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2013 marked the 100th Anniversary of the Mascara, the hero product which women, who wear and adore make-up, can't live without.

T. L. Williams - a chemist - creator of Maybelline cosmetics, formed the first mass-produced cake mascara with a brush, the mascara was called Maybelline, named after his sister, Maybel together with the key ingredient in the mascara, Vaseline.

Why was the mascara manufactured you might well ask?

Rumour has it - Maybel lost the love of her life to another and put this down to her lack of eyelashes, as she had singed them a few years earlier. She persuaded her brother into producing a product to darken her eye lashes, creating the illusion of thick, dark, lashes, making her eyes stand out from the crowd helping to lure her man back, and it worked. The Ingredients in the mascara consisted of a mixture of coal tar dust and pure petroleum jelly - known to us as Vaseline - not the best of ingredients by today's standard. The mascara became a big hit with the women, but, was not one of the easiest cosmetics to apply. Women would have to spit into the cake mascara, to make it wet, as it could not be used dry, then rubbed the brush over the mascara until there was enough mascara on the brush to coat the lashes.

In 1958 along came Helena Rubinstein - a cosmetic specialist - she launched the easy to use liquid "automatic" mascara, named Mascara-Matic. The Mascara-Matic was a liquid in a tube shaped like a pen with a spiral wand, no mess, no fuss and no water needed and this made a welcome change to the hard cake mascara. Over the years, the packaging of mascara has not changed a great deal and is still very much the same as Helena's Mascara-Matic, the tube has become fatter and the wand has changed to brushes and now there are several different brushes, that can be used to create different effects, lengthening, volumising, curling and even one for short lashes and another for bottom lashes.

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Today, mascara is still a firm favourite amongst the ladies, making their peepers be seen, but the ingredients have changed from bygone days, coal tar is no longer used, and is replaced with pigments. Conventional mascaras use mineral oils and paraffin wax amongst many other synthetic ingredients.

More and more women are moving over to natural mascaras, mainly due to sensitivity in the eye area, allergic reactions and opting for an eco-friendly, healthier lifestyle. Natural Mascaras use natural and organic oils and waxes such as argan oil, jojoba oil, olive oil, shea butter, beeswax mixed together with other completely natural ingredients to care and look after your lashes.

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