“It was a case of making the most of what you’ve got,” says Laura Clouting.
Just as women were making wedding dresses out of net curtains, party frocks from parachutes and even underwear from RAF silk maps, they were being inventive in the make-up department.
Beetroot was a favourite lip stain and relatively harmless. Certainly the bright colour would have made it abundantly clear the wearer was ‘making an effort.’ Gravy browning or cold-tea stockings, complete with a line drawn up the back as a ‘seam’ were more effort and somewhat less enjoyable. But boot-polish mascara was dangerous territory.
Some of the concoctions sold by the spivs on the black market were pretty awful too, from chalk ‘face powder’ to an alchemical potion based on margarine supposed to replicate some kind of powder-foundation base.