Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Mood Rings & Mood Lipsticks: Do They Really Work?



Growing up in the late 1980s, I went through a strange, short-lived hippie phase thanks to my love of The Monkees. Two items I adored, were my mood ring and my mood lipstick. Both of these accessories were said to change color based upon my emotional state. I'm not sure if they really worked, my mood changed but my lips and ring basically remained the same color.


What Is A Mood Ring?

The mood ring was invented by jewelery designer, Marvin Wernick in 1975. He is said to have come up with the idea based upon thermotropic strips of material which are applied to the forehead to gauge someone's temperature.

The mood ring contains a thermochromic element in the form of liquid crystal which changes color based upon the temperature of the person wearing the ring. Temperature linked to emotional state would equal the mood of the person wearing the ring.


Mood Lipsticks

Like mood rings, mood lipsticks were to change color depending on your emotional state. Personally, I doubt this actually worked. It felt as if my lips were always pink although the lipstick looked green in the tube.

Did you own either of these mood accessories? Do you think they worked?

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had both of those. The lipstick always looked the same. (Mine was green in the tube, too.) My ring did change color but I think it was just based on my body temperature not my mood.

Carolina Andrade said...

i don't remember having a mood ring, but i had the lipstick. mine was blue and when i put it on it was pink. but it wouldn't come off for days and i couldn't show up to catholic school wearing bright pink lips so my mom scrubbed and scrubbed...

Marlene said...

Don't remember ever seeing the mood lipstick. Maybe they didn't have that in Canada???? I did, however, own several pieces of mood jewelery (rings and pendants). Yup - LOVED my mood rings. They were almost always a deep shade of blue or green, which was really quite pretty. I loved watching them turn black outside in the winter. :)

Anonymous said...

My mood ring almost always turned blue. I tried mood lipstick once and I hated the bright pink color it turned on me-it was like Barbie lipstick :-)

Cheeseboy said...

Cool dudes did not own mood items back in the day. Instead, we just begged cool chicks to let us borrow theirs.

Copyboy said...

I was too much of a loser in that decade to get a chance to try out the lipstick.

Babes Mami said...

I had those! My lipstick never changed but the ring did...usually to blue, I blame body heat not mood.

erin said...

My ten year old daughter loves mood rings. She has several and is slightly obsessed with them. They always look green on her and orangish on me.

Every time we put it on Maxine it turns red. Blood red!

Unknown said...

HA! I think I was always in a perpetual state of "Sad" according to my 25 cent ring!

Macey said...

OMG, I HAD that lipstick! I forgot all about that freaky striped tube!

ann foxlee said...

Yessss!!! I had both! And oh, how I wanted them to really work, but alas... I always wanted anything even remotely 'magic-y' to work, but they never did (darn you, science!). Maybe that's why I write fantasy....

Sara Louise said...

My mood lipstick was always a brownish-red color. I have no idea what that means

mamahasspoken said...

I had the original mood ring as in the one from the 70's. I remember mine was always the same dark blue color except on the school bus on cold winter days....

Margie said...

I am guilty of owning both. The ring was always blue on me and that damn lipstick was always pink. Good times though.

Bossy Betty said...

I had both and loved both too!!

baygirl32 said...

I had the ring, in fact I had several, and would switch them out based on my mood. I never had the lipstick though.

I'm So Pretty said...

Never saw the lipstick, but I had a couple mood rings. The thing was my circulation is so crappy apparently that my mood ring was always black, no matter how I was feeling :) I used to lend it to people just to make sure it still worked...

Pat Tillett said...

I remember when mood rings were hot, but not the lipstick.
another great retro-post...

Amy said...

I also had the lipstick and do not remember it working well but the ring would change color especially I would put it in the freezer and them put it on to see it go through all the colors.

P.S. Claire's ( the cheap jewelry store at almost all malls ) sells mood nail polish which is so fun to wear.

~ Noelle said...

of course! i had both! i had the blue and green mood lipstick..
my ring was almost always blue or green too

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