Lip Smackers
Hoarded in Caboodles and traded at sleepovers like currency, Lip Smackers were the first cosmetic your parents let you own — because it wasn't quite makeup, just flavor. Bonne Bell made them in dozens of flavors, but everyone wanted the Dr Pepper.
Bonne Bell, founded in Lakewood, Ohio, in 1927, introduced Lip Smacker in 1973 under Jess A. Bell Sr. — a flavored lip balm the company bills as the world's first. The launch flavors were almost earnest: strawberry, green apple, orange chocolate. It was originally aimed at skiers with chapped lips; the audience that actually claimed it was preteen girls.
The turning point came in 1975 with the first brand-flavor partnership: Dr Pepper. The soda-flavored stick became a decades-long best-seller and the one everyone remembers — the tube that circulated through slumber parties, backpacks, and locker shelves. By the 1990s Lip Smackers had settled into their cultural role as the starter cosmetic: the makeup you were allowed to have before you were allowed makeup, collected in Caboodles and traded by flavor.
In January 2015 the Bonne Bell and Lip Smackers brands were acquired by Markwins International, and the Ohio headquarters began winding down that March. The brand carries on, but its real legacy is generational muscle memory — an entire cohort that can still summon the exact smell of a Dr Pepper Lip Smacker on command.
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