Cosmetics timeline

1900: Black entrepreneur Annie Turnbo begins selling hair treatments, including non-damaging hair straighteners, hair growers, and hair conditioners door-to-door.

1904: Max Factor migrates from Lodz, Poland, to the United States, and four years later to Los Angeles, where he sells make-up to movie stars that does not cake or crack.

1905: Sarah McWilliams begins to sell a hair grower door-to-door. After she married Charles J. Walker, she became known as Madam C.J. Walker and incorporated her company in Indianapolis in 1911.

1909: French chemist Eugene Schueller develops the first safe commercial hair dye. In 1910, he names his company L'Oreal.

1909: Florence Graham and cosmetologist Elizabeth Hubbard open a salon on Fifth Avenue in New York, which Graham will rename Elizabeth Arden. a one-step hair colouring product.

By 1909 Selfridges opened in London's Oxford Street and they openly sold cosmetics. Cosmetics displays were openly visible to the customers and were no longer hidden under the counter.

1922: The bobby pin is invented to manage short (bobbed) hair.

1914: T.J. Williams founds Maybelline, which specializes in mascara.

1915: lipstick is introduced in cylindrical metal tubes. rs.

In the 1920s make up began to be used again after many years of not being used. In addition, the inter war years showed a great advance in the development of cosmetics. Elizabeth Arden developed cleansing and nourishing creams, tonics and lotions. At the same time Helena Rubenstein was developing creams to protect the face from the sun. This was welcomed in an era when sun worshipping made fashionable by Coco Chanel, was becoming a craze. Later Rubenstein also began to manufacture face powders and lipsticks. Less makeup was worn in the 1920s than in the 1930s, as youth demanded naturalness and slimming to obtain the boyish silhouette advised in magazines.

1922: the bobby pin is invented to manage short (bobbed) hair.

1930s: lipstick grew redder throughout the 1930s changing colour every year. Lipstick was applied quite thickly. One daily paper commented that kissing had gone out of fashion due to the high cost of lipstick. But lipstick in the 1930s produced an undesirable stain and Oxblood a favourite colour may well have been the cause of such a remark.

Fingernails became scarlet and were grown to extreme length, whilst toenails were contrasted in pink nail enamel. On the cheeks and ear lobes rouge was worn. Eyebrows were plucked to a thinner line in the 1930s than the 1920s. Sometimes they were completely plucked to a thin pencil line substitute; some women even shaved them with disastrous end results as the brows never grew back. There was also a fashion for false eyelashes.

1932: Charles and Joseph Revson, nail polish distributors, and Charles Lackman, a nail polish supplier, found Revlon, which sells nail polish in a wide variety of colours.

1932: Lawrence Gelb, a New York chemist, brings home from Paris a hair colour product that penetrates the hair shaft, and starts a company called Clairol. He opens a company named after the product, Clairol. In 1950, he introduces Miss Clairol Hair Colour Bath, a one-step hair colouring product.

1933: a new method for permanent waving, using chemicals, which doesn't require electricity or machines, is introduced.

1935: pan-cake makeup, originally developed to look natural on colour film, was created by Max Factor.

1940s makeup was kept to a minimum due to a shortage of constituents and the seeming frivolity of its use. However hairstyles and the variety of looks they produced were very important. The influence of film stars helped make fashionable, styles such as the Veronica Lake style.

1941: aerosols are patented, paving the way for hair spray.

1950s colour films made an enormous impact on cosmetics. The huge cinema screens illuminated the unblemished appearance of stars and caused the make up artist Max Factor to invent an everyday version of the foundation he used called “Pan Cake”. This was a makeup to gloss over skin imperfections. He also brought out a range of eye shadows and lipsticks. Later in the 50s titanium was added to tone down the brightness of products and this resulted in lips with a pale shimmering gleam. The idea was extended to create frosted nail varnishes of pink, silver and a host of other colours.

1958: Mascara wands debut, eliminating the need for applying mascara with a brush.

1961: Cover Girl make-up, one of the first brands sold in grocery stores and targeted to teens, is introduced by Noxema.

1963: Revlon offers the first powdered blush-on.

1960s: in the late 50s the make up company Gala had introduced pale shimmering lipsticks with added titanium. Later Max Factor brought out a colour called Strawberry Meringue which was a pastel pearly pink. They really caught on in the sixties as young girls were frowned upon if they wore brazen red lips, so the softened pink and peach colours were acceptable initially to parents, but then became a trend.

Magazines taught step by step how to use recently introduced lip brushes and young girls began to blend and mix their own lip colours often having first blotted the lips out with Max Factor Pancake make up. Nail polish followed a similar trend with pastel pearl colours being the rage.

Eyes were a main focus and once the film Cleopatra was released showing Elizabeth Taylor with very emphasised eyes everyone learnt to apply eyeliner and socket lines. The models Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy (Leslie Hornby) along with the actress Julie Christie all with their lined eye sockets captured the look that said Sixties Chick with chic.

1970s: a natural look was important in the mid and late seventies. Eyeliner and painted on eyelashes all became passé and softer looks were fashionable. In the early seventies eyes sometimes had white highlighter on the brow and sometimes soft coloured eye shadows were used around the eyes in a way that had been used for eyeliner. Pearlised liquid eye shadows were a new innovation and a similar product was promoted in 2001. Very long eyelashes were still desirable. Loose powder went out of fashion and foundations worn alone gave a sheer effect. Lip liner was all the rage.

1980s: make up came back in fashion. I t was quite a natural lighter look, but in truth strong red lips which matched the many tomato red jackets which abounded were not very natural. Make up was quite defined to match power dressing, but the main feature was the emphasis put on skin care, anti ageing and beauty treatments or therapy. Skin cancer became talked about and a big issue was to tan or not to tan. Many people spent hours under sun beds. Fake tans were improved and bronzing gels and bronzing face powder beads were popular.

1990s: Yves St Laurent launched his famous Touché Éclat which became a must in many women's handbag. New lighter face skin foundations seemed to be announced every month and the end of the decade saw some very good foundations emerge in the marketplace. Companies like Marks and Spencer launched great skincare and make up ranges to suit the pockets of everyone. More importantly some of the items they sell can be easily bought from their internet site worldwide and delivered anywhere in the UK.

2000: staying power of lipsticks improved. In 2000 the Max Factor company launched the Lipfinity lipstick range which consisted of two products. The sticky lipstick is painted onto the lips and allowed to dry for one to four minutes depending on the amount used. Then the product is sealed with a special separate lip gloss. This wonderful product when correctly applied stays on the lips through normal eating and drinking and even light kissing and dentistry for up to 8 hours.

beautiful face 2010: flawless finish, silicone, no makeup makeup, high definition – all the result of airbrushing. More and more brands are launched to provide products mainstream rather than the film and TV world where they have been around since the last decade.