FORGET CONTOURING KITS and highlighter. There was only one product Irish girls could never do without – Max Factor Pan Stik.
The heavy, heavy coverage foundation was worn by just about every girl who attended secondary school in Ireland in the 90s and early 2000s, and well… It was bad.
We know that now, of course, but back then we had no clue. None at all.
You always chose a shade at least three times darker than your natural skin tone
So many generations of Irish women in denial of the true colour of their skin. We’re not pale! Sure don’t we get a colour in summer!
However the illusion was shattered by the tidemark on your jawline
You at 15:
Blending was for food, not your face.
And that greasy shine that came off it when you put on too much
There was no knowledge of ‘skin types’ back then. Everyone used it, so you slathered yourself in it even though it made your pores cry.
And what did you do if it made you break out? Put more on
It made sense at the time!
It was the perfect complement to rings of black eyeliner
In all pictures of you from your Pan Stik period, you appear as a circle of orange with two black dots in the middle. And for some reason, this was the height of style.
And lipstick? Sure who needed lipstick? Pan Stick was lipstick
‘Nude’ lips? More like NO lips.
But we learned from our mistakes, something the teens of today won’t get to experience
With their contouring and their brows on fleek and their lip kits.
You don’t know what it was like, kids! Buy some frosted blue eyeshadow and baby pink lipstick and get back to us.
