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Has the social significance of lip gloss dialed down since the 90's?

I was looking through some op-eds to do my rhetorical analysis on for my rhetoric class, when I stumbled upon Jessica Bennett's “Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton and…Lip Gloss?” published on The New York Times. The op-ed started out with Jessica Bennett explaining how she even thought of talking about the Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton fiasco.

To give a little recap to those who do not know what went down in 2018, Meghan Markle during a royal event forgot to bring her lip gloss and asked her sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, if she could borrow some of her lip gloss. Kate Middleton apparently made a face and hesitated to allow Meghan to borrow her lip gloss. According to Prince Harry, Kate reacted this way because sharing your lip gloss is an "American thing."

So what exactly is so American about sharing our lip gloss? In Jessica Bennett's op-ed, she touches on how her experiences growing up in the 90's helps her give insight on why Meghan Markle (someone who was born and raised in California) would ask to use Kate's lip gloss.

In Bennett's op-ed, she goes into detail about her lip gloss experience in the 90's and how lip gloss effected her social life along with other girls from that time. She goes on to say "I used vanilla lip gloss that was in a big tub, and I genuinely think it raised my social status,” one 40-something friend told me." The rest of the article goes onto heavy detail about different lip gloss flavors and stories of how lip gloss was shared in the 90's in order to rank yourself and your friends in your own social hierarchy which was mentioned in the article, "Lip gloss was more than makeup; it was a tool for discerning your place in the social hierarchy. Girls you’d share your lip gloss with: those were your ride-or-dies. " By the end of the article Bennett, although justifying Meghan asking for the lip gloss due to their shared social norm of sharing lip gloss, tries to justify the hesitation of Kate when asked to share something like lip gloss when she adds "We’re all adults now and perhaps have more respect for hygiene than we once did..."

My question is if in present American culture, sharing lip gloss is a taboo? Something left in the 90's for millennials to reminisce? I decided to take on the same approach as Bennett's in her op-ed in order to give millennials an inside scoop of how lip gloss is used in present times.

I graduated high school a year ago, therefore a lot of my lip gloss wearing and sharing days is far from over. I wasn't one of those girls who loved to wear makeup to school, in fact it wasn't until recently that I started to actively try and go buy myself some makeup. The sticky and thick consistency that many lip glosses have really bothered me, and I HATED pulling the little strands of hair that would get trapped in a layer of gloss on my lips at random moments through the day. Regardless of whether I wore it often or not, I was always surrounded by friends who kept a little tube of lip gloss in their pencil pouch in case they or any of their friends wanted to enhance their lips throughout the day. Lip gloss although popularized in the 90's by millennials, never really stopped being a sign of platonic intimacy for many gen-z kids. Even when I was growing up, my mom would buy my sister and I the roll on lip smackers and kid makeup sets to share. I even have a picture of my sister and I doing my mom's makeup with one of these kits. Sharing make-up seems to be something a lot of gen-z kids grew up seeing, especially those with older siblings. In present times, as a 19 year old I still share my lip products (lip liners, lipsticks, and lip glosses) with my friends and family members whenever they need to. In fact, my mom uses my lip glosses without telling me first, because there is certain amount of trust that and connection when sharing your makeup with someone. Lip gloss, is still one of the most used and beloved makeup products to date, and I don't see the effects that it has had in many teens' social hierarchies changing any time soon. While I give the 80's and 90's teens their credit for making lip gloss popular, us gen-z kids carry on the importance of lip gloss with us throughout our high school lives.