This article was written by Amber Katz and repurposed with permission from Refinery29.
The holidays wouldn’t be the holidays without Elizabeth Taylor dramatically tossing her (white) diamonds across the table and shrieking, “These have always brought me luck!”
Beauty ads have a long and storied history, but our favorites are all about hair. The hair-product commercials of yore inspired a deep and real commitment to my ever-evolving search for “body” (a very out-of-circulation marketing term of late, no?) and Pantene gleam.
Ahead, see some hilarious, Clio-worthy favorites from the seventies through the ninties.
Pert Plus
Two-in-ones were all the rage in the late eighties. This brand’s pearlescent, seafoam-green formula kicked off a nationwide obsession with in-shower efficiency to which many of us (mostly men) probably still subscribe. Alas.
Pantene Pro-V
Speaking of two-in-ones, here’s a brand that actually did them well (when paired with an additional conditioner to hydrate your nineties spirals pre-Aussie Sprunch shellacking). With top-of-the-Chrysler-Building shine, the Pantene Pro-V commercials set the bar high for gleaming locks for the rest of time. We miss the sublime smell of that specific era of Pantene like nothing else. It smells like homeroom and adolescence, sneaking Jack Daniels to football games and first kisses. Plus, it made your ‘do look on fleek (or rad, in the parlance of the times) to boot.
Revlon Outrageous
Is there anything more quintessentially nineties chic than Revlon hair ads? Oh, yeah: Cindy Crawford. Before everyone’s favorite supermodel was associated with special anti-aging formulations from France, she was the face of Revlon. To this day, few hair-care products smell as sublime as the Outrageous range. Check it out in all its Clinton-administration glory.
Salon Selectives
Before women actually, factually stepped out of salons every time they shampooed (thank you, blow-out bars on every corner of New York City), professionally styled hair was a rare, precious thing. Salon Selectives’ ad campaign featured Day-to-Night Barbie-pink packaging and the promise of coiffed locks straight from your own shower. “Select your own combination” was the precursor to brands boasting far too many SKUs for a single collection. But in the grand tradition of eighties and nineties hair care, it also smelled divinely...of apples.
Studio Line By L’Oreal
L’Oréal Paris’ hairstyling line’s campaign was one part bastardized Genesis lyric, one part D.J. Tanner’s bedroom aesthetic with a serious adherence to primary colors, and three parts deeply nineties. (Like, more nineties than Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.) The Pumping Curls advertisement is a particular favorite, mostly because no word in that product’s name would exist on 2014 packaging.
Vidal Sassoon
Architectural cuts and British accents became an official thing when Vidal Sassoon launched in the U.S. "If you don’t look good, we don’t look good," the brand’s official mantra was moderately ambiguous with regard to its effectiveness. This ad campaign did, however, inspire us to a life-long British pronunciation of the word “salon." We have to wonder: Did one of these commercials inspire Anna Wintour’s famous very Vidal cropped bob?
Click HERE to see six more iconic beauty commercials from Refinery29!
More from Refinery29:
Nineties Lipsticks To Make Your #TBT Dreams Come True
The Best Beauty Looks From Your Fave Nineties Characters
History, As Told By Your Hair
