Fashion

9 Products Everyone Had To Have In The Early 2000s

by Tyler Atwood

While the 1990s beauty market was inundated with naturalistic, utilitarian beauty products, early 2000s beauty products were suffused hit-or-miss commodities. When the dreaded Y2K computer failed to fell modern society, the tastemakers of the day responded by embracing the new millennium with what they felt was an appropriate aesthetic: space-age, ultra-modern makeup. While there were outliers amongst the trends of the early aughts that didn't fall within the science fiction category, the overwhelming majority were avant-garde and metal-centric, often playing with the futuristic feel of the 21st century.

In terms of beauty, the millennium fostered a certain level of experimentation and the overt, deliberately vampy exaggeration of certain facial features. Eyes were rimmed in thick layers of silver eyeshadow, lips were plumped with the help of sheer gloss, and skin glistened silver after the addition of iridescent lotion. Place the blame on Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, or what you will, but the culture of the early aughts was space-obsessed down to the heavily glittered nail polish adorning every tween girl's tips. Read on for nine products every girl possessed in her beauty arsenal during the dark ages of the early aughts.

1. The Lancome Juicy Tubes

Once the must-have beauty product of the decade, Lancome's Juicy Tubes were coveted and collected as one might do with baseball cards or Beanie Babies.

2. The Pink Sugar Eau De Toilette by Aquolina

If you strolled the halls of middle school in the early aughts, you likely caught a whiff of the saccharine, candy-scented Pink Sugar Eau De Toilette by Aquolina every now and then, wafting from the class beauty expert who had every product at her disposal.

3. The Glitter Rollerball

Cheeks, collar bones, and in extreme cases, cleavage, were simply staid unless accented by a dash of glitter — especially if the rollerball in question came with a signature scent.

4. The DIY Hair Highlighting Kit

Bestow your thanks upon early aughts pop sensations including Kelly Clarkson and Mandy Moore for the brazen, DIY highlights trend, which felled even the most logical beauty aficionados with its daring allure.

5. The Silver Lip Gloss

Despite lending lips the appearance of a frozen tundra, silver lip gloss swept the nation in the early aughts.

6. The Butterfly Clip

Before coquettish style was achieved with a pair of skinny jeans and stiletto heels, a generation of millennials called on multicolored butterfly clips to adorn their locks and draw attention.

7. The Temporary Tattoo

In an unexpected twist of fate, the early aughts temporary tattoo trend has resurfaced with a vengeance. After all, it is pleasant to occasionally pretend one is 13 again, is it not?

8. The Straightening Iron

Before the beauty industry began to market the beachy wave trend, shortly followed by the natural texture trend, it seemed the only manner of dressing one's hair was by smoothing every last coil, kink, and curl away with a straightening iron.

9. The Illuminating Body Cream

If you didn't sparkle from head to toe with blinding luminosity for every after-school dance during the early aughts, you were simply doing something terribly wrong — at least according to mainstream culture.

Images: queenieandthedew/Flickr; Amazon.com (5), Claire's, Kohl's, Light In The Box, Lovely Skin