"I liked this lippy so much I wore it up a Munroe" (Poucher, cited in Street-Porter, 2000, date unknown)

The intention of this paper is to describe the ways in which Poucher’s dictionary of raw materials and chemical synthetics reduced the cultural identification of the materials and their geographical sources coding them with a them and “us’ hierarchy. W.A. Poucher’s work as a perfumer-cosmetician reveals the power dynamics within the twentieth century cosmetic industry and its far-reaching implications as to how we still determine material and immaterial cultural codes in beauty and fashion.