Читать книгу Pretty Iconic: A Personal Look at the Beauty Products that Changed the World - Sali Hughes - Страница 6

In my loft, there’s a red plastic B&Q toolbox filled with make-up no longer fit for purpose but that I’ll never, ever throw away. There’s a dried out, once-black Body Shop eyeliner pen that my mother put in my Christmas stocking circa 1989, which I wore with cut-off Levi’s and a lycra bodysuit to Cardiff’s Square Club. There’s a pot of Clinique face powder in a dreadfully unsuitable shade of pink, that I’d saved at least six weeks’ pocket money to buy before realising it made me look embalmed. The Rimmel lilac eye palette I was convinced made me appear 18, the apricot lip balm bought for me by fourth form squeeze Hywel White, a dry, cracked Kryolan professional concealer palette bought in haste less than a year later, when I heard I’d be making up the Pet Shop Boys, the half-used Prescriptives foundation given to me by my boss because I could never have afforded my own, and the Mary Quant eyeshadows I found in a dusty box in a discount chemist on South Molton Street, and thought I’d won the lottery. These aren’t just products. This isn’t just a toolbox. It’s a time capsule, and everything in it takes me back to a moment, a hope, a mistake, an achievement. These unassuming bits and pieces each have their own significance and collectively make something as potent and meaningful as any long-saved C90 compilation. They’re my beauty mixtape.

But like any true music lover, I always want to hear something new that excites me just as much. And so it is with beauty. Good job, because I’m sent around 2000 new beauty products a year, from designer fragrances and state of the art skincare, to supermarket shampoos and lipsticks costing less than a two pinter of milk – all of them promising something new and extraordinary. It’s an extremely fortunate and wonderful position to be in (teenage me is never far from memory, and believe me, she’s having kittens), but not one without some stress. Storage and eating surfaces aside, I worry constantly that I’ll miss something wonderful. A product so brilliant, so revolutionary and life-changing, that it will deserve to become a beauty icon, used by millions, remembered always, popped in someone’s future treasured toolbox.

But what makes an icon? Quality alone is neither enough nor strictly the point. The beauty products in this book aren’t always, in my view, the best – at least not for me personally. Very many of my all time favourites are not here (and as ever, everything in this book has been chosen by me and me alone, with absolutely no commercial consideration). I happen to prefer By Terry Touche Veloutée and Clinique Airbrush Concealer to the mighty YSL Touche Éclat pen, but in terms of influence, memorability and its creation of an entire beauty category, the latter wins by a country mile. Likewise, you may not love Chanel No 5. But the fact is, you will probably still have an opinion on what is, without question, the towering icon of perfumery. You might not find Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair ideal for your skin but in all likelihood, the serum you do love would not exist without it. These three items, in their own ways, changed how countless beauty products were designed and used thereafter. They are reference points, or the stars of a beauty ‘moment’, or so familiar and relied upon that they’re practically part of the family.

While to many, beauty products are silly, an irrelevance, the currency of the vain and the shallow, they are, to me, the furniture of our lives. Just as we chart life’s journey through music, food and places, I also attribute the same importance and sentimentality to the beauty products I saw, touched, and smelled all around me. The flipping of a lid on a bottle of Johnson’s baby lotion triggers a Proustian rush. I’m immediately back in my grandmother’s living room, my clean pyjamas warming on the fireguard, the soothing hum of Antiques Roadshow and the rattle of a twin tub washer in the background. I don’t just remember my first kiss, I remember the Miss Selfridge Copperknockers lipstick smeared messily over my cheeks afterwards. My first ever gig was notable not only because I saw The Smiths on their last tour, but because I’d stolen my mum’s Rimmel lipliner and Givenchy Ysatis perfume for this life-changing occasion. A memorable beauty product can transport me to my nan’s backstreet curl and set parlour, my teenage cabin bed, a school disco or my wedding day. When I look back at pivotal moments in my life, I can almost always remember the cosmetics and toiletries that accompanied me, and how I came to be wearing them. These are the lotions, potions, creams, colours and powders that defined how we presented ourselves to the outside world. They were companions at major life events. The perfumes that gave us backbone for important job interviews, the make-up chosen to come on our first dates with a partner, the toiletries taken on family holidays, the little luxury bought with a first pay packet.

It’s easy to forget that these cosy, familiar make-up, skincare and toiletries of our youth were often born from world-changing innovation and where particularly interesting, I’ve tried to provide some context. Likewise, if I feel a product is oft-misunderstood or unfairly maligned, I’ve suggested best practice techniques and tips, on how better to utilise them. In Future Icons are some products that, to me, represent either an unforgettable moment – welcome or otherwise – or a great advance in beauty. Whether history will agree with me remains to be seen.

Most importantly, I should say that my interpretation of the word ‘icon’ is wholly subjective and seen very much through the lens of a 41-year-old British woman and is therefore a shamelessly Western view of products. I absolutely acknowledge that Japanese beauty rituals and technology, for just one example, have always been extremely influential and that in recent years, Korean products have changed our beauty culture, but they don’t have the same personal meaning to me (no doubt they will to our children). Radox, Poison and Sun-In – these are the products that made my life. There will, I hope, be some products you remember from your own upbringing. The shampoo that sat at the corner of your childhood bath, the pot of face cream your mother kept on the bedside table, perhaps. There will no doubt be others that are entirely new to you and equally, some omissions that figure hugely in your past or present but not in my own – I would really love to hear what they are.