Ad Campaign – Cutex, 1967

Catch a perfect wave of color from Cutex

…True color – blended into lipstick with a new kind of smoothness – awash with a frosted gloss!  Cutex, actually Cutex created it.  The perfect combination of the things you loved about lipstick with the modern message of gloss.  Four luscious looks you’d brave the briny for.  It’s the new wave of Fashion – from Cutex, with color coordinated nail polishes.  You’ll find the effect positively tidal.

It’s rather interesting that this is an ad for a product that you can’t even tell whether or not it is being used.  That was the state of lips in the mid to late Sixties though.  The lips were truly barely there, but note the heavily made up eyes.

And also note, there is no bathing or surfer cap!

Ad Campaign – Cutex, 1960

Which to try first? You’ll run out of fingers and toes before you decide! Because Cutex has loads of gay new polish colors you’ve never worn before. And summer is the time to try them. The time to experiment with all the mad, marvelous shades like “Coral Sand” and “Capri Blue.” The time to tip your toes with Pearls and be a lovely sea siren.  You are just not in the fashion swim unless you are wearing the latest fun shades by Cutex.

I’m pretty sure that in 1960 nobody would take this ad literally and paint every nail a different color.  But in today’s world this ad would be pinned to a thousand Pinterest boards titled “Nail Inspiration.”

I actually don’t remember blue, purple, and green polish from the early Sixties, but then I was not exactly living in a fashion forward community.  Even though I was only five years old in 1960, I had an older cousin and a group of teenage girls at church who were my style idols.  I’d have noticed blue nails.  This is another good example of how our memories do not always reflect the over-all reality of what was happening.

For some time I’ve realized that if I could go back in time and shop any era for my wardrobe, it would be the early Sixties.   It was an era that I remember, but I never really got to wear the styles associated with the time.  I loved the clothes the older girls wore: Jackie Kennedy suits, Audrey Hepburn slacks and boatneck tops, sophisticated sheath dresses.  But by the time I was dressing as a teen and not a little girl, the mod age was in full swing and sophistication was O-U-T.

I’m not sure if I love the looks of the early Sixties so much because I have such fond memories of the clothes, or if my own preferences for un-fussy clothing attracts me to the styles of that era.  It’s probably a bit of both.  At any rate, a quick look through my pattern collection tells the tale.  At least fifty percent of my patterns date from 1958 through 1965.  I either know what I like, or I have a real problem!