Mascara

Mascara was originally made from antimony, a black rock with bluish tints that was crushed into a powder used to make an eye lotion, khol. Nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes from the high Algerian plateaus used it as a cosmetic, and also to prevent eye disease.

Mascara as we know it today was developed by a French chemist, Eugene Rimmel, in around 1880, from a petroleum distillate, Vaseline. The name mascara comes from the Italian word “maschera” meaning mask.