion?

It was a roll-on shiny lip gloss from the 1970's. The original ad below (1975) features a young Kim Basinger.

The gloss initially included the following flavours: strawberry swirl, mighty mint, cherry smash, cinnamon stick, and fruit flip. Later, other flavours were added, such as candy cane.

I loved this lip gloss as a 1970s teen!

I recall it was sometimes a little gift in a Christmas stocking or at birthday parties.

I fondly look back to simpler times when the only time you got gifts was Christmas or birthdays, and it was so exciting because you never knew what they were!

My favourite flavour was strawberry swirl.

It tasted sweet, and it was very shiny.

I used this for ages until once, a bottle of it leaked in my bag while I was at school and ruined a few books, which was a punishable offence. It was normal in the 70s to get punched in the face or whacked on the back of the hand with a ruler (bloody stung that did) by our evil form teacher, Fanny Benton, whose ruler-whacking prowess was legendary, with a heavy hand which moved twice the speed of light, you just never saw it coming, biting on your lip so you wouldn't cry in front of your peers.

It's strange now to look back on abuse, violence and cruelty to the under-elevens as normal school behaviour.

Going to school terrified kept us all in check.

Remember having to back books with brown paper?

This brought up a memory of Miss Benton coming into school one day completely black and blue as she'd been in a fight that she clearly lost, and absolutely nobody said anything, no explanation, nadder, just tumbleweed.

Anyway, I digress as usual.

At the school disco, I slapped extra kissing potion on my lips and tried to look sultry (well, as sultry as a 14-year-old can). Looking back, despite my ravishing beauty and oodles of style and class, I probably looked like I had some infectious lip lurgy and no guys came near.

The following year, when I was 15, I bagged the school heart-throb (GK - he knows who he is). All my girlfriends fell out with me, but frankly, I couldn't care less, and to this day, the scent of Brut still gives me a funny feeling.

Isn't it interesting that today you can buy a bottle of handmade Creed aftershave for £500 but Brut is still in Boots flying off the shelves.