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The three-part regime, developed by respected dermatologist Dr Norman Orentreich and Estée Lauder executive Carol Phillips in 1968 (and barely changed since, the addition of a little hydrating hyaluronic acid aside), comprises a facial soap, four numbered salicylic acid liquid exfoliators of increasing strength (at time of writing, a new alcohol-free version is in the pipeline), and a pale yellow moisturiser for all skin types. Fragrance-free and allergy tested – unheard of in those days – it introduced the concept of exfoliation (the removal of dead skin cells to reveal brighter, newer, smoother skin beneath) to the masses, was the first nationally available dermatologist’s range (others were sold locally, in anonymous medication bottles direct from doctors’ offices), and, as such, revolutionised the entire cosmetics industry. Customers were given an on-counter analysis using a ‘computer’ (and when I say computer, I mean something that nowadays has more in common with an abacus), and prescribed the specific soap and clarifying lotion for their needs.
In 3-Step, Clinique also introduced the concept of functional, rather than needlessly fancy, premium skincare for the masses, and its packaging – pared down, clean, stylish and minimal – was photographed by the great still life photographer Irving Penn in a series of iconic advertisements without model or figurehead, cleverly appealing to all women, regardless of age, colour or skin type. The products, dressed only with a toothbrush, were sold as the new basics: the white T-shirt and jeans of every woman’s skincare wardrobe, onto which all other lotions or potions were to be layered. This core message – three simple products and three quick steps for better skin – proved enormously successful and endures to this day, and provided the basis for an entire brand of simple, effective, problem-solving cosmetics upon which so many of us still rely.
And yet despite the fact that it remains the world’s bestselling skincare routine, 3-Step can still be described as a cult. Women (and men – the Clinique For Men range differs only in packaging) who love 3-Step, really love it, and will countenance no other regime. And I certainly won’t argue – I’ve seen tremendous results on skin of all ages. Personally, I simply cannot get on board with facial soap in any guise; there are liquid exfoliants I prefer (though they might not exist if it weren’t for Clinique’s groundbreaking Clarifying Lotion), and the mighty Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion isn’t mighty enough for my naturally drier-than-sawdust face. But none of this matters. It works for millions, it may work for you, and no one can begin to deny that it permanently changed how most of us see skincare. Clinique 3-Step changed the world, and respect is very much due.
Weleda Skin Food
I can never lay claim to being a great lover of natural skincare. Ethics are certainly important, and I am all for paraben-free if that’s important to you (the evidence against them is woolly at best, and most of us eat parabens every day, so I’m sceptical, to say the least). I’m certainly a lover of many essential oils and balm cleansers, I choose organic milk to pour in my tea, boil organic eggs for my breakfast, but when it comes to skincare, my priorities are efficacy and results – and in my view, those usually come from a combination of the best of both science and nature, not from homeopathy for its own sake.
Skin Food, by Swiss-German health shop beauty brand Weleda, is a notable exception. It’s a rich, unctuous and affordable balm made from 100 per cent natural ingredients like almond oil, beeswax, calendula, rosemary, pansy and chamomile, for the purpose of moisturising dry faces and bodies. There’s something so lovely about its slightly medicinal metal tube and 1970s earth mother green design. But the product, sold at a rate of one every thirty seconds, is the real star here. Used by Victoria Beckham, Alexa Chung, Julia Roberts, Winona Ryder, Adele, a million models, make-up artists and, erm, me to baste my face like a turkey on long-haul flights, Skin Food acts as the name suggests: it’s exactly what to reach for when your skin feels peckish for something lovely, and leaves face and body snug, cosseted and comfy. I adore its gorgeous botanical smell, its reasonable price point, its assured place next to mung beans and nut bars in health food stores, its integrity and modesty. But most of all, I love that Skin Food has steadfastly stuck to its guns through every imaginable beauty trend and, almost a hundred advertising-free years after launching, is as relevant and more widely loved than ever, like some kindly great-grandmother who always quietly knew best.
YSL Touche Éclat
Touche Éclat is arguably the most iconic make-up item of all time. The evidence can be seen everywhere: make-up artists referring to a ‘touche éclat look’ (as one might use the term ‘Hoover’ for vacuum cleaner) when they actually just mean the artificial adding of brightness; men raiding their wives’ make-up bags for an instant pick-me-up; women who own no other make-up keeping a regular stock to perk up sleepless eyes; a thousand copycat products; sales figures so vast that this one gold tube is a brand all on its own. But oh, Touche Éclat, our own relationship is complicated. I first discovered this elegant gold clicky pen of salmon-pink cream in the early nineties, when it had secured its place in every make-up artist’s kit I invariably poked my nose into. The buzz escalated outside the professional world, partly thanks to the explosion of celebrity culture and countless ‘What’s in my make-up bag’ interviews with A–Z list actresses and popstars, all wildly singing its praises. Somewhere in this process, Touche Éclat became known as a concealer, and this, for me, is where my issues began.
Touche Éclat is not a concealer. It is a brightening corrector, and one launched way before any other mainstream brands had considered their usefulness (nowadays, correctors are everywhere). On white skin, its sheer pinky hue helps cancel out grey tones commonly found under the eyes, and highlights cheekbones to make them pop. It does not cover spots, blemishes, patches of sun damage or much else for that matter, and to misappropriate it is often to make things much worse. When flicking through a wedding photo album on Facebook, I can invariably spot Touche Éclat before I’ve even had time to digest the frock. When worn in abundance as a generic cover-all, with no proper concealer over the top, it creates the impression of a fortnight spent skiing in goggles in Val d’Isère. On dark skins, the original shade (called Radiant Touch, it has now rightly been joined by several brand extensions, including more skin tones, colour correctors for different uses, and a very good light-reflecting foundation) looked sickly and unnatural.
Its woeful misuse was and is a terrible shame, because when used judiciously and sparingly as an undercoat for concealer or as a straightforward highlighter, Touche Éclat is actually rather wonderful. Its revolutionary click pen packaging makes it very convenient for making up on the move (you’ll need to wash the brush regularly, of course), its thin formula blends beautifully, and its sparkle-free light reflection is perfect on brow bones to sharpen their appearance. On cheekbones, or applied lightly across the centre of the face in a cat’s whiskers formation (then blended, of course), it can bathe skin in gloriously flattering light.
Sadly, my appreciation for Touche Éclat came way too late in the day. I am horribly allergic (and I say this as someone who, after a lifetime of product testing, has skin as hardy as Shane MacGowan’s liver), and so I cannot finally make amends for my former harshness. I use Bobbi Brown or Becca corrector on my own dark circles. But to the vast majority of women who can click, sweep and blend Touche Éclat with no adverse effects, all I can say is that I finally see where you’re coming from.
Avon Skin So Soft
I do so love a product with a sneaky sideline in something for which it was never designed. KY Jelly as a hair styler on short retro haircuts, non-oily eye make-up remover on stubborn carpet and soft furnishing stains, and clear nail polish on freshly laddered tights are just a few hugely satisfying deployments of products entirely fit for multiple purpose. Perhaps the most polymathic product of all is this, a cheap-as-chips fragrant body moisturising spray, reportedly used for decades by the US Navy as a standard-issue mosquito spray for soldiers stationed abroad. Meanwhile, on Civvy Street, Skin So Soft’s vast legion of fans (40 million bottles have been sold since its 1961 launch, and Avon representatives stockpile it at the beginning of every summer) claim the dry-oil spray makes an excellent remover for candlewax, chewing gum and paint. Artists and decorators use it to clean brushes, housekeepers swear by it to remove carpet stains, and Hollywood film crews douse themselves in large quantities before entering an insect-ridden shooting location. Even the royal household is rumoured to use it for purposes on which we can only speculate.
What we can be sure of is that Skin So Soft is a hidden gem of a product, and that to have this somewhat dated and naff-looking bottle (more like something kept under the sink than in the bathroom cabinet) handy at all times is to be in on an immensely satisfying secret. So wide is Skin So Soft’s skill set that it’s easy to forget that it delivers admirably on its original brief. It has a light, pleasant smell, a non-greasy texture, and leaves limbs softened and more evenly toned. And mercifully abhorrent to mozzies.
Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream
I admire beauty brands with a sort of benign arrogance about their star products, a self-belief so strong that to tweak, reformulate or move with the times would be an unthinkable admission that any improvement on the original is even possible. This is why I so admire Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour Cream, a thick, glossy, greasy preparation invented in the 1930s by Miss Arden herself and used ever since on the burns, cuts, windburn, chapping, grazes, dry lips, ragged cuticles and unruly brows of humans, and on the aching legs of thoroughbred horses (yes, really – Miss Arden always kept jars in her stable and it caught on. I suppose if you’re dropping half a million on an animal, then twenty quid on some luxury hoof ointment is mere loose change).
But modern beauty fans will know 8-Hour less as a medicinal balm, more as a multi-purpose gloss quite unlike the rest. While other paraffin-based products like Vaseline become thin and slide gradually off the skin or into the eyes, 8-Hour remains thick, holds its gel-like structure well and tends to stay firmly (and stickily) on the job. This makes it peerless in changing the consistency and finish of all manner of traditional cosmetics. Make-up artists mix it with powder shadows to create eye gloss, with kohl to make brow wax, with lipstick for a sheer lip gloss or gleaming flush of cheek colour. But this is no industry secret. It’s by far Elizabeth Arden’s most successful product, with a tube of the original formula (as opposed to its many spin-offs) selling every thirty seconds worldwide. Millions of women, including Victoria Beckham, Penélope Cruz, Emma Watson and Kate Moss, use 8-Hour neat to add a flattering sheen to cheekbones and lips, softening the skin and adding a very subtle pinky-peach tint. I see 8-Hour primarily as cosmetic, but I don’t quibble with its skincare benefits in certain applications – the mild beta hydroxy acids slough dead skin flakes, particularly on the mouth and nose – while the vitamin E and paraffin provide temporary moisture and relief.
Those who love 8-Hour seem never to be without a tube in their handbag, ready for emergency deployment, and will suggest its use in seemingly any skin crisis or extreme weather condition. It provides an almost unmovable barrier of emollient and for this reason, many women even swear by 8-Hour for basting the face in readiness for long-haul flights, though some of us really wish they wouldn’t; the smell is a pungent and not universally pleasing combination of roses, lanolin, a nana’s handbag and Germolene. The relatively new unscented version – though by no means odourless – is a tad more sociable, if a little inauthentic.
Lush Bath Bombs
To the young or disinterested, bath bombs must have just appeared from nowhere, piled high in Lush shop windows, their distinctive and sometimes obnoxious smell polluting the air for fifty yards. But for me, bath bombs will always be a reminder of Cosmetics-to-Go, Lush’s innovative forerunner in Poole, Dorset. This was the first incarnation of Lush, founded in 1987 by husband and wife Mo and Mark Constantine and beauty therapist Liz Weir, selling natural, British-made and faintly bonkers products like solid shampoo bars, fresh fruit-enzyme face masks hand blended on the premises like smoothies, peanut butter face scrubs that were literally good enough to eat, and Second World War-inspired liquid stockings in glass bottles that looked like Camp Coffee. Like the Body Shop’s errant, less neurotic little sister (the Constantines had invented many products for Anita Roddick’s fledgling empire, including its bestselling Cocoa Butter Hand & Body Lotion), Cosmetics-to-Go was the first time I’d seen beauty with both a sense of humour and a strong sense of purpose.
A cruelty-free stance was at the heart of the brand, without it becoming so worthy and earnest as to be dull. Quite the contrary: I looked forward to new Cosmetics-to-Go catalogues like new issues of Just Seventeen, and pored over the quirky illustrations and chatty copy. I’d then ring the order line whenever I had a spare couple of quid, and two days later, a brown paper-wrapped box covered in primary-coloured labels would arrive, crammed with truly groundbreaking and extraordinarily packaged products. Eyeshadows in faux-marble wedges, popped in a Camembert box to create a bespoke palette not a million miles from a Trivial Pursuit wheel, a men’s grooming range festooned in chintzy florals when everyone else was flogging aftershaves got up to look like car parts, and a blackberry-scented bath powder moulded to look like the kind of Acme bomb beloved of Wile E. Coyote. This was the first ‘bath bomb’ – a fizzing mix of fragrance, essential oils, moisturising butters, citric acid and bicarbonate of soda, directly inspired by the uplifting, soothing qualities of Alka-Seltzer. Its relative cheapness and versatility spawned a whole range of bombs in multiple shapes, colours and scents, and an entirely new product category was born.
Ultimately, Cosmetics-to-Go had too many brilliant and impractical ideas, too little business acumen. Even as a child, I wondered how they could possibly be making enough money when, as a matter of course, they’d mistakenly send me free duplicates of practically every order I placed. They weren’t, as it turned out. Cosmetics-to-Go went down the plughole in 1994, but their bath bombs stayed afloat, providing the old CTG team with a basis for new venture Lush, now a hugely successful British high street retailer based on the same environment/employee/animal-friendly principles as before. Lush still makes dozens of different bath bombs (selling well over 26 million of them to date), all copied endlessly by rivals, often with much less care for quality and ethics. Even when the real thing enters my house via press sample, kid’s birthday gift or party bag, my heart sinks in anticipation of post-bath scrubbing to remove some glittery lurid puce tidemark. But I always give in to the pleas and chuck one in because I want my kids to see that modern beauty products aren’t only for making someone’s nose look skinny on Instagram. They can also be fun, kitsch, bonkers and kind. No one demonstrates that better than Lush. Long may they fizz.
Kent Combs
Any company awarded a Royal Warrant – a recognition of excellence for selected small firms that supply the royal households – must be doing something right. A firm granted Royal Warrants by nine successive sovereigns, though, can claim quite persuasively to be doing pretty much everything better than anyone else. Founded in 1777, the brush-making concern G.B. Kent & Sons was awarded its first warrant by George III and has received royal thumbs-up from every king and queen since. Kent, the UK’s longest established brush-maker, is a heart-swelling example of a firm peopled by artisans, preserving specialist skills in the face of mass production and foreign imports.
Kent allies British pluck and ingenuity – the Second World War saw the firm produce a shaving brush with a secret compartment for map and compass to facilitate the escape of prisoners of war – with meticulous production methods to produce doughty, tactile artefacts of enduring loveliness. Its saw-cut combs are polished and buffed by hand, the teeth free of the tiny, snaggy ridges found in injection-moulded combs. The women’s tail comb – a seventies classic that sells a pleasingly un-mass-market forty a day – is a sleek, frictionless delight that makes you want to keep on combing, mermaid-like, long after the practical necessity has gone. I like to imagine Princess Anne using one to tease her crown before sweeping everything into a no-nonsense riding bun, or Charles reaching for his Kent brush in the hope of making his remaining strands go further.
If sharing a brush supplier with the Queen doesn’t float your royal yacht – and I do understand – focus instead on the preciousness of British-made beauty tools, made with love, pride and devotion to the craft, and sold widely at a very reasonable and accessible price point (my paternal grandfather always carried a tortoiseshell Kent – and he was a lowly stable lad). Kent is a company I wish to exist for ever. We should never assume that’s a given, and perhaps replace our old combs forthwith.
Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler
In the eyes of critics, perhaps no product better sums up the madness of beauty than the eyelash curler. Here is a prohibitively dangerous-looking piece of metal that resembles something a Victorian dentist might use to winch out a rotting molar, used for the sole purpose of lifting and curving one’s eyelashes temporarily. It does seem slightly bonkers, on reflection. And yet, with the right curler, it really is a uniquely gratifying twenty-second job.
The Shu Uemura eyelash curler is such a reference point for all other beauty tools, that it’s easy to forget that it only launched in 1991. When Japanese make-up artist Shu Uemura launched his groundbreaking eponymous brand, there were few luxury lash curlers on the market and he felt all of them failed to sufficiently and comfortably curl short lashes. And so he briefed his son Hiroshi Uemura to create one that did. Hiroshi worked with professional make-up artists to test different widths, lengths, gradient curves, rubber elasticity and pressure intensity until he had what the professionals still believe to be the eyelash curler against which all others should be measured. And while to the untrained eye it may look the same as a three quid version in Boots, they are apples and oranges. The Shu Uemuras don’t pinch or bend lashes in an unflattering right angle. They can be used both under and over mascara (this is always my preference – you get a better hold) without damage and even on short, pin-straight lashes like mine they give great and lasting curve. The mechanism is loose enough to allow partial release of tension, but can be tightened in case it becomes slack.
At time of writing, Shu Uemura’s eyelash curler has won a major beauty award for fifteen consecutive years and in all that time I don’t think I’ve met a single make-up artist who doesn’t own at least one set. The curler has appeared on magazine covers (Kylie Minogue’s iconic 1991 shoot for The Face), in films (The Devil Wears Prada, where it’s namechecked) and in pop videos (Annie Lennox’s wonderful ‘Why’ promo, featuring the extraordinary make-up skills of the great Martin Pretorius – a must-see for any beauty nerd), and been honoured with several limited editions, including a twenty-four-carat gold version. Shu Uemura’s eyelash curler is a beauty icon because, quite simply, it’s the best.
Bourjois Little Round Pots
There are few products more cheering than a little fat pot of Bourjois blush or eyeshadow, nor as instantly recognisable. None of us has lived in a time where these multicoloured pastel powders didn’t line high street chemist racks like freshly baked macarons in a patisserie window. These are domed, single shadows and blushers in sheer, muted tones including matriarch Cendre de Rose, an old Hollywood rouge, the deep, black-red hue of crushed rose petals, released in 1881, and Rose Thé, a dusky nude-pink blush born in 1936. For over 150 years, these traditional powders have provided the basis for the entire Bourjois brand, however cutting edge the rest of its offering has become.
The Fard Pastel powders – now known as Pastel Joues – are baked (much like Chanel’s European market shadows; for years, rumours abounded that they were made in the same factory) and so colour payoff is not as dramatic as with a modern, pressed pigment powder, but the finish is soft and blendable, and the colours are gentle, pretty washes that are hard to get wrong. Their rose scent is blissful, reminiscent of the dusty, flowery interior of a great-granny’s hanky drawer, and among my all-time favourite beauty smells.
The Little Round Pot franchise has been expanded over the years to include creme blushers that are among the very best at any price, and the packaging updated from rococo cherub design cardboard to chintzy floral tin, to gold-stamped coloured Bakelite (the packaging I grew up with), and the more convenient mirrored snap-compact we see today. But what has remained throughout is the chubby, tactile shape and moreish shade line-up that make Bourjois Little Round Pots the kind of rainy lunchtime purchase that can keep a girl going until clock-out.
Evian Brumisateur
I must give props to Evian for somehow making a beauty icon of an almost laughably unnecessary product, but then the entire bottled water industry is based on turning a relatively free resource into a marketable commodity, so I guess popping water into an aerosol in the name of beauty was a fairly short leap for them to make. Yes, I am deeply cynical but yes, I am also no more immune to the hype than the next person. There was a time in my life when an Evian Brumisateur was all my heart desired. Magazines of the 1980s were always singing its praises, and if you were the kind of person who hoovered up every interview with make-up artists and beauty editors, you soon realised that this large can of water was in every industry kitbag.
Why? It’s a good question. The assertion by beauty professionals was that it ‘set’ make-up in place, though I’ve never personally found any evidence that this could be true, even over old-fashioned make-up formulas. It was also used to ‘freshen’ skin at the start of photo shoots, which is valid, if one has no access to a tap and an empty spray bottle, which admittedly were not as commonly available, and much less fine in the eighties (gardening sprays were more of a shower than a spritz). Where I can see the use for a Brumisateur is if you are working in some remote location, where cold water is scarce (the tin can tends to keep the water cooler), or if you are easily overheated – like in menopause – and you want something cooling and chemical-free in your handbag that won’t potentially cause any irritation.
In any case, Evian Brumisateur was successful in making itself a hugely desirable product, and in securing its place in every beauty junkie’s arsenal. I associate its packaging with the cluttered make-up table on countless photo shoots and filming sets and absolutely will concede that it launched an entire beauty category of facial spritzers, now a feature in most skincare brands with the addition of plant extracts, hyaluronic acid, glycerin and so on. I’ve also no doubt the dubious myth that a final spray of water locks make-up in place went on to inspire the development of true make-up fixing sprays like those by Urban Decay, MAC, NYX, Clarins and many others. But mostly I still see Evian’s original as little more than a status symbol born in an era obsessed with acquiring them. As with our obsession with buying wasteful plastic bottles of water in safe and plentiful supply from our own kitchen taps, I often think that future generations will look at Evian Brumisateur and wonder if ours had temporarily taken leave of its senses.
Benefit Benetint
Much like prawns, gin and bracelets, Benefit Benetint is something that looks so completely up my street, and yet, however persistently I try, I just can’t get onboard. My skin is too dry and too thirsty for this liquid rose-petal lip and cheek stain and so it sinks in well before I can blend it, and there it remains, like a clumsy Malbec spill on a white shag pile. On normals and oilies, Benetint is beautiful – but this isn’t the only reason I’m able to love it. Sometimes one quirky, interesting product can create enough mystique and ecstatic word of mouth, that it alone has the power to launch an empire – and never has that been more pleasingly demonstrated than here.
In 1977 an exotic dancer entered the tiny San Francisco beauty boutique of twins Jean and Jane Ford, and asked for something to stain her nipples (I do so enjoy hearing of a beauty gripe even I’d never considered), making them bright, perky and noticeable throughout a long show on a dark stage. The sisters took up the gauntlet and began experimenting in their kitchen, steaming real rose petals to create a deep, vivid red liquor to stain the skin. The liquid was poured in a tiny cork-stoppered glass bottle, hand-labelled with a naive line drawing of a single bloom, named ‘Rose Tint’ and delivered to the dancer. Needless to say, it was enthusiastically received, applied more widely than on the nips, and soon dozens of San Franciscan women wanted in.
Gradually, Benefit took off, arriving in the UK in the late nineties, where just a tiny handful of products were sold at Harrods. The press were captivated, the buzz about the by then repackaged and renamed Benetint in particular was huge. Now, Benefit is one of Britain’s top five bestselling colour brands. Some of their products are superb: they are particularly good at brows, bronzers and highlighters, but that original nipple tint remains its hero. When brushed onto the right skin and rubbed in with fingertips, it adds a pretty, effortless rose flush straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite watercolour that, sadly, I can only admire second-hand.
Mason Pearson Hairbrushes
I don’t know if you’ve ever sat in a hairdresser’s salon and witnessed your stylist find themselves temporarily unable to locate his or her Mason Pearson hairbrush, but I have on several occasions and can assure you it’s not pretty. Woe betide any chancer who attempted to make off with it. This is because a Mason Pearson rubber cushion brush remains, over 200 years after its original invention, the gold standard throughout the hairdressing world, with each owner feeling as attached to theirs as a chef to her favourite paring knife. I feel similarly about my own cherished brushes.
I encountered my first Mason Pearson at around six years old, when my aunt came to stay from London with a girlfriend who unpacked a large Mason Pearson and placed it ceremoniously on my tiny dressing table next to her Z-bed. Before then, I’d thought that hairbrushes were two quid jobs from the corner shop or chemist and associated them with tortuous and tear-filled detangling sessions in front of the fire – so fraught that my father once felt a yellow plastic handle, defeated by a knot as unyielding as a boulder, snap clean in half in my hair and sort of dangle, like Fay Wray in King Kong’s clutches. The Mason Pearson was different. Like the Mary Poppins of hairbrushes, it was firm, sturdy and no-nonsense but kind, modest and uncommonly elegant. Sadly, there was no way a family like ours could ever spend a week’s grocery money on a hairbrush, and so I had to wait until adulthood, when I was earning my own money and found myself in a traditional chemist in Mayfair ostensibly looking for Nurofen. That same 19-year-old ‘Handy’ sized Mason Pearson is still on my dressing table today, nobly doing its job, while an 8-year-old ‘Pocket’ size lives permanently in my handbag.
It’s endlessly satisfying to me that in an age of ceramic-barrelled, laser-cut, heated and rotating contraptions, this high-quality British-made icon prevails. Anyone who’s ever owned a Mason Pearson will know why. The weighty plastic handle (or a wooden one if you’re a purist – they’re still available on some models) feels smooth and solid in the hand, the bristles (natural bristle for fine hair, a bristle and nylon mix for normal hair, nylon bristles for thick and curly hair) glide through locks like a spoon through cream, gently massaging the scalp to dislodge dirt and distribute natural oils down the shaft, thus eliminating frizz. It backcombs brilliantly, neither scratches nor pulls, tames hair without causing static, and dries fringes or bangs better than anything (just pull the brush back and forth across your forehead while the dryer nozzle points downward). The Mason Pearson can also be used on children’s hair (I invariably buy the child’s size as christening gifts) without them wailing from bath to bedtime. The brush itself is extremely easy – and satisfying – to clean with a sturdy wide-toothed comb.
Of course, any Mason Pearson owner would be lying if they claimed not to have been drawn, at least in part, to its heirloom-worthy looks. The signature gold-blocked ‘Dark Ruby’ (black on first glance, a gemstone red when held up to the light) handle and orange rubber cushion make it utilitarian but elegant, and recognisable the world over. And despite the incomparability of the Mason Pearson, so many are still trying to copy it, even marking up the already painful price point. It’s wholly unseemly and I reject them utterly.
Clairol Herbal Essences
Let’s be perfectly honest, there’s nothing exceptional or special about Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner. They smell rather lovely, they do the job perfectly well, they come at a great price point, can be bought anywhere and their name sounds pleasingly like a reggae compilation album circa 1973. What makes them iconic is a single marketing campaign, conceived as a do-or-die last-chance saloon for a tired-looking haircare franchise at Clairol, at a time when Herbal Essences was a generic family haircare brand with no USP to speak of. By the late 1990s, beauty brands using natural plant extracts were a dime to a dozen, many of them doing it more thoroughly and more authentically. Herbal Essences had always been marketed at everyone, and thereby appealed to no one.
Ad execs decided to give the brand a boot up the backside with a campaign zoning in on women rather than the entire family. Borrowing heavily from Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally, the groundbreaking new campaign featured women, standing alone in the shower, loudly climaxing as they lathered up with Herbal Essences shampoo, suggesting that this run-of-the-mill brand was far from an unremarkable, stuffy seventies relic, but a ‘totally orgasmic’ experience. The ads were pretty tame – cheeky rather than softly pornographic – but for a generation of women who’d grown up in token sex education classes without ever hearing mention of the female orgasm, they represented a sea-change in middle-of-the-road beauty advertising and marketing. Herbal Essences was no longer about the dutiful housewife leaning over the bath to wash her children’s hair while a chicken roasted in the oven, it was a brand for women and recognised their need for ‘me time’ (I promise I will never use this mortifying expression again). Of course, the campaign rather overstated the product’s effects – unless a woman was to be more imaginative with the water hose, a shower with Herbal Essences was unlikely to yield greater results than cleaner hair. And it’s true that after we became inured to the original gimmick, and other brands pushed the envelope further, Clairol was back to square one. We now lived in a world where reality TV stars had sex on telly and defecated in front of six hidden cameras.
In the mid-noughties, P&G, having acquired Clairol, redesigned and relaunched Herbal Essences, scrapping the pastel bottles and Totally Orgasmic Experience in favour of lurid brights and a red carpet-wannabe message. These effects were also short-lived. A few years later, P&G rightly went back to the old, by now iconic bottles and smells. Where that leaves Herbal Essences is anyone’s guess. Where it perhaps leaves women is with little more than sexual frustration and a pleasant, vaguely chemical herbal scent.
Old Spice
Old Spice Original, launched in 1938, is the smell from the backseat of my grandad’s brown Austin Allegro as he drove me to Little Chef for the giddy treat of jumbo cod, chips, banana split and a free lollipop for clearing my plate. Its warm, not-too-strong but lasting spiciness is the smell of day trips to Tenby, of candy-stripe brushed flannel sheets from the market, of a tiny metalwork room made from a cubby-hole under the stairs. It’s the smell of the armchair where we took Sunday naps during the rugby, had cuddles and belly laughs in front of Victoria Wood’s As Seen On TV, where my grandad sat patiently as I stood on a stool behind him, tying bows, plaits, jewels and fancy clips in his white hair, not giving a damn if he had to answer the door for the postman.
Old Spice is the scent of him trying to teach me long division when everyone else had long ago lost patience, of very gentle flirting with the checkout ladies at Kwiksave, of seemingly endless chats with every Indian and Pakistani immigrant in Blackwood to practise his beloved Urdu and Burmese learned during the Second World War in Burma. It’s the smell that filled a silent room whenever I asked what had happened to his friends there. Old Spice is the smell of his old shirt worn over my ra-ra dress to wash the car, of well-thumbed Robert Ludlum novels, of huge cotton handkerchiefs, of an often empty wallet, of the green zip-up anorak bought via twenty weekly payments from the Peter Craig catalogue. Old Spice was there when J.R. Ewing was shot, when I first saw Madonna on Top of the Pops, when the miners went back to work and when we sat under blankets at military tattoos, both of us weeping like newborns. Its absence was felt acutely when I last saw his face, eyes closed in the room of a hospice; when I got married and when my babies were born.
Clearly, I’m too sentimental about Old Spice for my opinion to be truly objective, but unlike so many other scents of my youth, I believe Old Spice Original (not its newer, nastier incarnations) is still a gorgeous fragrance in its own right. It’s neither ironic nor retro, just a wholly pleasant blend of nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, star anise, exotic jasmine, warm vanilla and sweet geranium, packaged in one of the most beautiful perfume bottles of all time. For the world’s bestselling mass-market fragrance, and an indisputable beauty and grooming icon, Old Spice Original still feels like a very unique and personal affair. I revere it for many reasons, but not least because, as its early ad campaign asserted, ‘You probably wouldn’t be here if your grandfather hadn’t worn Old Spice’.
OPI I’m Not Really A Waitress
I give huge credit to OPI for creating a polish that in many ways has become as standard a red as that of London buses, award season carpets, Welsh Guards, the stripes on American flags and the coats on Chelsea Pensioners. It is consistently at number one across OPI’s shades and, cumulatively, is officially the brand’s bestselling lacquer of all time. For a polish launched as late as 1999, I’m Not Really a Waitress has certainly got around. Apart from being the go-to red for TV and film make-up artists who love its dense, multi-dimensional finish (it shows up really well on camera without stealing the scene), I’m Not Really a Waitress has featured as the $16,000 question on the US version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, been used as the colour reference point for a red Dell laptop and has won the Reader’s Choice Favourite Nail Colour Award in Allure magazine a staggering nine years on the skip. The seal on its iconic status: the Urban Dictionary even recognises I’m Not Really a Waitress as ‘The specific color of red nail polish that is used in countless movies and commercials for its sheer mass appeal’.
I agree that the key to its success is that I’m Not Really a Waitress truly looks good on everyone, and with everything. It’s a ruby slippers red that flatters black, brown, yellow, pink and white skins equally, and layers very well for greater depth. It looks expensive and neat, leaving nails like the bonnet of a metallic red Porsche. The sparkling – but not glittery – finish makes it glamorous enough for parties (it’s my default Christmas polish – so festive and jolly) but restrained enough for work meetings. The unforgettable if slightly annoying name also helps. Launched originally for OPI’s Hollywood Collection, the name – typical of the brand’s quirky wordplay – is a homage to wannabe movie stars making rent by waiting tables while they wait for their big break. And so it’s fitting, really, that I’m Not Really a Waitress has ended up making so many uncredited appearances in big Hollywood blockbusters.
Pantene Shampoo
I’m sent every conceivable hair product, including luxury shampoos costing upwards of £30, but there are times when nothing hits the spot like a two quid bottle of Pantene. There’s something about its mass-market chemical fragrance that has been weirdly sexy to me from the first time I encountered it in the 1980s, then allowing me to overlook its pretty revolting, albeit hugely successful, advertising slogan of ‘Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful’. Everyone used Pantene in those days (I once found myself in a famous supermodel’s bathroom and, not entirely without effort, discovered several Pantene bottles on the go). Personally, it was never my favourite shampoo and isn’t now. But it’s certainly more than serviceable, especially over periods of four to five weeks’ use (after that, it can be prone to causing build-up and lankness and will need to be swapped for a bit – unless you’re using the new-ish silicone-free version, where the problem is largely eradicated).
There’s more to Pantene than shampoo and conditioner, though, of course. The entire brand is based on the discovery in the 1940s by scientists at Swiss drug company Hoffmann-La Roche, that panthenol, a pro-vitamin of B5, had ‘healing effects’ on damaged hair. The Pantene brand – much posher in those days – was born and today (under the different ownership of P&G) there are dozens of hair conditioning products under its umbrella: decent masks, hairsprays and mousses for every hair type, and the world’s first 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner (it was not, contrary to assumptions, Vidal Sassoon’s Wash & Go), all of them built around the same key ingredient of panthenol. Perhaps more relevant to my interests is the continuity throughout the line of that same unmistakable fragrance. It has the sweet, addictive, unisex scent I now think of as the generic smell of ‘clean hair’. I can’t imagine there’ll ever be a time I no longer crave it.
SK-II Facial Treatment Essence
When the SK-II brand arrived in Britain in the late 1990s, packaged in minimalist glass bottles and tubes, with little to no enclosed information, at an almost unprecedented price point, I’m afraid I largely ignored it on the basis that it seemed impenetrable and to fancy itself a bit too much. A few years later, make-up legend Mary Greenwell told me that her regular client Cate Blanchett absolutely swore by it and so, given that Blanchett has skin like vellum, it seemed mad not to at least give it a whirl. Despite my former misgivings, I loved it and was newly intrigued by its philosophy. I won’t tell it as wistfully nor as reverently as intended, but here goes: a little over thirty years ago, scientists observed that elderly workers in Japanese sake breweries had wrinkled faces but astonishingly soft, youthful, line-free hands. They analysed the fermentation liquid with which the workers were in constant physical contact, and after countless tests, they found the answer in a unique yeast strain they named Pitera. The ingredient, rich in over fifty minerals, organic acids, vitamins and amino acids, would form the basis of every product in SK-II, a new luxury anti-ageing skincare brand.
But in hindsight, the even bigger story was in the Japanese skincare rituals SK-II demanded. This was not your traditional Western cleanse, tone, moisturise-type deal. The two-step SK-II cleansing ritual alone took longer. What followed it was the cornerstone of the entire SK-II philosophy: Facial Treatment Essence. This is a treatment liquid (not a toner) containing over 90 per cent pure Pitera, applied directly to clean skin with either fingertips or a cotton disc. It was the first of its kind, and undoubtedly inspired the huge number of Japanese-style treatment essences we see in the West today. The act of double cleansing (not that I think it particularly necessary myself) is now the gold standard for many skincare fans, and the multi-step morning and night ritual is regarded by many as a perfectly normal and pleasurable way to spend the best part of an hour. For better or worse, SK-II certainly helped nudge us eastwards.
Bic Razor
It’s a bit odd, when you think about it, for a company’s two best known products to be a razor – and a pen. But such unlikely portfolio-mates make a lot more sense when you consider their common defining feature: cheap chuckability. Bic’s pens arrived first – a fabulous moment in company history coming after the war when Mr Bic (actually Marcel Bich) pleasingly bought the patent for the ballpoint pen from Mr Biro. Bich improved the design of the pen while dramatically lowering the price through mass production, and Bic’s brand value was born.
So when the company launched the iconic white and orange plastic disposable razor in 1975, it wasn’t the continuation of a heritage brand, the product of time-served artisans who’d been hand-crafting steel blades since the court of Louis XIV. It was a shrewd move by a company who knew how to make cheap stuff out of plastic and had spotted a way to make shaving one step less fiddly. Up to that point, cartridges had evolved to become both safer and more easily exchanged, but Bic’s disposable razor was the first that invited the user to bin the entire device. A minimalist design classic, the featureless T of the Bic razor offers no comfortable grip, no reassuring weight, no decoration.
But long superseded as it may be by multiple blades, multi-directional tilting heads and gel strips (and my legs certainly prefer them to a common Bic), there’s still an undoubted appeal to a razor you can buy in big bags like potatoes, grab one as needed, use once and throw away with minimal guilt. The more expensive and many-featured the modern blade, the greater the obligation to rinse and reuse, to tease out stubborn shavings from between the blades, to ignore the faded aloe strip and convince yourself there’re still two good shaves in it. Bic’s one-shave stand was revolutionary, its convenience for sleepovers, holidays and pre-payday frugality, deathless. The disposable razor is rightly considered not only a beauty icon, but one of the greatest single inventions of all time.
Nivea Creme
It seems that the more expensive and luxurious the skincare product I recommend (and I do so sparingly and with a sense of responsibility) in my journalism, the more likely it is for some wearyingly furious person to crash into my Twitter feed and tell me that her granny died at 109, with not a single wrinkle on her face, all thanks to carbolic soap and a daily spread of good old-fashioned Nivea Creme. This pure white multi-purpose moisturiser (named Nivea after the Latin word for snow), essentially unchanged for over a hundred years, has become the sort of figurehead for unfussy, no-nonsense beauty, devoid of vanity or frippery, the kind of unpretentious preparation that makes fools of the competition and its users. This, as well as being absurd – there’s nothing wrong with spending your own money on whatever you like – also rather sells Nivea short, because it was quite the cutting-edge skincare in its day and as a brand has continued to innovate ever since.
Nivea (part of the Beiersdorf company from day one) was the first mass-produced stable oil- and-water-based cream and remained the company’s sole product for many years, but from the Second World War onwards the brand rolled out many great products like body lotion, shaving cream, oil, shampoo and, later, the excellent male grooming, anti-ageing and suncare ranges we see today (I go nowhere in summer without Nivea’s ingenious handbag-sized tube of SPF30). But far from feeling irked by the anti-beauty brigade’s weapon of choice, I am cheered by the original Nivea Creme’s continued existence. It’s a lovely, sturdy little product for ungreasily moisturising and softening dry hands, arms, legs and feet. If you suffer no adverse effects from paraffin derivatives, there’s nothing to stop you wearing it on your face (the velvety finish makes for a surprisingly decent make-up base, as it happens). And despite Nivea Creme’s reputation for simplicity, it has perhaps the most beautiful fragrance on all the high street. It smells clean, slightly beeswaxy and super feminine – very similar, in fact, to Nina Ricci’s L’Air du Temps, only for less than the price of a Sunday newspaper.
Johnson’s No More Tears
My love of this product is merely notional, since I don’t recall ever having it in the house as a child, despite two babies arriving after me. Johnson’s baby shampoo – the first shampoo to utilise amphoretic cleansing agents, so gentle that they lightly cleaned without stinging the eyes – seemed like something owned by the kind of family who probably had a purpose-decorated nursery, a wallpaper border to match the Moses basket, a savings account opened and a school place lined up for a newborn. It wasn’t for big chaotic families like ours, prone to bathing babies in the kitchen sink, complete with Fairy Liquid bubble beard and reachable access to the bread knife.
It was decades later that I finally used No More Tears to wash my make-up brushes, the popular opinion being that it didn’t strip and dry out the bristles. I’m no longer convinced that it’s the best substance for such a job (I use any non-moisturising shampoo that happens to be in the shower), since No More Tears’ very mild cleansing action is aimed at babies who are barely dirty to begin with, never mind caked in old foundation and powder, but it’s true that if your brushes are used rarely or lightly, or your hair is pretty clean, then No More Tears will spruce up hairs nicely. The bright yellow formula, as you might expect, rinses quickly and smells deliciously of babies – sweet, comforting and cosy – and the pebble-shaped bottle is pleasingly unmodernised.
I bought some in readiness for my first baby, when just owning the right supplies made me feel in control, and whenever I used it I momentarily felt like a proper mum despite the fact that I was entirely at sea. And maybe that is exactly why Johnson’s No More Tears baby shampoo has been an unwavering, deeply loved icon since 1936. When the disorientating, confusing, guilt-ridden and anxious, albeit ultimately wonderful, experience of motherhood strikes, it stands nobly by the side of the bath, as reassuringly experienced as a nanny, making one feel as though everything will be okay.
Crème De La Mer
If I had a penny for every time someone sidled up to me at a function, found out what I do, and asked me, ‘Is Crème de la Mer really worth all that money?’, then I’d have enough cash to swim in the stuff. The expectation is that I’ll say either that this super-expensive moisturiser is miraculous and life-changing, or that it’s rubbish and dishonest (and you’ll find plenty of reviews online of people taking one of these two extreme positions). The reality, for me at least, is a tad more nuanced. Crème de la Mer was invented over fifty years ago by aerospace physicist Dr Max Huber, after he’d suffered burns in a laboratory accident and wanted to improve his scarred, damaged skin. He became obsessed with the way natural sea kelp retained moisture and regenerated itself and hand-harvested and fermented supplies for his experiments. He turned the fermented kelp into what he nicknamed ‘Miracle Broth’, combined it with simple skincare ingredients for minimal irritation, and Crème de la Mer was born. It’s a romantic story, but in beauty those are ten a penny.
What people really want to know is if it works. For me, I have to say in all honesty that it broadly does. My super-dry skin looks better when I use it. People invariably tell me I look well by the time I’m a third of the way into a jar. On the rare occasions I’ve experienced an allergic reaction to something else I’ve been testing, an instant switchover to Crème de la Mer (with Clarins SOS serum underneath) has metaphorically put out the fire in days. Friends who’ve undergone chemo tell me with utter conviction that it’s all their skin could tolerate at the height of related dryness and sensitivity (though I am certain some people would react to the inclusion of eucalyptus oil). I’m sure many would argue convincingly that this is psychosomatic, but I personally don’t think that matters in the least (if, God forbid, I’m ever seriously ill, I’ll want things that make me feel nice as much as I’ll want things that make me feel better, and woe betide anyone who preachily shoves Vaseline under my nose and tells me to use that instead).
Personally, I use this simple, uncomplicated, pleasurable cream as a skin saver when things go pear-shaped, not as a daily moisturiser, and certainly not as an anti-ageing cream. I suggest people should manage their expectations on that score – this is not a wrinkle cream, or an exfoliant, or an antioxidant of any remarkable merit. It’s a softening, soothing, rich, buttery moisturiser that looks and feels luxurious. You can certainly do as well for much less money and those with oily or combination skin are unlikely to find the original Crème suits them (bafflingly, it contains mineral oil. Some of the other products in the range, like the oil, do not). But nonetheless Crème de la Mer is an icon. Its launch, cachet and subsequent success absolutely marked a sea change in skincare – perhaps an unwelcome one, since in terms of exclusivity and high price point, it’s now far from unique – and, I think, helped spark an increased public interest in skincare. ‘It-creams’ (a term invented by the media for Crème de la Mer, but applied at one time to any cream over £50 – oh, but were that still exceptional) now exist in the portfolio of almost every luxury brand, and yet truly there is still no product more coveted, more intriguing to the average consumer after all these years, than Crème. So there is my answer. Imagine how many polite party-goers wish they’d never asked.
Head & Shoulders
I knew about Head & Shoulders before I even knew what dandruff was. The weird vase-shaped bottle lived around our bath and on TV commercials featuring brooding male models slowly raking their side partings to reveal for the camera an infestation of props department snow. They’d then lather one side of their scalp with Head & Shoulders, the other with a generic shampoo, the miraculous results shown on split-screen TV. It wasn’t until secondary school, and I discovered the pitfalls of wearing the regulation black cardigan, that I realised why – a few Timotei fanciers aside – seemingly everyone used Head & Shoulders. And it’s a credit to P&G’s clever marketing that a potentially embarrassing problem like dandruff became so normalised that the shampoo was such an accepted mainstream beauty staple. Celebrities such as Jeff Daniels, Ulrika Jonsson, Sofia Vergara, Jenson Button and now premiership goalkeeper Joe Hart have all cheerfully cashed a cheque regardless of the inherent implication they have scalp fungus. And why not?
Head & Shoulders is still the world’s bestselling shampoo, still has a strong, slightly chalky whiff of big box washing powder, and to give credit where it’s most due, it still works – with a couple of caveats. Head & Shoulders uses zinc pyrithione to control the levels of micro-organisms on the scalp (the most common form of dandruff comes from yeast growing in skin sebum) and so can only do its job for as long as you’re using it. If you stop, or dramatically cut down, your dandruff will return. And back to my school cardigan: I soon found that Head & Shoulders had little or no effect on me, because I didn’t have traditional dandruff from oiliness and sebum. I just had a dry scalp. If you’re the same, seek out a shampoo – preferably sulphate-free – for this specific problem and treat your scalp to the odd olive oil massage the night before shampooing. You’ll see much lighter snowfall.
Lancôme Hypnôse Mascara
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it previously, but I hate most mascaras. Which is an inconvenience if you’d sooner saw off your big toe than never wear it again. My issue with it is that it’s not good enough. I so often despair of how little progress the industry has made over the years in developing just one mascara that does everything I want: separate, curl, define, darken, thicken, lengthen, lift, stay, remove. On shoots, make-up artists will invariably use several different mascaras on just one model. Maybe a Maybelline to build up, a little Tom Ford to kick out at the sides, some MAC Gigablack to really blacken, some Kevyn Aucoin tubing to lock the whole thing down … Now brands are pushing this whole (potentially very lucrative) mascara portfolio nonsense, but really, who on earth has the time? I’m lucky to get two coats on between Brighton and Hayward’s Heath, never mind rustle around for different wands for different jobs.
But what I’ve found, time and time again, when looking into the make-up bags of industry figures as pushed for time and space as the rest of us, is this. When it comes to mascara, most experts will agree that Lancôme is a safe pair of hands. They know their mascara better than almost anyone and for a number of years were head and shoulders above the competition. They make no attempt at subtlety (natural-looking mascaras are the chocolate teapot of beauty), but go all out for the kind of fluttery, separated and thickened lashes most of us desire. The formula of Hypnôse is neither wet and messy, nor dry and spiky. It stays fresh for longer, the expertly designed brush coats each and every lash perfectly. The black is real black, not some insipid shade the colour of a faded sock. It is probably the best we have.
Vaseline Petroleum Jelly
In terms of iconography, Vaseline is the Campbell’s soup tin, Coke can or Brillo pad box of beauty. Practically everyone owns it, and those who don’t could readily identify its blue-capped jar – and probably list at least five uses for its contents, some of them downright filthy. Robert Augustus Chesebrough, a 22-year-old British chemist, could not have conceived of such success when he invented Vaseline by chance in 1859. He was visiting a Pennsylvania town where petroleum had recently been discovered. He became intrigued by the by-product of the oil-drilling process and observed the oil workers rubbing drill residue into their cuts and burns to heal them. Inspired, he triple-distilled it, cleaning out impurities (Vaseline is still the only petroleum jelly that goes through this process), perfecting the formula over ten years. He then opened a factory in New York and got on his horse and cart to sell his ‘Wonder Jelly’ to the public (mainly by burning himself with acid before an audience, then smearing the wound with it, like some sort of lunatic).
It was a massive success. He renamed it, expanded his distribution, and soon found himself at the helm of a large beauty brand, growing by the month. His petroleum jelly was taken by explorers on the first successful expedition to the North Pole (on account of it not freezing), was made standard issue for US soldiers in the trenches of the First World War, coated special healing gauze for use on the front line during the Second World War, and was stocked in both hospitals and home first-aid kits. A tub of Vaseline is sold every thirty-nine seconds somewhere in the world, and is utilised in a vast petroleum-based product range. Poured into a tin it becomes Vaseline Lip Therapy, the world’s biggest lip brand. Whipped with glycerin into lotion, it becomes Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion, the first port of call for many dry skin sufferers. In beauty alone, it has endless applications. It slicks down unruly brows, adds sheen to cheekbones, mixes with any powder to become coloured gloss, adds shine to legs, removes old glue from false lashes, blends with sugar to act as a lip scrub, diverts self-tan headed for dry spots, and lines cuticles to prevent nail polish migration. It is never missing from photo shoots, where in the past it even greased up camera lenses to give film stars a misty, otherworldly glow.
I myself am not the biggest fan of paraffins and mineral oil in expensive products (although my skin doesn’t particularly object to them). I believe that brands expecting you to spend big bucks on skincare should first dig deep into their own pockets and use much nicer plant oils that won’t cause breakouts. But in products as cheap as Vaseline, I’m more charitable, if not a particularly committed user myself. There’s an honesty here. What you see is what you get – a cheap, greasy petroleum jelly that fulfils its promise to temporarily moisturise, lubricate and seal. It is deeply unpretentious, egalitarian, often appropriate and much loved by millions. In my view, there are now far better products for each one of its uses. But none that do all of them at once, and certainly none as truly iconic.
Maybelline Great Lash
In the early 1900s T.L. Williams made, from dyes and Vaseline, a mascara for his little sister Maybel, and called it Lash-Brow-Ine. The solid, cake formula was to name and launch the Maybelline brand, but its enduring status as the high street/drugstore mascara specialist came via Great Lash in 1971. If I was asked to close my eyes and think of a mascara, I’d see the gaudy hot pink and lurid green of Great Lash. Its iconic status is in part down to this packaging (virtually unchanged since launch), so far along the trashy and kitsch continuum that it emerges completely fabulous at the other end. But there’s more about Great Lash than an instantly recognisable tube. It is the one mascara one unfailingly sees on photo shoots, television make-up room tables or film sets.
There are several reasons for this: it’s proper, opaque, dark soot-black, not that semi-transparent dirty puddle shade so woefully common in cheaper mascaras. Also, the brush (any good mascara is a 50/50 combination of formula and brush shape) can be manoeuvred into the deepest set eyes, along even the puniest lashes to give excellent definition. Its finish is slightly wet-looking, its formula is thin enough to be layered ad infinitum like mattresses atop the princess’s pea, until lashes are thick and spiky, like sixties Twiggy’s. It doesn’t go crunchy, dry or flake onto cheeks.
It isn’t the mascara I unfailingly turn to by any means (it doesn’t quickly give the dramatic, kittenish lashes so many of us crave, and it smudges on me – but then so do 95 per cent of all mascaras), but undeniably it represents a starting point for most of what came after. The original cake may be long gone, but Great Lash, along with Full ’n’ Soft (a more natural-looking mascara, woefully unavailable in the UK – do try it if ever Stateside), remain, as do various Great Lash spin-offs, including a waterproof formula. I’m glad original Great Lash remains relatively untouched, as it should.
Kiehl’s Creme De Corps
I could have chosen any one of a handful of iconic products from cool New York apothecary brand Kiehl’s. Creme With Silk Groom, the hairstyling cream so loved by session hairdressers to give sleek, ungreasy definition to shorter styles and crazy curls, perhaps (not that I have ever in my life got to grips with it). Or Blue Astringent Herbal Lotion, a potent toner that makes you momentarily brace. Certainly Kiehl’s lip balm qualifies easily, since so many beauty fans, myself included, made pilgrimages to London’s Liberty or Harvey Nichols to pick up a tube before Kiehl’s was on every high street. But from all of Kiehl’s products, I’ve concluded that the true icon is Creme de Corps, the celebrated cocoa butter and sesame oil body cream, loved for its richness and superior moisturising on very dry skin.
This thick, custardy cream, smelling weirdly, but pleasingly, like the paint in a primary school craft lesson, was among the first products developed by Irving Morse, the Russian-Jewish immigrant who bought the original East Village Kiehl’s apothecary-style store in 1921. It has remained a Kiehl’s bestseller ever since. It’s a fairly uncompromising product that relies on word of mouth among dry and sensitive skin sufferers. Even on the thirstiest skins, rubbing it in can be like kneading dough, and if you’re sitting on a nice white towel at the time, you can expect it to be stained temporarily with crème brûlée smears and blotches (it’s only the beta carotene and nothing more sinister). But the results are fabulous: skin is sort of cocooned in rich moisture, not greasy and grubby-feeling. It’s very good at giving shins an even, very slightly shiny finish, and at improving the look of blotchy upper arms. It’s great for post-tattoo healing and on babies and children with eczema and other dry skin conditions (oh, that I’d had Creme de Corps as a kid). It’s the loveliest product to slather thickly on post-bath skin, then get into clean pyjamas and a freshly made bed, phone on divert, massive mug of tea and a remote control at one’s side.
There’s a whipped version in a tub, though I’ve had much less success with it. It has a more matte finish but starts to bobble and peel away if you massage too hard. There’s a lighter version too, though I feel it rather misses the point of Creme de Corps, which is to baste skin in rich, fatty moisture (oily or normal skins might as well get something cheap). But the original bottled Creme is still absolutely wonderful on my dry skin. Regular use certainly improves skin condition over time, but it’s what I use occasionally when I’m going somewhere special, when I want my bodycare to hold up to a posh perfume, blow dry, make-up and frock. Because Creme de Corps is an expensive treat, albeit one that goes an awfully long way. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can get round the problem by buying cheaply from eBay. Kiehl’s simple packaging (unless one of the very lovely limited edition Creme de Corps designs) is way too easy for counterfeiters to mimic and you end up with something similar to UHT milk tinted with yellow food colouring. I bear the mental scars.
Eucerin Aquaphor
Having spent my childhood coated in thick, unctuous petroleum-based lotions in a host of generic white bottles, itching like mad and being teased mercilessly by classmates, I really should hate Eucerin. It’s an unsexy, slightly joyless brand that makes skincare feel like a chore not the pleasure it can be. And yet weirdly, it has slipped past my firewall against mineral oil-rich pharmacy-shelf brands, and somehow occupied a place close to my heart. There are some excellent products in the range, some of which I’ve been recommending for many years. The Hyaluron Filler serum and creams, for example, are brilliant on dry and dehydrated skin, plumping up lines and restoring some perk.
But Eucerin’s icon comes in the form of Aquaphor, an ointment used widely since 1925 in medicine and in homes, nicknamed ‘The Duct Tape of dermatology’ by the very many doctors who swear by it. For them, Aquaphor’s appeal lies in its ‘semi-occlusive’ formula, meaning that while it traps in moisture and provides a barrier against germs, it still allows oxygen and moisture to reach the skin to aid wound healing. For beauty lovers, Aquaphor offers uncommon versatility. It works as an excellent humectant on dry lips, wind-chapped limbs and cuticles, as a tamer of brows and a subtle gloss for mouth and cheeks, a curer of nappy rash, and as a handy barrier against hair dye staining (just apply it around the hairline before mixing the colourant, then leave it until you’ve done your final rinse). It contains mineral oil, and so I wouldn’t recommend it as a face cream – although plenty happily use it as one without breakouts or irritation – but regardless of skin type, it’s well worth keeping a tube in your bathroom for all else.
