Cosmetics Matters

Kathy Peiss. Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998. xii + 334 pp.; ill. ISBN 0-8050-5550-9 (cl).

For several years, Kathy Peiss has been a leading researcher in a long-neglected field: the history of cosmetics. Hope in a Jar, her first full-length book on the history of beauty culture in the United States, is an exciting story of a subject matter that deserves historians' attention. "Small objects sometimes possess great moral force," Peiss states succinctly, and she finds no difficulty in persuading readers that this could be said about the varying roles of cosmetics over time.

Broadly, Peiss covers three phases of the history of cosmetics. The first phase consisted of the period up to World War I, when powder and rouge were scorned as immoral and were linked to prostitution. The ideal of a "natural," innocent appearance was very strong, although it was clearly at odds with the dress fashions of the time. According to Peiss, resistance to paint could even be formulated from a Darwinian point of view: cosmetics thwarted the process of natural selection, making men choose the "wrong" mate. Still, as Peiss shows, the war did not suddenly change these perceptions; they had begun to erode during the late nineteenth century as growing numbers of women moved into public life. Working women, saleswomen, and society women began to paint, more or less cautiously, despite general contention. Peiss demonstrates that small-scale women entrepreneurs were quick to seize the business opportunities the growing demand for cosmetics offered.

Immigrant and black women played a key role during the initial stage. More than in most other industries, women became successful in cosmetics businesses. This applies not only to such well-known figures as Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, but also to many others who are less well-known. For instance, Madam C. J. Walker and Annie Turnbo Malone started prosperous cosmetics firms aimed at black women. They believed in the social significance of appearance, viewing beauty culture as essential to black womanhood, but never accepted skin bleachers or hair straightening.

The second phase stretched from World War I to 1930 and was characterized by the rapidly widening acceptance of cosmetics in urban life. The 1920s was a decisive decade in the establishment of a mass market for cosmetics. Peiss argues that a democratic vision of beauty effectively undermined the traditional regime of moralist, conventional representations of women. Cosmetics signaled women's emancipation, individuality, and social participation, symbols that men often defied. Beauty news and advice received wide attention in newspapers and magazines. The fact that by 1930 women could choose among three thousand face powders, and hundreds of rouges, lipsticks, and other products indicates the expansion of the market. At the same time, although many women continued to work as professionals in advertising, marketing, and media, their pioneering entrepreneurial role was over as big corporations run by men took control.

A third phase started in 1930 with the narrowing of feminine ideals, a turn toward inward-looking narcissism (the Greta Garbo look), and strong pleas in magazines for women's "right to romance!" Makeup had been normalized; it was no longer seen as a sign of vanity, vice, or desire, but as a true expression of femininity. Cosmetics had become routine. Since 85 percent of college women in 1931 wore rouge, lipstick, face powder, and nail polish, they were hardly regarded as pioneers anymore.

Peiss does not define this third phase strictly chronologically. Her interest lies mainly with developments up to 1945. She addresses changes after that date in a more impressionistic way. In fact, there are good reasons for this emphasis on the pre-World War II period, since the interwar years mark the most intense reassessment of cosmetics. The 1950s saw the rise of the teenage market but otherwise offered little that was new. Although not explicitly stated by Peiss, a possible fourth phase should be distinguished: the dissolution of the...