The last time the New York Knicks made it to the NBA Finals, it was 1999. Patrick Ewing was on the court, and so were the San Antonio Spurs. New York lost that series, but something else launched that year that has proven victorious—in the form of some of the most enduring beauty products ever made.
Twenty-seven years later, the Knicks are back in the finals against those same Spurs and we can’t stop thinking about everything else that came out of 1999—all while listening to Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen), natch. Here’s to the cult classics that launched the same year as New York’s longest championship drought—and never stopped winning.
Launched in 1999, NARS Orgasm is arguably the most famous blush in the world. The peachy-pink shade with golden shimmer somehow flatters every skin tone, which makes it easy to explain why one is sold every 20 seconds globally. It started as a blush, spawned an entire franchise and remains a solid shade makeup artists reach for.
The Knicks’ home base of Madison Square Garden may be known as the world’s most famous arena, but by 1999—just a few blocks away in SoHo—Bliss Spa had already made a serious name for itself in the world of wellness. Founded in 1996, the spa was offering waxing services by the late ’90s, and when the Poetic Waxing Kit hit retail shelves in 1999, it brought the brand’s signature in-spa formula home.
Today’s current version is a tad different. According to the brand, it’s “been updated and reformulated for today’s consumer,” and now goes by the name BlissPro At Home Wax. But the spirit of the original is still very much intact.
Ruby Woo was technically a happy accident. MAC chemists were tweaking their existing shade of Russian Red when they landed on something brighter, with violet undertones that flattered virtually every skin tone. The rest is lipstick history. It became one of the most-requested shades in MAC’s lineup and has never left the permanent collection.
If there is one product that defines the late ’90s beauty aesthetic, it’s this one. Worn by Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Kate Winslet and Drew Barrymore, MAC Spice is the neutral-brown liner that created the overlined lip look an entire generation copied.
Created in 1999 by master perfumer Calice Becker, the floral bouquet of ylang-ylang, jasmine and rose was bottled in a teardrop amphora that looked like it belonged in the Louvre.
Charlize Theron wore it for 20 years; Rihanna took over in 2024. When a fragrance can outlast two of the most famous women in the world as its face, you know it’s something special.
Created in 1999, Love Spell—that memorable mix of fresh peach, cherry blossom and a little something sweet—became one of the most nostalgic fragrances of an entire generation.
If you grew up in the early 2000s, you wore it. If you’re smelling it now, you immediately feel like a mall-cruising teenager again—just one that forgot to press mute on the morning meeting.
The shade Claudia Schiffer made her own in 1999, Toast of New York is the warm, neutral nude that predated the entire “your lips but better” category.
Besides the fitting name, a drugstore price with supermodel approval is a combination that will never get old.
La Roche-Posay
Particularly fitting to feature this week (the FDA just approved bemotrizinol, the first new sunscreen active in 27 years), La Roche-Posay arrived in the US in 1999 under similarly groundbreaking circumstances.
Already beloved by dermatologists in Europe, the brand launched stateside exclusively through doctors’ offices. Twenty-seven years later, it’s one of the most recommended skincare brands in the country—and one you can pick up at CVS.
