You beauty! The cabinet of wonders

A vivid childhood memory: when my mother was doing her make-up, she would sit on her bed or at her dressing table and separate any mascara-clogged lashes with a nappy pin.

A big old nappy pin that rattled around her make-up bag, its pink enamelled clasp becoming increasingly scratched and faded. With two children bouncing, three dogs scooting and a giant (my father was 7ft tall) husband storming, she would take this pin to within a millimetre of her eyeball, slowly insert it between the roots of her coated lashes and drag it outwards to divide them into that elusive fan.

Madness. But I see her point. Eyelash combs don’t work and mascara, however smooth and hi-tech it may be nowadays, will still insist on clogging. If you go at your lashes between thumb and finger, then you create untold misery — a solid clump of glued tar.

So I always have a couple of The Pro Makeup Shop’s Voluptuous Veronica disposable mascara wands hanging around. Nice and dry, they rake through clogged lashes, separating without pulling off the product. If you are vulnerable to eye infections, dip one into your mascara, use it once and throw it away, or give it a good wipe with The Pro Hygiene Collection’s make-up brush cleaner and keep it going because these are sturdy little things. And cheap. This website is stuffed with kit you didn’t know you needed. Check it out. It’s a grotto.

The Pro Makeup Shop’s Voluptuous Veronica volumising disposable mascara brush, £4.99 for a pack of 25 (thepromakeupshop.com)