eyelash curler

So one of my items is an eyelash curler and it took some doing to find the first reference of an eyelash curler, because most books only reference when the nicer, more advanced ones came out in 1944.

"In the 1920s, Max Factor worked on Theda Bara as well as many other actresses, including Clara Bow. Factor, a Russian émigré who started out as a wigmaker, introduced many innovations as he built a family cosmetics empire in Hollywood. His approach was to “bead” the lashes with his own special concoction. Factor’s Cosmetic (pronounced with a French affect, as “cosmetique”) was a waxy, waterproof preparation that came in foil-wrapped tubes the shape and size of a roll of breath mints today. The makeup artist or actor would slice off a small chunk and hold it over a flame until it melted. Then he or she would dip an orange stick into the gooey Cosmetic. It could either be applied to the lashes in upward strokes or applied to the tips of two or three lashes, which would be held together until they stuck, giving the lashes a thick appearance.

When Factor first applied his Cosmetic on Clara Bow, according to company lore, she panicked at the end of the day when her lids started sticking together. Someone tracked down Max Factor, who showed Bow how to use cold cream to remove the waxy goo. She reportedly became a “devoted Cosmetic user” thereafter.17 Other new weapons were popping up in the eye-enhancement arsenal. Kurlash, the first eyelash curling device, was invented in 1923. It was hard to use, cost a hefty five dollars, and it took ten minutes just to get the lashes of one eye curled. It was a huge success."

taken from

Inventing Beauty : A History of the Innovations that Have Made Us Beautiful

by Teresa Riordan