Curious Beauty

Ever since I was blown away by Kathy Peiss’s Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture, I’ve been dying to delve further into the history of beauty and makeup. Here’s the wish-list I will be submitting to the relatives this year!

1. Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual: For Everyone From Beginner to Pro, by Bobbi Brown, Debra Bergsma Otte and Sally Waddyka

Not necessary a book about the history of beauty, but it’s gotten such good reviews, I can’t pass it up! Amazon.com product description: “This is the book that Bobbi Brown’s fans have been waiting for: her 25-plus years of makeup styling experience distilled into one complete, gorgeous book. Bobbi looks at everything from skincare basics to every aspect of facial makeup–from how to find the right color and type of foundation for any skin tone to how to apply every detail of eye makeup (Brows, Eye Liner, Eye Shadow, and Eye Lashes) no matter your eye color and shape. Of course there are never-before-seen tips on blush, bronzer, lip liners, lipstick, etc. And Bobbi looks beyond the face with informative chapters on “Hands and Feet” and “Body Skin Care.” Each chapter has thorough step-by-step basic directions for makeup application and easy-to-follow photographs and line drawings, along with Bobbi’s expert, yet assuring, advice. Plus, there’s a groundbreaking section of the book that will be of special interest to women who’ve wanted to know how makeup stylists do what they do: the top beauty secrets only these artists know, essential equipment to keep on hand, how to break into the business, and how to work with photographers and celebrities.
Breathtaking photos of the finished faces-from everyday looks to exotic runway style-along with advice on putting it all together for every woman, make this a book like no other.”

2. The Artifice of Beauty: A History and Practical Guide to Perfume and Cosmetics, by Sally Pointer

Amazon.com product description: “Why did Egyptians wear so much make up? Were the Vikings really unwashed barbarians? How did the fashionable Elizabethan deal with bathing, lice and excessive facial hair? What happened underneath all that hairpowder and scented pomade in the eighteenth century? How did young women find out about the latest beauty products in the past? This fascinating and unique book traces the way in which we have adorned, perfumed and presented ourselves from the earliest prehistoric evidence right through to the dawn of the multi-million dollar cosmetics industry. We discover what the perfumes found in Tutankhamen’s tomb would have smelt like, what made the medieval woman so synonymous with “the lily and the rose,” and where the most fashionable place was for a woman to buy perfume in the eighteenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century the devil reputedly carried a looking glass, and the most expensive cosmetics could kill. A century later, Beau Brummel recommended the scent of freshly aired linen as an appropriate perfume for a gentleman, and Napoleon himself doused himself in quantities of cologne. This richly illustrated book also includes a wide selection of modernised recipes for those wishing to experience some of the cosmetics or perfumes used by our ancestors.”

3. War Paint: Madame Helene Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden: Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry, by Lindy Woodhead

No product description on Amazon.com, but it is receiving positive customer reviews. One customer wrote, “I’ve waited thirty years for this book and I was not disappointed. I have read separate biographies of Rubenstein, Arden, Lauder, and Revson; this is by far the best. If you have any interest in beauty, glamor, art, social history, fashion, business or just a good story about two extraordinary women who created empires out of nothing, this book is for you.”

4. Max Factor: The Man Who Changed the Faces of the World, by Fred E. Basten

Amazon.com product description: “Not so long ago, nice girls never wore make-up–in fact, the word itself was taboo! Only stage performers and prostitutes painted their faces. But that was before a man named Max Factor revolutionized the concept of beauty. Born in Poland in 1877, Max Factor worked as a beautician and wigmaker to the Russian imperial family, the Romanovs. In 1904, a year after Czar Nicholas II ordered the Jewish pogroms, Max Factor fled with his family to America. He first settled in St. Louis, where he had an exhibit at the World’s Fair, before moving to Los Angeles in 1908. There he opened a shop selling cosmetics and wigs. Located in the theater district, the store catered to stage actors. But the birth of a newfangled entertainment called the “movies” changed everything.As film technology advanced–from silent films to talkies and ultimately to color motion pictures–Max Factor created the make-up to keep up with it. He designed looks for Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, and Katharine Hepburn. He gave Clara Bow “Bee-Stung Lips,” and turned Jean Harlow into a platinum blonde. Soon women everywhere wanted to look like their favorite glamorous stars, and Max Factor was more than happy to oblige. He invented false eyelashes, lip gloss, foundation, eye shadow, the eyebrow pencil, and–every girl’s friend–concealer, among other things, and he began selling his innovative cosmetics to the general public. Make-up madness, like movie madness, was here to stay. The right to rouge was seen as a symbol of freedom from social restrictions. The father of modern make-up, Max Factor quite literally changed the faces of the world and created a cosmetics empire that launched the multibillion-dollar beauty industry. This is his extraordinary story.”

Have any of you read these books? What did you think?

-Images from amazon.com and bellasugar.com