Sali Hughes - Pretty Iconic - A Personal Look at the Beauty Products that Changed the World

Nowadays, I don’t wear No 5 every day – perhaps once or twice a month. I love perfume too much to be monogamous, and besides, while familiarity could never breed contempt, to use it daily is to forget how wonderful it really is. But when I have a big work day, or special occasion, I unfailingly turn to its strength, unflappable appropriateness (No 5 is literally never a bad idea), respect for occasion and soft, welcoming femininity. I call No 5 my backbone in a bottle, the loaded pistol in my knickers; with it, I am instantly bolstered and prepared for whatever life throws at me. Like Calpol, cheese and red wine, I’ll simply never not have it in the house.

To choose a favourite red lipstick is impossible. You might as well ask me to name my favourite child. But ask me for the most iconic, and the answer comes easily. Ruby Woo is an ultra-bold phone-box red launched in 1999, effectively as a slightly more vivid, super-matte version of MAC’s (already matte) Russian Red, the lipstick favoured by Madonna during the ‘Who’s Girl?’ and ‘Blond Ambition’ years (and consequently bought by me, of course). Ruby Woo became an instant bestseller and, until a Kardashian-Jenner told the world she wore its less interesting stablemate Velvet Teddy, was MAC’s most popular lipstick – no mean feat when you have both a colour and formulation that’s pretty hard for most women to wear. Ruby Woo is extremely matte. Glide silkily across the mouth like butter on hot toast, it does not. It more chugs along like wellies down a wet slide. What it gives in superb longevity, it robs in moisture. Its blue base, while fabulous for whitening teeth and making an impact, demands the level of confidence of a seasoned red-wearer.

But none of this matters, because Ruby Woo is meant to be a loud statement by an uncompromising woman. It’s not meant to be pretty, it’s designed to be fabulous, and on that it more than delivers. It looks glorious against extreme hair colours – platinum blonde or jet black – and on very pale, very olive or very dark skin (Dita Von Teese is a Ruby Woo fan – it looks sublime on her) and is the perfect vintage rockabilly red. It’s the kind of lipstick that belongs with tattoos, leather jacket and a hoop petticoat, or maribou mules and mink stole. Since launching Ruby Woo, MAC has introduced a specially tweaked version for Ruby Woo fan Rihanna, called RiRi Woo, plus a much needed Ruby Woo liner, and a matching lip gloss. The latter rather misses the point for me. This is a true red shade for strong women who love proper lipstick, not for those who can’t take the heat.

Similarly to boyfriends, I didn’t realise how needlessly rubbish 99 per cent of hairdryers were – and still are – until I found a brilliant one. For years, I thought good haircuts existed only for one day, when a professional could magically dry them into shape. After that, I was on my own with the hot, noisy, smelly hunk of plastic that woke the kids, scared the dog and left my head with the functionality of a Van de Graaff generator. In Britain, they were bad. Plugged into an American hotel wall, they were tear-inducingly awful.

And then there was Parlux. These are professional dryers available in any salon supply store for the not inconsiderable sum of around £80/$120/100 euros. They’re quite old-fashioned-looking (not in a particularly pretty way) and weigh about the same as a newborn baby in chainmail, which is why you should opt for the Compact model (already heavier than the average dryer) or the new Power Light, which have all the same features as their mother. All will style your hair in a way you previously thought impossible.

The impressively fast motor halves drying time, the three temperatures and speeds (in general, you want to start hot and fast and move down the settings during your blow dry, as a hairdresser would) give excellent shape and smoothness, and the high wattage makes a joke of your last dryer. Crucially, the Parlux has a proper cool shot setting, rather than a puny burst of tepid air offered by high street dryers. This allows you to properly set your style; leaving hair warm is like putting on a hot blouse straight from the ironing board. It’ll ruin again in seconds. The unit is sturdy too. I’ve dropped my Parlux many times, and while I’d caution against recklessness, I must commend my 11-year-old dryer’s stoicism – on and on it nobly goes. I’ve since moved on to a newer, similarly brilliant professional dryer (namely, the Hersheson) and bestowed the Parlux onto my gloriously thick-haired assistant, but only because the former is a little lighter. Age has not withered the Parlux, only weakened my right arm.

I find natural mascaras to be rather missing the point. I don’t enhance my determinedly straight, short lashes to look like I have normal ones. I want them to be long, thick and fluttery like a Hereford cow’s. I want good separation and a brush that coats hairs, not eyelids, and a formula that doesn’t dry out in a matter of weeks. It seems so little to ask and yet is amazingly hard to find. It seems Pat McGrath, genius make-up artist, felt so similarly ill-served by the dramatic lash mascaras available that in 2001, she took a pile of toothbrushes backstage at the Dior catwalk show. The fat, dense bristles, when coated in black mascara, gave models a fanned, false lash effect that made lashes noticeable even to those sitting in the back row.

Inspired by McGrath’s ingenuity, the product development team set about designing a commercially available mascara that created the same look as the somewhat impractical toothbrushes. The result was Diorshow, a sleek, elegant silver and black tube housing a fat brush that could perhaps clean the loo in a crisis. It was an instant bestseller and in my experience is the mascara most likely to make a red carpet appearance on a starlet’s lashes. Make-up artists adore it, customers can’t get enough of it. It gives lush, dark, bovine lashes to those previously deprived, layers brilliantly, and has good staying power on most. It smudges on me, but unless you’re a serial mascara smudger, don’t let that put you off – my dry skin is so thickly basted in greasy moisturiser that it could smudge a tattoo. Diorshow now comes in an additional, waterproof formula and several permanent and seasonal colours. Which is all very nice, but my mascara motto will always be Go Black or Go Home.

Sometimes a single beauty product is so huge, so instantly recognisable and ubiquitous, that it becomes an entire brand in its own right. Such is the case with this, the world’s bestselling foundation and the base readers most often rave about at my events. Launched in 1997, Double Wear was designed to stay on, come what may, and it certainly does that. It doesn’t transfer onto clothes and would probably survive nuclear holocaust to perfect the complexions of cockroaches and Keith Richards. Its shade range is ethnically inclusive, as is typical of American (as opposed to French) brands, its price is neither prohibitively obscene nor suspiciously low. The full coverage formula covers spots, blemishes, blotches, melasma and even faint scars but remains surprisingly comfortable to wear. It is, in my experience, what male and female popstars are most likely to wear on a hot, sweaty tour stage.