Mascara Had What In It!

Mascara and eyeliner go together like salt and pepper.  You seldom wear one without the other, especially when it is a special event. I've often wondered about the history of both because I grew up in a household where my mother did not wear anything more than a bright red lipstick.  I sometimes use mascara and eyeliner but I usually end up looking like a child wearing her mother's makeup.

There is evidence that mascara dates back to Ancient Egypt when they mixed honey, charcoal or soot, water and crocodile dung to create kohl which they used as an eyeliner, mascara, and colored their eyebrows with it.  Kohl was an all round product.  In addition, men used mascara as often as women in Ancient Egypt.

The use of kohl spread to Greece and Rome where it became a part of the daily routine because society wanted long, dark, and curled lashes. In addition to kohl, women used burnt cork to help create the dark lashes.  Once the Roman Empire fell, Europe no longer welcomed it's use because the forehead was considered the sexist part of the body and women plucked their eyelashes and eye brows.

When Queen Elizabeth took the throne, red eyelashes became popular and women tried to dye them to match but were often unsuccessful thus losing them.  The use of mascara became associated with those who were rich and powerful as a vanity item.  Mascara didn't become popular again until the rule of Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria used makeup and wore elaborate clothing as the ruler.  She set a trend for women from the middle and upper classes needed to use makeup and dress properly every day.  This lead to women adopting intense beauty routines that could take several hours a day to complete. Mascara made up an important part of this routine because it allowed women to have long dark lashes  that every women needed.  In the early days of the Victorian era, women made their own mascara because it was not marketed but everywhere they turned, they found ads promoting its use to meet the societal ideal.

It wasn't until 1913 that a Frenchman released the first nontoxic version of Mascara to the public. His product was a combination of coal dust and Vaseline.  Although the product was both messy and inconsistent, it still became a hit around the world and was often referred to as "Rimmel" named after its inventor.

In 1917, a women, Mabel Williams went to work with a drug company to market her own version of mascara known as Lash-Brow-Inc which had Vaseline and oils to make lashes shiny.  Her company , Maybelline, marketed it in packaging similar to Rimmel's but her mascara came in a cake with a separate brush and her marketing was much better. In 1938, a company introduced a lash product guaranteed to make the brows and lashes dark but due to it's toxic ingredients, many women lost their sight.

The next major improvement in mascara came in the 1940's when water-proof formulas hit the market.  The ingredient, turpentine, made the mascara waterproof but it could cause allergenic reactions but it proved to be quite popular. Then in 1958, Revlon introduced mascara in a tube with a spiral tip wand.  Two years later, the same company introduced colored mascara to the public.

Maybelline proved its staying power when they introduces a water based mascara in 1971 that is still popular even today.  Since then, clear mascara, more colors, smudge proof, and so many more mascara formulas have hit the market, making it extremely popular.

So now you know more about mascara.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day but know on Monday, I'll be looking at the history of eyeliner.  I'll have my usual pictures over the weekend.