FASHION Magazine

By Lesa Hannah

Photography by Carlo Mendoza

It’s September 2005. Photos of Kate Moss snorting cocaine have surfaced. Apple has launched the wafer-thin iPod Nano. New Orleans is dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have signed their divorce papers. And in beauty news, Clinique is rolling out its latest mascara, High Definition Lashes. At least, that’s how history should have played out for the cosmetic brand. But a technical glitch arose, forcing it to return to the drawing board and ultimately delay the launch until now, the fall of 2006. But really, what’s a year in our current lash-crazed beauty climate? From mink falsies worn on the red carpet to the rising popularity of lash extensions, our interest in enhancing the little fringe surrounding our eyes is at a fever pitch and shows no signs of waning. So it’s no wonder that beauty companies want to capitalize on the craze by coming out with the next version of a souped-up mascara.

Unfortunately, it’s the hardest cosmetic item to develop, making the holdup that Clinique encountered par for the course. “If one element of the mascara is off, the product doesn’t work,” explains Janet Pardo, Clinique’s senior vice-president of product development worldwide. “It could be something as simple as the size of the wiper [which controls the amount of product deposited onto the brush] in the valve. That’s usually why mascara takes years before you get it out there.”

In the case of High Definition Lashes ($18, at department stores), Clinique conceived of a mascara that fused your traditional brush on one side with a comb on the other. The idea sprang from a trend that the company observed in women’s increasing desire for dramatic quick fixes that they can achieve on their own—think of lip plumpers, microdermabrasion kits, Botox-inspired skin care. And now that impulse is migrating to our eyes. “I think for brows and for lashes, people are really wanting to spend that extra time to get that effective lash look that replaces the lash extensions that are so crazy right now,” says Pardo. “This is an answer to that. People want to be able to get that extreme look on their own at home.”

In the realm of recent mascara innovation, though, “traditionally what’s been out there have been brushes with all these different types of fibres [what the bristles are made of]. Some are hollow, some are solid—all these fancy-schmancy types of fibre development on a basic bristle,” says Pardo. “So our idea was to marry the brush element with the tool of separating. The brush was to deposit lightly, and the comb was to really do the magnifying. That was the theory, and it took a long time, but it happened to work.”

And so off the company went, building a unit tool (the step before mass production) to manufacture a hundred or so of the brush-comb device. Then came the finicky tasks of choosing the right rod size, wiper size and mascara formula—it had to be on the drier side, so that you could continue brushing through—as well as testing the concept with 700 people. But the bigger stumbling block arose when it was discovered that the teeth on the comb were bending as the wand was pulled out time and time again. “We were like, ‘This is no good. We have to go back and figure out what to do.’ It was painful, painful. We were back to square one, until finally we got a plastic that moulded properly, passed the insertion test and performed beautifully.”

The launch of High Definition adds yet another option to Clinique’s existing roster of mascaras. This is something many beauty brands are doing: building collections that address every possible look and need. Although it smacks of a marketing move, there’s also a scientific reason. “You cannot put the kitchen sink into a mascara because it’s just not technically possible,” Pardo remarks. As well, “everybody’s lashes are different. So it’s about choice and providing customers with an array, with one that might work best for her.” 

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