Talking point
What inspired the smokey eye? When did we start wearing sunscreen? Our whistlestop tour charts pivotal beauty moments of the past 10 decades (spoiler alert: the Ancient Egyptians and car paint played a greater role than you might think…)
IN 1922 TUTANKHAMUN’S TOMB PUTS ALL EYES ON LINER
Post-war beauty was discreet, with makeup not meant to be noticed. The 1920s brought decorative compacts, retractable lipsticks, and (gasp!) the suntan, with Tut-mania – the craze for all things Ancient Egyptian – propelling copious amounts of kohl on to modern faces for the first time. The smokey eye became a staple ‘super-flapper’ look and has gone from strength to strength, with a dramatic liner revival in full fling today.
IN 1934 NAIL POLISH SEES RED
Early liquid lacquers were translucent, but by the 1930s, polish had become scarlet and opaque, inspired by developments in car paint. The mani moments kept on coming: 1950s screen stars popularised matching lips and nails; French tips appeared in 1975, and in 1994, colours became cults in their own right when Chanel launched almostblack Rouge Noir. As for acrylics, iterations go back to 1954, with UV-cured gels appearing in the 1980s, and CND’s Shellac in 2010.
IN 1944 HERE COMES THE SUN(SCREEN)
If there’s one innovation we’re particularly thankful for, it’s the cocoa butter and petroleum mix that made up one of sunscreen’s earliest prototypes (soon to be made lovelier to use by the addition of coconut and jasmine). It was followed with the introduction of Piz Buin’s specialist suncare range and SPF ratings in the 1960s, now a key feature of our daily routines.
IN 1953 YOUTH-DEW CAUSES A FRAGRANT STIR
When savvy beauty entrepreneur Estée Lauder launched a bath oil that doubled up as perfume, she gave respectable women permission to choose their own scent instead of waiting for their husbands to buy them a bottle. She kick-started what is now a £28bn pound industry*, and today we not only buy our own perfume but make it, too, with more female brand founders, technicians and ‘noses’ than ever.
IN 1963 VIDAL SASSOON PICKS UP HIS SCISSORS
The shocking crops of the 1920s gave the hairdressing industry its first big boost. The bob came back to similarly galvanising effect in the Sixties. Revolutionising women’s beauty routines with his ‘wash and wear’ cuts, Vidal Sassoon put British hairdressing on the map, paved the way for future celebrity stylists such as Trevor Sorbie, John Frieda and Charlotte Mensah, and put cool – but affordable – haircare on the high street.
IN 1971 WE’RE ALL ‘WORTH IT’
The iconic phrase is more radical than you might think. In a world dominated by male marketeers (think TV series Mad Men), ‘becaus
