Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
Main Page: Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
My Lords, I rise briefly to intervene in the gap to say that many years ago I spent 12 years in the perfumery and cosmetic industry as I was the Latin-American director of Yardley, a company that regrettably and sadly no longer exists. It was a distinguished and big name in the perfumery industry but, some years after I left the company, it came to a sad and sorry end. We did not make hair products, which are the subject of this debate, but we made other things that were very popular and tended to be very carefully tested. We had our own laboratories and no product was allowed to go on the market without being very carefully tested to exhaustion. An example is the considerable manufacture of lipsticks. These need to have very sensitive treatment because of their liable effect on skin. Lipsticks are of course very popular. At one time people said, “What is going to happen when there is a recession?”. My answer to that was that the last thing a lady will ever do is give up lipstick, whatever the economic conditions in the country.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, on bringing something very important to the attention of the House.