Eyelash Affair circa 1962 by Jacqueline Falcomer
My earliest memories of my mother and aunts is of them taking turns sitting at the dressing table to “apply make-up” for their Saturday night date. A glass jar of multi-sized brushes, rivaling that of a portraitist, sat in the middle of the dressing table. A shoebox filled with a myriad of lipsticks sat in the right-hand drawer. Jet-black liquid eyeliners, brown, green and blue eye shadow containers, kohl pencils, blusher sticks, foundation skin-toned creams and tiny pencils with sharp points of white lead, filled the shoebox in the left-hand drawer. Most curious of all, in the middle drawer, lay a pile of slim, transparent boxes containing a jaw-dropping array of eyelashes in varying lengths and thicknesses along with tiny tubes of glue and several pairs of eyelash curlers. With her sultry coloring my mother wore her make-up following Sophia Loren’s style, including
14 Lashes
a strategically placed cheek mole. My three aunts followed the British ‘Dolly Girls’, Twiggy, Britt Ekland and Jean Shrimpton look. While the women differed in their choices, each unfailingly wore false eyelashes. Applying false eyelashes required a steady hand. Equally important, timing was of the essence. The smear of glue dexterously applied to the lash could only be attached to the eyelid when the right stickiness was achieved. If the weather varied, so too did the timing. If applied too soon, the eyelash would slip and slide. Applied to late, the lash would not adhere to the eyelid. At the age of five (in 1962), I already knew there was nothing more embarrassing than being unaware of having lost an eyelash. Or worse, having an eyelash attach itself to the face of the man one was kissing.
