...I bolded the lipstick part cuz I would classify that into the semi-liquid category, and not "complete oils"...
Thanks for the clarification, even though it plunges the essentially unchanged texture of my elderly lipsticks back into unknowable mystery bin!
Individual preferences for certain colours and/or other performances are not my main point....my original post was...the general picture of how makeup has advanced through the ages, and I do believe that there's a big difference between the makeup today and that from decades earlier...
There is no question that the foundation picture of today has transformed dramatically - spectacularly - when compared to what was available in olden times!
While we still have a long way to go before any and every woman can find one single product that works for her skin, both type and tone, whether she wishes to pay $60 in a glittering mall, or $6 at a drugstore, the staggering variety of choices available to her today, in either or both, are worlds away from the days when even something as mundane as an oil-free foundation was practically un-heard of, and shades were limited to 98% different tones of pink - and I mean
pink - colors that today would be sold as blush - and an occasional sprinkling of an equally not-found-in-nature shades of orangey "tan," and a couple of muddy browns, most of which visibly separated on standing into layers of about 70% oil and 30% pink sediment.
I remember the color pallette of Pond's "Angel Face" line as being particularly garish - and ubiquitous! Revlon had a larger number of shades (of pink), and the best bet ended up being Max Factor's "theatrical" line of something called "pancake" makeup, which was, true to its name, quite cake-y, though in fairness, they all were, but the advantage of Max Factor was their offering of three or four shades of the "tan," a couple of which were slightly less orange than other brands.
Pancake came not in a bottle, but in a round flat container, which contained a cake of powdery-ish watercolor, and was applied with a wet sponge. This offered oily skins some relief from that thunder-dose of those Enriched with Lanolin! bottled concoctions. Though far from "oil-free," for us for whom lanolin was the last thing we needed to, it was the lesser of readily available evils, and the mix-with-water aspect at least afforded some control of just how thick a layer of cake was applied.
When Cover Girl came on the scene, there was great excitement among people who were not me, because not only did it come in even brighter shades of pink than Angel Face, it proclaimed that it had Noxzema in it! (Noxzema, for those who do not know, was, and I believe still is, a white, slightly pearlescent grease that contains a dash of menthol or something, and is primarily used today, when at all, for the relief of the pain of sunburn).
Today, unquestionably more women are able to purchase a foundation that will match, or at least harmonize somewhat, with their skin tone, and in a formulation that suits their skin type. There are even some companies that will, for a price, "custom-match" a foundation for you, although the result will be almost entirely dependent on the talent and skill of the mixer.
I don't think there is one yet that will let YOU go behind the counter and concoct your own, and if there is, please tell me the name of the company!
Around the same time as the launch of Cover Girl, another ground-breaking and revolutionary product appeared - Revlon's "Blush-On." Before Blush-On, and the immediate chorus of similar products from every cosmetic company in existence, people used "rouge," which came in tiny little bottles of sticky red liquid, or little round pans of red grease called "cream," and I think there may have been some little pans of clown-nose colored "powder," that came with tiny little puffs? I didn't really use rouge, it was at that time more likely to be found on the dressing tables of our mothers and grandmothers, and with good reason - application of the stuff, as you may imagine, had a steeper learning curve than Hashmi Kajal, and there was no family who did not boast at least one auntie who rocked a little clown-doll circle of glowing red on the apple of each cheek!
Blush-On was the first powder rouge that not only came in an oblong cake and was applied with what was then considered to be a "big" brush, but also came in lighter, more "natural" colors, and was welcomed with great jubilation. (Even I gave it a shot, but I am just not a blush person).
There have been advances, certainly in other products, especially in the area of packaging, from high end to low, as well as in the sheer number of shades available, particularly eye shadows, which also come today in a wider variety of formulations, though I can't claim to have noticed a significant difference in the basic nature of regular powdered eyeshadow, nor in regular lipstick, though I am sure that both, especially the latter, contain all kinds of chemicals and ingredients unknown in olden times.
There is one lip color product by Revlon that has been out for a while, (but only recently discovered by me) - a liquid called ColorStay Unpaid Overtime or something that goes on wet and dries dry, and remains where you put it until you actually wash your face!
In my opinion, Maybelline made the best cake mascara, as well as the best (and the first!) "automatic" mascara, which is what we called mascara that was neither cake nor cream, but came in a hard tube with an applicator.
One brand of automatic mascara, Max Factor, I think, had an applicator that was basically a metal stick whose end was ridged round the circumference, like a screw!
When Maybelline first introduced Great Lash, it seemed to me to me then, and still does today, to be not only an improvement over its predecessor UltraLash, but the best mascara on the market, though to tell the truth, the difference nowadays does not have so much to do with which brand, or which product within a brand, but in the application. (Using a 10X magnifying mirror, dot the brand of "automatic" mascara of your choice as close as you can to the base of the lashes, and use a clean disposable mascara brush to distribute it evenly to the tips) and the shade one uses. (If you are a dark-eyed brunette, use blue).
Though I know that the "gel" eyliners have rapidly developed an enthusiastic and loyal following, for me, the biggest advance in eyeliner has been the eyeliner pencil, a sort of softer, and depending on the brand, more pigmented spin-off of its more elderly cousin, the "eyebrow pencil. I am referring to the regular wooden pencils, not those sticks in a plastic tube that I call "single use eyeliner" and whose very existence is a Personal Pet Peeve.
Eyeliner pencils can be applied more quickly, and give the user more control and choice, than of course The Grand Dowager Hashmi, either powder or stick, but also than liquid or plain old water-color style cake eyeliners that continue to march apace.
One modern product category that I particularly like are the double-duty eye colors, formulated to serve as either shadow or liner, so I guess that can count as an eye-shadow advance after all!
Alas, I have once again failed to be brief, have not even touched on the subject of rice powder, and I really did not want to talk about eyeliner at all, as it is in its own way, as sensitive a topic as any religion, but it at least allows me to conclude, as I usually do, at the wondrous gateway to the land of belief - the very essence of the cosmetic industry, yesterday, today and tomorrow, indeed, the immutable bedrock of advertising - the Cream or the Dream, and regardless of which side upon that ancient fence we may sit, one thing we can all agree is that each provides a very real benefit: if we like it, whether that be because of something as simple and dryscience as the optical illusion of larger eyes created by the skillful application of the cheapest eyeliner pencil at Wal-Mart, or the psychological effect of using a product that comes in a beautiful package, or is associated with a beautiful actress in an advertisement, whether that product is old or new, as it was for our foremothers back through the millennia, so it is for us today - if we
feel prettier when we use it, if we
believe we are prettier, that feeling, that belief, will become reality, and we will
be prettier!