Rimmel and Maybelline are cosmetic brands still known today. However, both these companies took their formation almost a hundred years ago, each starting out with a single product: mascara.
The term mascara had been in use since the late 19th century as a word for a hair-darkening substance, often used by actors for certain kinds of stage makeup. Exactly where the word comes from is unclear, but it is most frequently thought to be based from the Spanish word máscara meaning ‘mask’ or ‘stain’ and the Italian word maschera meaning ‘mask’. The Oxford English Dictionary also cites an alternative Catalan definition that describes soot or a black smear, or a Portuguese root (the Portuguese word máscara means ‘mask’, but a similar word, mascarra, means dark stain or smut). There is even strong support for a possible source from the Arabic word maskharah or ‘buffoon’.
In the 1910s, Eugene Rimmel and T. L. Williams, working on separate sides of the Atlantic, both developed similar mixtures for mascara using Vaseline and powdered charcoal. It was as messy as it sounds: luckily, improvements soon followed. Cake Mascara, still sometimes sold today, was soon created, and remained the standard until the 1960s.
EDIT, March 26, 2012: My understanding at the moment is that not all the facts stated here are completely accurate -- what I get for using Wikipedia, I guess! Eugene Rimmel (1820 - 1887) actually started out earlier in the 19th century as a perfumer, and was probably dead by the time someone at his company created mascara.
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