Beauty

Women Were Shamed For Buying Makeup During The Great Depression - While makeup was becoming less of a scandal and more of a norm during the 1930s, people still had a lot of opinions about this new found hobby. Especially when the Great Depression hit. One man wrote to his local paper, enraged after he heard that millions of dollars were spent on cosmetics the year prior. "Couldn't you take a slam at the women for the amount of time and money they waste on primping and powdering themselves?"…

There Were Different Colors Of Powders - Women started to dabble with contouring as early as the 1920s, where they would buy different powder colors from the general store, and try mixing their shades to create different hues that they could swipe onto different sections of their face. Jonteel — a well known beauty brand during that era —even had green powder one could buy. We've been color correcting for decades!

Chained Vanity Cases - For those who weren't brave enough to flash some thigh to take out their compact, there were evening compacts designed to look just like elaborate clutches. They were chained vanity cases made out of silver and elaborately carved, and were sold in all the most stylish boutiques. Putting on makeup in public became such a fad that cosmetic cases were literally being turned into evening wear accessories.

Armpit Shaving - Shaving one's armpits prior to the 1920's was the equivalent of shaving off one's eyebrows in 2018. It seemed totally unnecessary and even a little bit weird. The trend all started thanks to Gillette. The brand was the official razor of the US army during WWI, and when the war ended they wondered how they could keep their sales up. The answer was to sell to women. So teaming up with fashion magazines like Harper's Bazaar, they began peddling the idea that the new sleeveless…

X-Ray Beauty Treatments - When X-Rays were invented, beauticians didn't see it as a tool to only spot broken bones, but as a tool to burn off hair! It became a popular hair removing technique, until doctors began to notice that their patients were coming back severely sick.

Knee Rouging - While watching Chicago, you might have caught the lyrics, "I'm gonna rouge my knees, and roll my stockings down. And all that jazz."That's not just a weird lyric — it was a major fad during the Roaring Twenties to rouge one's knees. While dress hems would hit flappers below the knees, that part of the leg would usually expose itself while they Charlestoned inside dance halls. So by rouging them and rolling their stockings down, it only brought more attention to that illicit…

Women Had To Confess Their Use Of Red Lipstick At Church - For that same reason, women had to frequently address their lipstick use at confession, since sometimes the temptation was just too much.

Green Or Blue Eyeshadow - It's hard to tell from black and white photos and movies from the era, but the 1920s loved gaudy eyeshadow. The darker and more garish, the better. Top favorites for an evening look were green, blue, purple, or gold eyelids.

Cupid's Bow Lipstick Stencils - Just like how not everyone is skilled at using liquid eyeliner today, not everyone was gifted with drawing on cupids bow lips in the 1920s. In order to help those girls, Helena Rubinstein invented a cupids bow stencil to ensure a perfect pout every time.

All The Times Women Were Shamed For Makeup In History - Loving makeup wasn't always easy. While nowadays you can step outside wearing a smokey eye or a bold red lip, for centuries women were arrested, tried, divorced, fired, burned, and ostracized for wanting to play with eyeshadow or powder their nose. Read on for are all the times women were shamed for makeup in history — it will make you appreciate your makeup bag that much more.

Victorian Women Hid Cosmetics In Pharmacy Boxes - Since being caught with makeup was basically social suicide, women had to hide their cosmetics from the watchful eyes of their husbands, fathers, and even help. In order to do that, they would buy medicine boxes from the pharmacy, and load them up with their blushes and face powders instead of aspirins. No one would be the wiser if they saw it in their room.

Makeup Helped You Climb The Ranks - In the 1900s, for the first time in history women started to use makeup to reinvent their lives. If you were born into a working class family, you no longer had to stay working class. With the help of cosmetics, you could polish yourself up and apply for better job positions, rent apartments in better parts of the city, and even land yourself a higher-class man. This is partly why middle and working class women would face the brunt of the stigma when it…

The Eton Crop - While women loved to bob their hair in the Roaring Twenties, not all haircuts were the same. There were many reiterations of the bob, but the most drastic was the Eton crop. Based on the look of Eton schoolboys, it was a boyish chop and the shortest bob you could get. The look wasn't invented for women who wanted to look a little more masculine though, but rather so one's hair could easily fit under the ever-popular cloche hats.

Using Actual Bleach To Color Hair - Changing one's hair color was seen as very risque back then, especially considering only prostitutes and chorus girls would bleach their hair. Dying one's hair was very closely linked with being a promiscuous woman, but for those who did want to go blonde, they had some precarious concoctions. Jean Harlow, for example, was rumored to have died from her iconic white locks at age 26. She used used peroxide, ammonia, Clorox bleach, and Lux flakes to achieve…

Ugly Women Were Sentenced To Prison In The 1920s - It showed questionable morality to have a hobby of putting on lipstick, but then on the flip side, it also showed a questionable morality if a woman wasn't sufficiently beautiful. Take the 1920s for example, a decade full of charming husband killers and criminal bombshells — or at least, that's what newspaper headlines led us to believe. If a female criminal wasn't beautiful, juries had the tendency to offer her the death penalty, but once…

Washing Away Fat With Soap - The garçonne look was very popular during the 1920's, and one of the requirements to pull it off was to have a boyish, reed-thin shape. Because of it, women became obsessed with their weight, and a ton of wacky beauty products made their way into the mainstream. One of such being fat soap. There were different brands of body washes taking over pharmacy shelves that promised to literally "wash away" your fat like dirt!

The Permanent Wave Machine - With the bob taking over salon chairs, beauty magazines, and just about every woman's head in all 48 states, hair dressers needed better tools to help give their clients the permanent waves that they were demanding. Enter this terrifying permanent wave machine, which had a hundred tubes coming down from the ceiling and hooked up directly to a person's head.

Brows Were Thin Because Of Movie Stars - The 1920s saw an emergence of thin, elongated brows, but do you know why they came into vogue? It's all thanks to Hollywood. Silent movie stars had to rely on their faces to convey emotion since they couldn't use words, and so they shaved off their brows and penciled them in to create more expressive shapes. Clara Bow was well known for her brows, and since women looked up to her, they wanted to embody her. And thus a new trend started.

Racist Whitening Creams - While the 1920s gave us famous and much-celebrated black entertainers and celebrities like Josephine Baker and Louis Armstrong, that didn't mean society had set aside its racism and accepted people of color as equals.The lighter you were, the more opportunities you got, and because of that many whitening and bleaching creams hit the market. Their names and adverts made it very clear that whitening one's skin was directly linked with prejudice, where the brands had…

Clairol Had To Use Moms To Re-Market Hair Coloring - Up to the 1950s, a woman who colored her hair was seen as a tart. So when Clairol came onto the scene, it knew that it had to completely rewrite the reputation of hair coloring in order to become a success. Clairol achieved that with the campaign "Does she or doesn't she...only her hairdresser knows," which insinuated the color came out so natural that only a colorist would be able to spot that it wasn't. The brand then used moms in all of…

Nose Job Contraption - Modern day plastic surgery was technically invented during World War I, where sophisticated war weapons left many soldiers maimed and disfigured, but not necessarily dead. (There was a difference between getting shot close-range by a musket like in the Civil War, and suffering severe burns from chemical gas like in WWI. In one you would die instantly, in the other you could survive.)Realizing that they couldn't just bandage these men and send them back to their lives…

Churches Depicted Women With Lipstick In Hell - During the Middle Ages, the Church decided that painting one's face was a challenge to God and his workmanship, and so it banned the use of any cosmetics. To really drive that point home, pictures of devils putting lipstick on women appeared often in paintings and churches, reminding parishioners what would happen if they tried it.

Radiation-Based Beauty Products - Radiation-based beauty products were all the rage during the turn of the century, where beauty lovers thought they were using the next scientific breakthrough in anti-aging and skincare. “An ever-flowing Fountain of Youth and Beauty has at last been found in the Energy Rays of Radium!” announced a 1918 advertisement for Radior cosmetics. “When scientists discovered Radium they hardly dreamed they had unearthed a revolutionary ‘Beauty Secret.’ They know it…

Lipstick Smear Guards - Since dark, vampy lipstick was now the look du jour, women needed to find a way to avoid getting it all over their collars while changing clothes. Enter the clever lipstick smear guard invention, which was technically just thick paper put between the lips as clothes went over a woman's head.

Heavy Eyeliner Thanks To The Egyptians - Thanks to the exciting discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, people became obsessed with everything Egyptian in the 1920s. From the accessories, to the Egyptian-like bobs found on hieroglyphics, to the tunic-like dresses flappers loved, the interest took over the fashion and beauty world. That's partly why flappers loved to wear their eyes heavily kholed — it reminded them of the ancient Egyptians and pharaohs.

Immigrant Women Were Shamed For Their Makeup - During the turn of the 20th century, the US was going through an immigration crisis. "New Immigrants" were flooding into the country, which were the Southern and Eastern Europeans, thought to be poor, uneducated, and rough around the edges. Because of this newfound disdain for the new arrivals, newspapers started to blame bob haircuts and powder compacts on the foreign women coming over. They were seen as the perfect scapegoats, even though in…

Coco Chanel Made Sunburns Popular - Women tried to avoid tanning as much as possible prior to the 1920s, mainly because only working class people who worked outside had tans. But when Coco Chanel fell asleep on her yacht when she was sailing on the French Riviera, her sunburn immediately came into vogue. People decided that a tan symbolized a person was wealthy enough to go on vacation — whether that was to Florida or France — and makeup brands started putting forth fake tanners to meet that…

Friend's Portraits Painted Onto Nails - In the early 1900s, one's manicure was a status symbol. Working women had rough hands with chipped nails, whereas ladies of leisure had soft hands with long pointed nails. To take it a step further, some socialite women took to getting their friends' portraits painted onto their nails as a way to show they were at the top of the social ladder. No working woman would go through such a long nail appointment only to chip her manicure while washing the…

Chin Reducer - The nose job contraption wasn't the only plastic surgery device on the market — there was also the chin reducer for women who weren't entirely happy with their profile.

Half-Moon Nails - The half-moon manicure was one of the most popular nail looks, where woman would paint their nails but leave the white arch by their cuticle blank, creating a lunar-like effect.

Deodarant Became A Thing - Prior to the Gilded Age, body odor was seen as a natural and unavoidable thing. Deodorant was seen as a doctor's territory, and most people didn't worry about getting their pit stains or smell under control.Things changed in the 1920s, though, when a high school student decided to build an empire out of Odor-o-no, her new deodorant product. Creating an ad that played out a melodrama, she knew that the only way to sell her product was to market it to women as a…

Hid Powder Puffs In Their Stocking Tops - Another way women brought their makeup with them to dance halls was to hide powder puffs in their stocking tops. Not only did this leave their hands free by going sans purse, but it also brought attention to their legs when they took the puff out to powder their nose.

Beauty Patches Were Seen As Shocking - During the 18th-century, smallpox ran rampant and had a tendency of leaving terrible scars behind on the people it didn't kill. Hard to look at and marring once beautiful faces, women came up with beauty patches to hide the worst of the marks. But society quickly turned on beauty patches once they saw that women genuinely loved playing with them, and dubbed them the symbol of a "loose" society woman.Patches became a way to communicate — depending where…

Compacts Turned Political In The 1920s - Since so many people disapproved of younger women putting on makeup, these women used their compacts as a political symbol. It became fashionable to put on your lipstick and powder in public, which called attention to yourself and showed you were your own boss. It was a symbol of autonomy and a refusal to be pushed around (like their Victorian mothers were.)

Round Blush Cheeks - Whereas nowadays it's all about contouring and making your cheekbones pop into sharp angles, in the 1920's blush was used to make the face appear fuller. That's why it was applied in round circles just at the apples: people thought it made them look healthier.

Rubber Chest Flateners - Speaking of the garçonne look, big chests didn't fit in with that waif-like aesthetic, so rubber bras were invented to help women sweat their boobs away. The ad said that a person's body was 85 percent water, and one could simply perspire their size away — including their bust!

Crazy Makeup Trends From The 1920s - Everyone knows about fringe dresses and slicked bobs, but there are many beauty trends from the 1920s that haven't made it into the mainstream. The decade was a wild time, where speakeasies were the place to be on a Friday night, women were finally allowed to vote, and more and more ladies got nine to fives and paychecks.With this new kind of autonomy and freedom, beauty trends began to change to fit the new, bold woman better. The times of the Victorian…

Blush Was Always Sent The Evil Eye - Even though it was risky business to put on rouge during the 19th century, many women still went about doing it — and have been for centuries, no matter the backlash. So much so that a twelfth-century poem complained that statues were going undecorated because the women have used up all the paint.

Men Even Had An Opinion About Nail Polish In the 1920s - Everyone likes to be in the presence of a beautiful woman, but only if she's beautiful on their terms. Take nail care in the 1920s, for example. Lower and working class women were encouraged to get manicures on the regular so they could look like they had the hands of socialites and not line cooks, but everyone had an opinion on what that particular manicure should look like. Newspapers loved to ask men's opinions on what they thought…

Vampy Makeup Was Supposed To Mimic Vampires - Women had something of a gender liberation during the '20s, where they no longer wanted to be confined to the stereotypical "parlor ornament" roles that their mothers had. They were newly independent, working, educated women, which meant that — for the first time ever— they had agency. This directly translated into "vampy" makeup. Vamp was short for vampire, and the idea was that women wanted to turn themselves into femme fatales, where they…

To Get A Bob Was A Massive Deal - While nowadays we see the bob haircut as a flirty style that the flappers came up with, during the 1920s it was seen as an epidemic. It was the equivalent of every woman shaving her hair off bald today — it was shocking and, more than that, it was symbolic.Hair was seen as a symbol of womanhood, and wanting to distance themselves from the stuffy gender roles of their Victorian mothers, flappers hacked off their hair to show that they were independent and…

WWI Encouraged Women To Put On Cosmetics...But Not - At the turn of the century, women still weren't comfortable wearing obvious signs of makeup. However, once WWI broke out, things began to change. Red Cross nurse volunteers were threatened with expulsion if they were caught with rouge — but on the flip side, it was also mandatory to look pretty in order to boost soldiers' morale.The workaround this no-makeup rule was to use face cream to brighten your complexion. Helena Rubinstein famously…

England Punished Red Lipstick As Witchcraft - Back in the day, wearing red lipstick could literally get you burned at the stake. In the 1700s, Parliament introduced a law that stated if a women lured a man into marriage by using “scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, bolstered hips," she will be tried and sentenced to death for the use of witchcraft. Men took not having a naturally hot wife very seriously.

1920s Girls Were Thought Of As Garish - As young women began to experiment with their makeup, newspapers and casual observers couldn't help but voice their opinion on how garish the youth was becoming. "She is frankly, heavily made up, not to imitate nature, but for an altogether artificial effect — pallor mortis, poisonously scarlet lips, richly ringed eyes — the latter looking not so much debauched (which is the intention) as diabetic," The New Republic wrote in 1925.Using words like…

Coloring Your Hair Was Only For Prostitutes - The reason why hair coloring had such a bad-girl reputation was because only prostitutes would bleach their hair — and this went back all the way to Ancient Roman times. Having obviously bleached hair was a marker of the trade, and would help men spot which women could be propositioned, and which couldn't.

Coloring Your Hair Was Only For Prostitutes - The reason why hair coloring had such a bad-girl reputation was because only prostitutes would bleach their hair — and this went back all the way to Ancient Roman times. Having obviously bleached hair was a marker of the trade, and would help men spot which women could be propositioned, and which couldn't.

Black Women Faced A Catch 22 With Whitening Creams - With Jim Crow laws deep in effect during the first half of the 20th century, black women found that if they used bleaching creams to lighten their skin, their quality of life would slightly improve. They could attain better jobs, apply for better apartments, and be treated with a little more respect while out on the street. The whitening cream ads from that time reflected the pressure to appear lighter, where they depicted frazzled…

The Church Allowed Makeup If You Were Too Ugly For Your Husband - While makeup was seen as a mortal sin, the Church did allow for one loophole: a wife could use it if her husband found her unattractive. Especially during the age of smallpox and the plague, many people were marred with scars and sallow skin. The Church allowed women to use their DIY cosmetics to keep their husbands from straying.

Today's Time: Skincare Shame - Yes, we are living in 2018, and yes, women are still mocked and made fun of for their love of beauty products. An article called "The Skincare Con" came out earlier this month that called skincare a frivolous, ineffective fad that women waste their money on and only dabble in because they feel ugly.But as we know — and as we have seen from going over thousands of years of women putting on makeup regardless of the stigma, the punishment, or backlash — that's…

Suffragettes Wore Red Lipstick To Protest - As women battled for the vote in the 19th and 20th century, they decided to use makeup as a tangible sign of autonomy. Whereas before it was seen as a scandal for a middle class woman to go outside with any visible signs of cosmetics, Suffragettes put red lipstick on during their marches to show that they were their own women and could control their own minds and lives.

Men Hated Women Who Wore Obvious Makeup In the Early 20th Century - Speaking of men having a lot of opinions, in 1938 The Lincoln Star went to Hollywood to ask actors what they thought about women's beauty routines. "Tyrone Power doubts if men think much about make-up, but says he notices only when there is too much or too little," the paper reported. Which gives women a very thin line to walk on! You need enough to not too look tired, but not so much that men fear they're getting tricked.

In Ancient Greece, Prostitutes Would Get Fined For Not Wearing Makeup - In ancient Greece, only prostitutes wore obvious makeup in town squares so that men could spot them easily and not harass other women. This led Greece to pass the first known law that pertained to makeup: Street walkers without red lipstick could be thrown into jail. The idea was that if one of them walked around town fresh faced, she would be deceitfully posing as a lady, which would be a scandal in such a hierarchical…

Today's Time: Shaming Women For Putting On Makeup In Public - Have you ever felt self-conscious taking out a lipstick tube ande re-applying on the bus or in a restaurant? You're not alone. Makeup shaming is so prevalent that Covergirl launched a campaign called "PDA - Public Displays of Application" that encouraged women to forget the stares and just take out their lipstick tubes. Sleek MakeUp's "My Face My Rules" campaign encouraged people to put on whatever makeup they like, regardless of…

Shoe Compacts For Flappers - Seeing how makeup was only worn by promiscuous women in the 1800s, putting on makeup in public was still seen as very taboo a few decades later. Sure, people knew women powdered their noses now, but they didn't want that fact thrown in their faces. Knowing that, flappers loved to put on their makeup in public. But since their fast dancing made it hard to carry a purse, shoes with special compact-holding buckles were invented.

Looking Sickly Was In Vogue During The Victorian Era - During the Victorian era, it was seen as very beautiful to look like you had Tuberculosis. That pale skin, fever-y flush, watery eyes, and general delicate aesthetic was seen as very ethereal and vulnerable, and the most beautiful women mimicked that look. The only problem was, unless you were on your death bed, there was no real way to copy it.Makeup was a massive taboo during the 1800s, where only prostitutes wore the stuff. Women…

There Was A Mug Shot Gallery For Vamps - The "vamp" look took over in the 1920s, where women would kohl their eyes, slick on dark red lipstick, and channel a femme-fatale-like character that flirted with boys and broke their hearts once they stopped buying them drinks and furs. Enraged with this new bold sense of self, a judge in Newark ordered the Director of Public Safety to create a “Vampire’s Gallery,” which quite literally had police arrest vamps preying on men, take their mugshots, and…

Hairdryers May Or May Not Kill You - Hairdryers first came onto the scene in the 1920s, helping women fix their hair in half the time. But like any new prototype or invention, the Hairdryer 1.0 had its kinks. One of which was that it could possibly kill you at one point. Using wonky electrical connections, the dryers tended to overheat and spark, causing electrocutions, burns, and even deaths.

Husbands Could Get Annulments If You Wore Makeup - Feeling like they needed to protect men from lying women, Parliament passed a law in the 1700s that stated if a woman used lipstick, powder, or rouge during her courtship, and the husband found her to be lacking in natural beauty after they got hitched, he could legally annul the marriage.

Ancient Greeks Made Fun Of Women For Their Face Powder - You'll notice that a common theme in history was making fun of women who liked to play with cosmetics. In ancient Greece, philosophers liked to mock the act while jokingly arguing the merits of transforming yourself with paint. For example, the poet Eubulus, in his comedy The Wreath-Sellers, cheekily described the way the makeup would melt off the faces of women Athens: "If you go out when it is hot, two streams of black make-up flow…