History of mascara dates back to early 18c [audio 5min]

The story goes that mascara, as we know it today, was invented by one TL Williams, who, as a boy, used to sit and watch his sister Mabel applying petroleum jelly to her lashes with her index finger. Inspired, he went on to formulate a special goo for our lashes, which, in honour of his sister, he named Maybelline. In the next of our series on the history of cosmetics, Anna McNamee hears from the archaeologist Sally Pointer and the London College of Fashion's senior lecturer in cosmetics science, Anne Emblem, to discover why, when it comes to our expectations of mascara, packaging is everything. Pointer is author of The Artifice of Beauty (Sutton Publishing Ltd).