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