Maybelline Mascara or False Lashes, what's your cosmetic drug of choice

 $8.1 billion worth of mascara was sold last year and while Maybelline is still the number one mascara in the world, smaller cosmetic companies are not producing mascara because it's too expensive and difficult to make.

Many Millennial's, prefer lash treatments, including tinting and lash application as well as extensions and lash lifts, because it makes their routine in the morning that much easier.”

Synthetic false lashes are lightweight and natural-looking making them more appealing to most everyone, however, mascara is still the cosmetic lover's drug of choice.

Maybelline New York Volulm Express

Maybelline Natural Hair Lashes 1965 

But for many start-ups, the investment needed to break into mascara can be too high a hurdle. Younger brands are focusing on categories that are easier to produce and where sales are growing faster, such as highlighters or glitter sticks. They can come up with a new colour and hire an outside manufacturer to make the product, while mascara is harder to differentiate.

“When you look at the capacity for innovation in terms of mascara, it’s mostly well-established brands that have the money for R&D that are innovating in this space,” said Kloe Angelopoulou, beauty analyst at Euromonitor. “Start-ups, once they enter the market, they want to offer a differentiating product. They want to give something new to the customer.”

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Sharrie Williams wearing Maybelline False Eyelashes 1968

though I love how I look in false lashes, my cosmetic drug of choice is mascara

False Eye Lashes were patented in 1911, three years before Maybelline was born in 1915

Three years before Tom Lyle Williams walked into his sister Mabel's room and witnessed her applying ash and Vaseline to her brows, a lady Anna Taylor got her U.S. patent for false eyelashes in 1911, it's doubtful she could see far enough into the future to know that trying to make lashes look longer and fuller would turn into a multimillion-dollar industry.

Bette Davis eyes

In the early 20th century, film director D.W. Griffith and Hollywood makeup artist Max Factor brought false lashes to the big screen. Movie stars, such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Lauren Bacall and Carol Channing were regular lash wearers.

A 2007 Los Angeles Times obituary for Hollywood makeup artist Monty Westmore, who worked with the legendary Crawford, noted that she did her own face. But it was his job "to lay out her makeup supplies and curl six pairs of her false eyelashes each morning before filming began."

Maybelline false lashes in the 1960's.

In the '60s, model Twiggy made false lashes so popular as many as 20 million pairs were sold a year, according to Racked.

Maybelline false eye lashes 1976

"They were mystifying!" says Jenny Bailly, the executive beauty director for Allure magazine. Even though false lashes were the standard for movie stars, showgirls and models, for the laywoman they could be a bit of work.

"There was the glue, the strips — how do you get these things on and then how do you get them off," Bailly says.

Unyi Agba, a senior manager of marketing at Maybelline, says there's a growing demand for mascara that gives the false lash look.

"It's always about trying to find that mascara that's going to really transform them," she says. "So there's going to be an increased appetite for that. Consumers are going to want mascaras that can really deliver a false lash look. So even more lengthening, even more volume, and even more depth to the lashes — expect to see some of that."

February 25, 20176:03 AM ET

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

TANYA BALLARD BROWN

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Maybelline Company sells to Plough Inc. Dec. 1967.

Maybelline ads in 1967 were all about the ingenue, false eye lashes and fake hair.


Maybelline ad below was on the back of this cover in Dec, 1967

Maybelline introduces false eye lashes in 1967

False eye lashes created the big eye look that would really bloom in 1970.

I bleached my hair back blond, wore a "Fall, (fake hair,) and fell in love with false eye lashes, even wore up to three pair, two on top and one on the bottom.  Here I am on my 20th Birthday, right after filming 5 days of a show called Dream Girls.  We had no Idea Unk Ile was in serious negotiations to sell Maybelline this year.

My mom, Pauline, with her new Datson 2000 roadster convertible, bought in 1967. 

Cousin Chuck Williams, aka BB1, with his girlfriend Kathy, her little brother Michael and his dad, Noel Allen, Dec. 1967, leaving the hotel to catch a plane to Maui, Hawaii. The negotiations for the sale of Maybelline were in the 11th hour at the time this picture was taken. Our lives were about to radically change overnight.                         

My dad Bill, Unk lle and Nana at our house on Christmas Day, 1967.  Unk Ile was with us from 5 o'clock in the evening until 5 o'clock in the morning.  He knew the sale was complete and never mentioned it once.  We would get the shock of our lives in Jan. when a check came in the mail making all five original families multi-millionaires.   

The details of the sale of Maybelline to Plough Inc are spelled out in The Maybelline Story, I hope you get your copy today.  Buy a signed copy from me at http://www.maybellinestory.com/.  Also check my new bio picture, just click biography on the tap on my website.