Mirror

The mirror could well be considered the most important item in a woman’s vanity case. There is almost no cosmetic that can be applied properly without looking at one’s face in the mirror. A mirror is basically a flat surface on which the refection of the object in front of it can be viewed. While there are curved, concave and convex mirrors, those used in for makeup and other beauty enhancing tasks are absolutely plane.

Mirrors have been in use for centuries. In the olden days, a mirror was often a polished flat metal surface. The metal was usually copper or silver. Nowadays, the general tendency is to coat the under surface of a glass sheet with a thin aluminium layer called a tain. The aluminium provides the necessary reflection needed and the layer is silvered on the side facing the glass. Thus the mirror is viewed from over the glass. The glass surface protects the aluminium layer from peeling.

The aluminium layer is properly coated to prevent corrosion. Due to refraction and interference in reflection due to the layer of glass, an average mirror is supposed to reflect only 80 percent of the light incident on it. However, this amount is enough to get a good image of the object. Mirrors come in varied shapes and sizes ranging from the full body mirrors attached to dressers or bathroom walls to the small mirrors that form part of the makeup kits of many women.