Although cream mascaras enjoyed some success their domination of the mascara market only came about when a new mascara applicator was introduced in the 1950s. Known originally as automatic mascaras – because the mascara was picked up ‘automatically’ by the brush in the tube – the first product of this type was the Mascara-Matic developed by Helena Rubinstein in 1957. This new applicator revolutionised the mascara market and was widely copied. In its slim, gold case it had an elegance that had only been rarely achieved in cake mascara packaging. So when Maybelline – then the largest manufacturer of mascara in the United States – introduced its automatic applicator, Magic Mascara, in 1958, this marked the beginning of the end for the dominance of cake mascara.