jelly was taken by explorers on the first successful expedition to the North Pole (on account of it not freezing), was made standard issue for US soldiers in the trenches of the First World War, coated special healing gauze for use on the front line during the Second World War, and was stocked in both hospitals and home first-aid kits. A tub of Vaseline is sold every thirty-nine seconds somewhere in the world, and is utilised in a vast petroleum-based product range. Poured into a tin it becomes Vaseline Lip Therapy, the world’s biggest lip brand. Whipped with glycerin into lotion, it becomes Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion, the first port of call for many dry skin sufferers. In beauty alone, it has endless applications. It slicks down unruly brows, adds sheen to cheekbones, mixes with any powder to become coloured gloss, adds shine to legs, removes old glue from false lashes, blends with sugar to act as a lip scrub, diverts self-tan headed for dry spots, and lines cuticles to prevent nail polish migration. It is never missing from photo shoots, where in the past it even greased up camera lenses to give film stars a misty, otherworldly glow.
I myself am not the biggest fan of paraffins and mineral oil in expensive products (although my skin doesn’t particularly object to them). I believe that brands expecting you to spend big bucks on skincare should first dig deep into their own pockets and use much nicer plant oils that won’t cause breakouts. But in products as cheap as Vaseline, I’m more charitable, if not a particularly committed user myself. There’s an honesty here. What you see is what you get – a cheap, greasy petroleum jelly that fulfils its promise to temporarily moisturise, lubricate and seal. It is deeply unpretentious, egalitarian, often appropriate and much loved by millions. In my view, there are now far better products for each one of its uses. But none that do all of them at once, and certainly none as truly iconic.
Maybelline Great Lash
In the early 1900s T.L. Williams made, from dyes and Vaseline, a mascara for his little sister Maybel, and called it Lash-Brow-Ine. The solid, cake formula was to name and launch the Maybelline brand, but its enduring status as the high street/drugstore mascara specialist came via Great Lash in 1971. If I was asked to close my eyes and think of a mascara, I’d see the gaudy hot pink and lurid green of Great Lash. Its iconic status is in part down to this packaging (virtually unchanged since launch), so far along the trashy and kitsch continuum that it emerges completely fabulous at the other end. But there’s more about Great Lash than an instantly recognisable tube. It is the one mascara one unfailingly sees on photo shoots, television make-up room tables or film sets.
There are several reasons for this: it’s proper, opaque, dark soot-black, not that semi-transparent dirty puddle shade so woefully common in cheaper mascaras. Also, the brush (any good mascara is a 50/50 combination of formula and brush shape) can be manoeuvred into the deepest set eyes, along even the puniest lashes to give excellent definition. Its finish is slightly wet-looking, its formula is thin enough to be layered ad infinitum like mattresses atop the princess’s pea, until lashes are thick and spiky, like sixties Twiggy’s. It doesn’t go crunchy, dry or flake onto cheeks.
It isn’t the mascara I unfailingly turn to by any means (it doesn’t quickly give the dramatic, kittenish lashes so many of us crave, and it smudges on me – but then so do 95 per cent of all mascaras), but undeniably it represents a starting point for most of what came after. The original cake may be long gone, but Great Lash, along with Full ’n’ Soft (a more natural-looking mascara, woefully unavailable in the UK – do try it if ever Stateside), remain, as do various Great Lash spin-offs, including a waterproof formula. I’m glad original Great Lash remains relatively untouched, as it should.
Kiehl’s Creme De Corps
I could have chosen any one of a handful of iconic products from cool New York apothecary brand Kiehl’s. Creme With Silk Groom, the hairstyling cream so loved by session hairdressers to give sleek, ungreasy definition to shorter styles and crazy curls, perhaps (not that I have ever in my life got to grips with it). Or Blue Astringent Herbal Lotion, a potent toner that makes you momentarily brace. Certainly Kiehl’s lip balm qualifies easily, since so many beauty fans, myself included, made pilgrimages to London’s Liberty or Harvey Nichols to pick up a tube before Kiehl’s was on every high street. But from all of Kiehl’s products, I’ve concluded that the true icon is Creme de Corps, the celebrated cocoa butter and sesame oil body cream, loved for its richness and superior moisturising on very dry skin.
This thick, custardy cream, smelling weirdly, but pleasingly, like the paint in a primary school craft lesson, was among the first products developed by Irving Morse, the Russian-Jewish immigrant who bought the original East Village Kiehl’s apothecary-style store in 1921. It has remained a Kiehl’s bestseller ever since. It’s a fairly uncompromising product that relies on word of mouth among dry and sensitive skin sufferers. Even on the thirstiest skins, rubbing it in can be like kneading dough, and if you’re sitting on a nice white towel at the time, you can expect it to be stained temporarily with crème brûlée smears and blotches (it’s only the beta carotene and nothing more sinister). But the results are fabulous: skin is sort of cocooned in rich moisture, not greasy and grubby-feeling. It’s very good at giving shins an even, very slightly shiny finish, and at improving the look of blotchy upper arms. It’s great for post-tattoo healing and on babies and children with eczema and other dry skin conditions (oh, that I’d had Creme de Corps as a kid). It’s the loveliest product to slather thickly on post-bath skin, then get into clean pyjamas and a freshly made bed, phone on divert, massive mug of tea and a remote control at one’s side.
There’s a whipped version in a tub, though I’ve had much less success with it. It has a more matte finish but starts to bobble and peel away if you massage too hard. There’s a lighter version too, though I feel it rather misses the point of Creme de Corps, which is to baste skin in rich, fatty moisture (oily or normal skins might as well get something cheap). But the original bottled Creme is still absolutely wonderful on my dry skin. Regular use certainly improves skin condition over time, but it’s what I use occasionally when I’m going somewhere special, when I want my bodycare to hold up to a posh perfume, blow dry, make-up and frock. Because Creme de Corps is an expensive treat, albeit one that goes an awfully long way. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can get round the problem by buying cheaply from eBay. Kiehl’s simple packaging (unless one of the very lovely limited edition Creme de Corps designs) is way too easy for counterfeiters to mimic and you end up with something similar to UHT milk tinted with yellow food colouring. I bear the mental scars.
Eucerin Aquaphor
Having spent my childhood coated in thick, unctuous petroleum-based lotions in a host of generic white bottles, itching like mad and being teased mercilessly by classmates, I really should hate Eucerin. It’s an unsexy, slightly joyless brand that makes skincare feel like a chore not the pleasure it can be. And yet weirdly, it has slipped past my firewall against mineral oil-rich pharmacy-shelf brands, and somehow occupied a place close to my heart. There are some excellent products in the range, some of which I’ve been recommending for many years. The Hyaluron Filler serum and creams, for example, are brilliant on dry and dehydrated skin, plumping up lines and restoring some perk.
But Eucerin’s icon comes in the form of Aquaphor, an ointment used widely since 1925 in medicine and in homes, nicknamed ‘The Duct Tape of dermatology’ by the very many doctors who swear by it. For them, Aquaphor’s appeal lies in its ‘semi-occlusive’ formula, meaning that while it traps in moisture and provides a barrier against germs, it still allows oxygen and moisture to reach the skin to aid wound healing. For beauty lovers, Aquaphor offers uncommon versatility. It works as an excellent humectant on dry lips, wind-chapped limbs and cuticles, as a tamer of brows and a subtle gloss for mouth and cheeks, a curer of nappy rash, and as a handy barrier
