Lip gloss, garlic bread and cereal bars added to inflation basket

Lip gloss, hair straighteners, garlic bread and cereal bars have all made it onto the nation's typical 'basket of goods' used to calculate inflation.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which annually updates the basket, said bottled mineral water and canned fizzy drinks would also be added for the first time.

Amongst those items shed by the ONS this year were disposable cameras and squash court hire, while blu-ray disc players and allergy tablets were new to the 2010 shopping basket.

The 650-strong basket attempts to reflect spending habits, based on 180,000 separate price quotations. The results form the basis of the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and Retail Prices Index (RPI).

The ONS said in its annual shopping basket report: "The most useful way to think about both the CPI and RPI indices is to imagine a 'shopping basket' containing those goods and services on which people typically spend their money.

"As the prices of the various items in the basket change over time,so does the total cost of the basket. Movements in the CPI and RPI indices represent the changing cost of this representative shopping basket."