Content warning: mention of suicide in the 3rd to last paragraph.
I wish I was sharing something uplifting instead of tragic, but I wanted to discuss a very talented writer who contributed much to the beauty industry during her short life. Mona Manet debuted her eponymous line of cosmetics in 1941 in her New York City salon. Soon the brand rolled out nationwide, and Manet enjoyed a brief career as a salon owner, makeup artist and beauty columnist. However, she was harboring a big secret: while Mona Manet presented herself as white, she was in fact a Black woman who had adopted a new identity and a new name to go with it.
Mona Manet was born as Elsie Roxborough in Detroit, MI, in 1914 into a prominent Black family. Her father Charles was a Detroit College of Law graduate who owned a weekly paper, the Detroit Guardian, and also served as a state senator. Her biracial mother, Cassandra, sadly died while delivering Elsie’s younger sister, Virginia, in 1917. Roxborough was the first Black woman to live in the dorms at the University of Michigan, largely due to her father’s efforts to fight discrimination on campus. However, it was not without struggle. Roxborough was alienated by most of her fellow Black students, who perceived her cultured upbringing as snobbish. But she was not fully accepted by whites either. Says Kathleen Hauke, who wrote a thorough profile of Roxborough in 1984 for the Michigan Quarterly Review: “Her [wealth] produced a tension between Roxborough and other blacks on campus who had not enjoyed her privileges. To white students she was an exotic, not like other Negroes yet not like themselves either.” Being rejected by both races was perhaps one of many reasons for Roxborough’s decision to live as a white woman.
Despite these obstacles, Roxborough’s gift for writing flourished. She wrote for the campus paper alongside classmate Arthur Miller and established a theater troupe, the Roxane Players, for whom she wrote her own plays. In 1937 she worked with Langston Hughes to produce his play Drums of Haiti. She and Hughes began a professional relationship/friendship. In his autobiography, Hughes remembers, “Elsie would tell me about her dreams, and wonder whether or not it would be better for her to pass as white to achieve them. From what I knew of the American entertainment field and how [Blacks] were almost entirely excluded from the directorial or technical aspects of it, I agreed with her that it was difficult for any [Black] person to gain entrance except as a performer…and for a [Black] woman I think it would be even more difficult than a man. Elsie was often mistaken for white in public places, so it would be no trouble at all for her to pass as white. While I was in Spain she wrote me that she had made up her mind to do so. She intended to cease being [Black].” The meteoric rise of boxer Joe Louis, whose was managed by Roxborough’s uncle John, was perhaps the last straw for her in terms of living as a Black woman and the impetus for pursuing a career in beauty. Hauke suggests, “The rejection of her plays by critics and judges contrasted with the nearly incredible success of Uncle John’s golden boy. If making it as a Black in America demanded masculine brute strength, she would flee to the genteel white world in which a woman’s arts would be appreciated.” Roxborough dyed her hair from black to auburn and moved to California, taking the name Pat Rico and working as a model. After less than a year on the West coast she relocated again, this time to New York City. It’s not clear exactly when she adopted the Mona Manet name, but most likely it was around late 1939-early 1940.* It’s also unclear as to when she opened her salon at 48 East 52nd St, but it seems that is where she got her start in beauty. Over the next decade Roxborough would manage her salon, release a cosmetics line, write for a number of publications and serve as makeup artist to models and actresses for various fashion shows, press events and theatrical productions.
In February 1941 several trade publications reported on the Mona Manet cosmetics line, which was distributed nationwide later that year.
It was the packaging that caused me to purchase the lipstick and rouge on eBay. I knew absolutely nothing about Elsie Roxborough or Mona Manet, but the font of the signature was intriguing. At first glance the style appears somewhat ‘80s, but the bakelite packaging and size made me realize it had to be ‘30s or ‘40s. The lipstick is the shade Samba and the rouge is Rebel Red.
Here’s an eyeshadow which for some reason slipped by my radar. I will be forever heartbroken over not adding it to the Museum’s collection.Update, March 2025: As I was packing up the Museum’s collection to move to new headquarters, I found the eyeshadow!! Apparently I had purchased it and it somehow got separated from the rouge and lipstick.
The violet eyeshadow was part of the Mona Manet “duration” makeup collection, which she originally used on the Ziegfeld Follies girls. Meant to be a delicate, feminine contrast to “severe uniforms” of women in the military and worn for the duration of the war, the collection consisted of the following: “a new orchid-pink shade, a baby-blue eyeshadow for use over the lids with a violet shadow graduating towards the brows, along with an ethereal face powder over all.” The rouge and lipstick were appropriately named “Manet Pink”.
Roxborough’s advice and techniques were largely in keeping with the others of the time. She did have some unique tactics, however, including applying a very heavy face of makeup and removing most of it. According to Roxborough, this technique resembled the Chinese art of flower arranging in which a large bouquet is gathered and one flower at a time is removed until “the most piquant and satisfying effect has been accomplished.” Indeed, Roxborough seemed to have an affinity for Chinese culture, creating several hairstyles inspired by those worn by Chinese women and launching a beauty oil that she claimed was based on an ancient Chinese practice of using oil instead of a cream/lotion to moisturize both face and body. At times, she also used Chinese calligraphy brushes to apply lip and eye products. Chinese dignitaries, including a military captain, attended the opening of the new department in her salon, the Lotus Room, in September 1943. The event presented “an original kind of beauty demonstration stressing the Chinese influence in this year’s Fall styles…it is Miss Manet’s idea that Chinese make-up devices can be added to our American concept of beauty.”
She was also known for quick, streamlined beauty routines. In late 1942 the Associated Press reported on a beauty demonstration on 5 women by Roxborough and her salon workers. All of the women were serving in the military and had little time for treatments; however, as the mantra for American women during WWII was “beauty is your duty”, it was expected that all women, whether in the military or civilians, were to be perfectly coiffed and made up at all times. While the routines described in the article seem ridiculously long by today’s standards, in reality they were pretty quick: one factory worker had “a scalp treatment, shampoo and rinse, hair style, manicure, pedicure, clean-up facial and makeup which took only 64 ½ minutes.” The Lotus Room, in addition to being Chinese-inspired, offered much the same speedy, “assembly line” routine. Clients could get the “main essentials” of a shampoo, wave, manicure and makeup in 50 minutes. Interestingly, the concept of head-to-toe service would be greatly enhanced in several Black-owned salons, including the Rose Meta House of Beauty and Carmen Murphy’s House of Beauty, a few years later. This is entirely speculative, but I wonder if Rose Morgan and Roxborough were aware of each other as Roxborough occasionally socialized in Harlem, where the Rose Meta salon was located. And perhaps Carmen Murphy was aware of Roxborough’s salon as she set up shop in Roxborough’s hometown of Detroit, where she was still in touch with family there.
Finally, as Mona Manet, Roxborough was one of the earliest makeup artists who advocated for the use of a lip brush to apply lipstick. This practice would become hugely popular later in the 1940s and throughout the next decade (stay tuned for a post on Martha Lorraine lip brushes and other gadgets for a defined lip in the 1950s.)
In between operating the salon and providing makeup artistry for fashion shows and plays, Roxborough wrote ad copy and columns for a multitude of brands and publications beginning in 1945. In July of that year she was hired to be director of cosmetics for Lucien Lelong, but just two months later, she assumed the role of cosmetic editor at American Druggist, listed as “formerly” of Lucien Lelong. At American Druggist she wrote such pieces as “How to Be a Cosmetician” and “Classroom for Cosmeticians: Summer Cosmetics.” In February 1946 she began writing for Fascination magazine in addition to American Druggist, but left Fascination in March 1947, most likely because it folded. Less than a year after that, in February 1948 Women’s Wear Daily announced that Mona Manet had left American Druggist and was appointed as publicity director to Chen Yu, a company known primarily for nail polish (and rampant appropriation and stereotyping of Chinese culture, which may have aligned with Roxborough’s interest in Chinese fashion and beauty.) All of this job-switching suggests another mystery – was it simply the nature of the industry for workers to constantly be moving from one company to the next, or was Roxborough concerned about her true identity being found out and felt the need to move frequently to keep any suspicions at bay? But given how closely connected the industry was (and still is), this doesn’t seem plausible. If she was found out, word would spread quickly so there wasn’t much of a point in moving on to new positions.
All of Roxborough’s success as a beautician could not compensate for what was most likely a lonely existence. She had to be very careful about being seen in public with her Black friends in the city as well as her family when they came to visit, and mitigating public appearances meant seeing the people she was closest to infrequently. She lived with a white roommate, and all of her colleagues in the beauty world knew her as white. Her career would effectively be over and even her personal safety could be at risk if it was discovered she was Black. At the same time, while Roxborough was not estranged from her family, they were reportedly less than pleased with her decision to live as a white woman. Once again, Roxborough was unable to be fully embraced by either whites or the Black community. It could have been the inability to ever feel truly accepted that led to Roxborough’s fatal overdose of sleeping pills on October 2, 1949. Whether her death was intentional or accidental we will never know, but her family believed it was an accident, their reasoning being that she did not leave a note. They held a small, private funeral for her, and while the Michigan Chronicle ran the headline “Elsie Roxborough Dies,” her death certificate listed her as white. No one in New York City was made aware that she was Black.
The larger topic of racial “passing” and its implications are far beyond the scope of this post, especially as I’d like to focus on Roxborough’s role in cosmetics history. I personally think Roxborough could have gone to New York as a Black woman and become a hugely successful beauty entrepreneur who was able to meet the needs of Black customers as Sara Spencer Washington, Madame C.J. Walker and Annie Turnbo Malone did before her. Or she could have continued passing as white and pursued a beauty career even further than she did. She was described by her colleagues as an “up-and-coming young beautician with an important future” and “one of the most gifted writers in the cosmetic realm.” Black or white, she was quite talented at makeup and hair in addition to writing. But it seems that she did not engage in the beauty realm out of genuine interest. Instead, perhaps Roxborough saw being a white beauty expert as a way to get closer to her true passion, which was playwriting. Providing the makeup and hair styles for performers/models at fashion shows and coordinating corporate beauty presentations was getting her foot in the door – maybe she thought that if she could prove herself more than capable of managing these types of productions, she could break into writing and directing high theater more easily. Having been mostly shut out of that world as a Black woman previously, living as white and overseeing various skits and performances (which she was doing as of 1947 – her credits for most shows had changed to “written and staged by Mona Manet”) allowed her a better shot at achieving her dream of being a serious playwright.
In any case, I hope this post makes clear that Roxborough contributed significantly to makeup history, no matter how she identified racially. It also serves as a reminder of the enormity of white privilege, and that while the beauty industry afforded more opportunities for both Black and white women, the playing field was and remains uneven along race and gender lines.
*The Mona Manet name for cosmetics was patented in March 1941 with a claims use date of December 28, 1940, so Roxborough was most likely using the name throughout 1940.
Sources
Advertisement, Harper’s Bazaar, vol. 75, iss. 2765, May 1942, 18.
American Perfumer and Essential Oil Review, October 1943, 52.
American Perfumer and Essential Oil Review, December 1945, 54-55.
American Perfumer and Essential Oil Review, January 1948, 79.
Donna Davis, “Beauty for Sale: Everything New in Beauty,” Hit Parader, December 1942, 22.
Annette Donnelly, “Beauty in a Hurry: This Speedup Era Takes Its Turn at Charm, Too,” Daily News (New York), August 23, 1943.
Drug and Cosmetic Industry, volume 57, issue 1, July 1945, 81.
Ruth Finley, “Fashion Calendar”, September 3, 1943, 3.
Helen Flynn, “Christmas Counterpoints,” Town & Country, vol. 97, iss. 4243, December 1942, 44.
Kathleen A. Hauke, “The ‘Passing’ of Elsie Roxborough,” Michigan Quarterly Review, vol. 23, no. 2, 1984, 155-170.
Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2015 edition (originally published in 1956).
Jacqueline Hunt, “Make-up Keyed to Hair-do for Most Flattering Effect,” Anadarko Daily News, April 8, 1941.
Martha Parker, “Bigger Imports of Needed Tropical Oils for Lip Rouge Made Possible by Navy,” New York Times, November 16, 1943.
Gayle Wald, Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in Twentieth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000, 82-84.
“Miss Manet with Chen Yu,” Women’s Wear Daily, February 20, 1948, 30.
It's roughly 6 months past the Makeup Museum's official anniversary back in August of 2023, but it's still technically the 15th year of the Museum's existence so I forged ahead with a small exhibition, the theme of which is the 15 most important objects in the current collection. I originally thought of doing my favorite objects, but let's face it, it would have just been all novelties, mermaids, artist collabs, and food-themed items. It was very hard to narrow down, as all the Museum's objects are important for one reason or another, but there is a good representation. All of them were chosen based on their historical, cultural or artistic significance. I was also sort of hoping it could serve as a prototype or precursor to a larger exhibition that would be expanded to include makeup styles and trends, along with other super important pieces that aren't yet in the Makeup Museum's collection – perhaps a global history of makeup in 100 objects? In any case, happy 15th to the little museum that could!
As with using electronic versions of the labels vs. taking photos of them attached to the shelves, I am puzzled as to why it took me 15 years to figure out it's much easier (and safer for the objects) to take photos when the pieces aren't on the shelves. I also figured I didn't need to re-take photos of objects that already have photos for blog posts or Instagram, so they all look a little different. Ah well. Here we go!
Kohl tube – this was a tricky one! I purchased it on eBay from a seller in India, but I suspect the lettering on the cap is Arabic, not Hindi, so I'm wondering if it really was made in India. I tried running it through Google Translate for images but the translation didn't make any sense. Update, 4/22/2024: Nadja, the brilliant genius behind the best art history podcast ever, kindly translated this! It is indeed Arabic and the word is simply "Arab". Also, there is an illustration of the exact same design on p. 144 of Jolanda Bos' Paint It Black: A Biography of Kohl Containers. That one is in the Musée du Quai Branly and has an accession date of 1982, so we know this design goes back at least to the early 1980s. The provenance for that one is listed as Jordan. All in all I'm guessing the fish-tail design is pretty common throughout the Middle East and India.
Third row, left to right:
Eihodo brush:
Helena Rubinstein Mascara-Matic:
Overton's face powders:
This was a bonus object – since there are 16 shelves I figured I'd throw it in. Behold, the palette that started it all, which also serves as a reminder to check out the Stila girls exhibition. 🙂
Plus, I had to show off the lovely card the husband made since it reflects all the support he's given me and the Museum since it started – he is a hugely important part of the Museum's history! It reads: "Happy 15th anniversary to MuM, Ms. Curator! You are an incredible visionary and academic with your big juicy brain. I love you very much and I'm so proud of you and all your accomplishments." Too sweet.
I thought long and hard about including these very problematic objects. Ultimately they made it in, not despite their overt racism but because of it. The next installment of MM Musings is going to tackle how, or even if, the Makeup Museum should display these sorts of pieces.
Etude House x BT21 palette and lip tints:
Beauty Palette compact, one of my personal favorites. And I know I mentioned all the photos are different, but these are particularly special – as you might have noticed, they are done by a professional! The Beauty Palette was one of 10 objects selected for test shots with the photographer I've hired. Professional photos are a critical part of collection digitization, so consider this a little sneak peek of the process.
In addition to an exhibition, this post also includes an informal history of the Makeup Museum as told by me, the founder and curator. 🙂
Very infrequently I get asked about the impetus for starting the Makeup Museum, so I thought I'd expand a bit on how it began. As stated in the About section of the website, the Makeup Museum was first envisioned as a coffee table book in the early 2000s. It was to be devoted to pretty or uniquely designed contemporary makeup. But I originally became interested in makeup packaging a few years before, in October 1999, when I spotted a cute Stila girl palette at Nordstrom. From then on I began collecting as much as I could afford. Two other factors contributed to this interest in packaging: meeting my husband in 2000, a graphic designer who showed me that everyday objects could be works of art; and the rise of embossed powders and artist collaborations. Up until the early 2000s, embossing wasn't widely used, and if it was, it was fairly crude and not the elaborate designs that came to be. Blogs and forums like Makeupalley.com, whose users often commented that some piece of makeup or another was "too pretty to use", made me think that there should be someone preserving these objects as art, and I loved artist collabs – it's an affordable way of owning a piece of their work, or at least a reproduction. I thought pretty makeup would be a perfect idea for a coffee table book, but the idea of getting it published was overwhelming, and a friend of mine told me to start a blog instead as blogs were at their peak in 2005-2006. As I was mulling that idea over, another hit me like a bolt of lightning: why shouldn't makeup have its own museum? I wasn't even thinking about vastness and importance of makeup history, only the aesthetics of current makeup packaging, but I thought that alone was worthy enough of its own museum. Plus, there really wasn't any specialized museum just for cosmetics in the U.S. Sure, fashion and design museums had a few vintage pieces and there were perfume museums, but nothing only for makeup. I wanted people to look at makeup differently, to see it in a way they hadn't before – not as a mere commodity but mini works of wearable art. I also was dismayed (as I still am now) that the vast majority of folks didn't see makeup as being worthy of a museum. I made it my mission to change their minds.
You can't tell me this isn't art! These all feature the work of women artists.
There was also a personal angle. At the time, I was heartbroken over not getting into doctoral programs and feeling quite lost professionally. I'll spare the sad details, but for a lot of reasons I was not able to carry out the career plan I had in college, which was to be an art history professor or museum curator. My thinking was that if academia and museums didn't want me, I'd start my own thing and have some kind of outlet that wasn't the mind-numbing tedium of administrative work, a.k.a. my day job. Like running a marathon, the Makeup Museum was admittedly set up mostly out of spite, a big ole middle finger to all the rejection I had endured. And it would be a place to both feed my brain and promote the idea of a museum as something other than walls and a static bunch of objects behind glass. Perhaps it was the topic of my Master's thesis that subconsciously inspired me too. Starting a museum with no real experience or resources was very much in the rebellious, DIY punk spirit of Riot Grrrl.
Can't believe it's been 20 years!
In September 2007 I registered the domain for the Museum – only for the dot org, since at the time, it was basically unheard of to register multiple domains for the same company or organization. I wanted it to be very clear the Museum was intended as a nonprofit, not a business or any other sort of entity, so the dot com, dot net, etc. were not registered (a decision that would prove absolutely disastrous over 10 years later.) I then spent nearly a year teaching myself HTML in an attempt to create an online museum, only to surrender in the summer of 2008 and implement the earlier idea of a blog. The three main blogging platforms were WordPress, Typepad and Google Blogger. I made what is in hindsight another unfortunate decision to go with Typepad. While it has served decently over the years, it would have saved so much time and money if the blog had been hosted at WordPress!
Over time, I started understanding the importance of vintage pieces and makeup history more generally. While I enjoyed pulling together seasonal exhibitions featuring newer items, they were lacking in a lot of respects: they weren't very complex and left out quite a bit of important history. The Museum was receiving inquiries on vintage objects and I felt as though an organization focused on makeup had a responsibility to include these in its collection. Social media was eye-opening as well in that the Instagram photos with the most likes were of vintage objects. In terms of research, I noticed so many disciplines (especially art history, my first love – I still try to keep up with the developments within the field) were getting "de-colonized" or going "beyond the canon", and I thought, wouldn't it be great if the Museum could do the same for makeup? While fantastic resources on basic makeup history exist, there is a significant lack of material on lesser known topics, and it seems much of makeup's history hasn't been written yet. I wanted to fill in the gaps, to tell stories about makeup that haven't been told before. This feeling definitely aligned with the Museum's original mission, which was to encourage people think about makeup differently. From about 2012 through 2018 the Makeup Museum experienced a slow evolution from a hobby dedicated to showcasing the newest and prettiest makeup to a more serious endeavor, one that shares an alternative account of makeup history and tackles current topics not covered in-depth elsewhere – but without losing sight of makeup's playful side. During this time I moved the materials for another hobby, making beaded jewelry, from the living room to offsite storage to make room for the Museum's ever-growing collection. While I don't remember the year, I do recall thinking that it was somehow symbolic: the Makeup Museum was no longer another past-time like beading, but a much bigger goal to which I would need to devote literally all of my time outside of work. To execute the vision I had in my head, I needed to give up some other things in my life and make it the highest priority. I have no regrets or resentment; I made that decision willingly. But it was going to be a lot tougher than I anticipated.
Stratton mermaid compact with one of my handmade necklaces
A major turning point came during a life-changing 36 hours in March of 2019. Between approximately 11am on March 17 and 8:30pm March 18, my world basically imploded. Once again I will spare the details, but the rest of 2019 was easily the worst time of my life to date. I was at a crossroads: should I keep going with the Museum or do I throw in the towel? It was the first time I seriously considered packing up the Museum for good. But for reasons I still can't totally explain (outside of my own stubbornness and again, rage/spite) I decided to stay with it. And not only keep going, but make the Museum the best it can be despite all the obstacles and lack of resources.
Around 15 months after those fateful March days in 2019, the U.S. experienced a major racial reckoning. I realized the total lack of diversity and inclusiveness was not at all what I had envisioned for the Makeup Museum, and with that, I began researching ways to alleviate this massive blind spot as much as I could. I also began paying more attention to the other negative aspects of makeup and its history. I don't think I ever shied away from it, but I felt taking a deeper dive into the problematic side of both makeup and museums was critical to the Museum's mission of education and its new focus on helping to effect social change.
In the past 5 years the Makeup Museum became an official nonprofit organization, was awarded a grant, and registered its name as a trademark. And soon there will be a brand new website complete with a digitized collection. I also co-founded an international network for academics and researchers whose work centers on cosmetics. I like to think these achievements help prove the Museum's legitimacy to the naysayers and firmly establish makeup's place as a field of study. For the Makeup Museum specifically, they demonstrate the ability to go from an escapist fantasy and repository for pretty things to a hybrid organization that combines education and exhibitions with activism. My biggest hopes are for the Makeup Museum to re-conceptualize the traditional museum model and lead the way in new academic areas for cosmetics. Ultimately, I would love for the Museum to be a showcase for exhibitions and a soundly researched and comprehensive permanent collection, but also a gallery where makeup artists and other visual creatives can display their work, a research institute, a community center where people can engage in workshops and discussions about makeup, and a space for activism. I also dream of a "beauty pantry" of sorts, where people in need can come and take whatever they want. This post is long enough so I'll expand on these ideas later. 😉
If you're still reading, thank you for joining me on this journey through the Makeup Museum's evolution and I hope you enjoyed the 15th anniversary exhibition!
I was trying in vain to catch up on some beauty news many moons ago and came across this article at Who What Wear – yet another on the history of red lipstick. There were a lot of things that bothered me about it, but the number one offense was the doubling down on the myth of Elizabeth Arden handing out lipstick to suffragettes during a 1912 march in New York City. After recognizing this claim’s veracity was murky at best, the article’s author stated, “I wanted to know more, so I went straight to the source: Elizabeth Arden, the very same global beauty brand founded by the namesake cosmetics maven.” A brand can certainly be used as a source, provided there are legitimate historical records that serve as evidence for their claims. However, in this piece there were many statements made by Janet Curmi, VP of global education and development at Elizabeth Arden, without anything to back them up. “On November 9, 1912, 20,000 women took to the streets of New York to advocate for the right to vote. Elizabeth Arden, a dedicated suffragette herself, opened the doors of her New York spa to hand out her Venetian Lip Paste and Venetian Arden Lip Pencil, before joining the suffragettes marching down Fifth Avenue as a sign of solidarity. The most striking sight was the bold red color on the women’s lips.” The accompanying photo shows suffragettes marching at the May 4, 1912 event (not November)…with nary a one wearing visible lip color. Just for funsies I reviewed some news coverage on the November march.* As with the May march, they describe quite a few details, including the exact route and the women’s clothing, but lipstick is not among any of them.
I am very interested to know where Curmi got this information. Arden wasn’t, in fact, particularly known as a “dedicated suffragist.” The legend of her providing lipsticks to marching suffragettes goes back to at least 1999 and names the May 4 rally (see Lucy Jane Santos’s outstanding effort to unravel its history, along with my findings), so November 9 appears to be a new twist on the mythos. Another addition is the reference to Venetian Lip Paste and Pencil specifically being given to suffragettes. As far as I can tell, no particular products were mentioned in the Arden suffragette story until 2021, when author Louise Claire Johnson published a book entitled Behind the Red Door: How Elizabeth Arden’s Legacy Inspired My Coming-of-Age Story in the Beauty Industry. Johnson states that Arden provided Venetian Lip Paste and pencil to the crowds at the November march, but does not cite an exact source: “However, six months later, on November 9, 1012, Elizabeth could no longer sit idly by in silence. Shuttering the salon for the day, she took to the streets and joined 20,000 women, double the size of the previous parade, and advocated for the right to vote. The most striking sight was the bold red color on the women’s lips, as they vibrantly spoke their truth. Elizabeth weaved among the masses handing out her Venetian Lip Paste and Venetian Arden lip pencil in deep red – the original ‘lip kit’. In history, it is often the slightest gestures that become revolutionary. The red lip kits were small, yet mighty weapons – a red pout in place of a middle finger against the patriarchy. Red lips were still considered illicit and immoral, so the women wore them in unison as a rebellious emblem of emancipation. Makeup was no longer a sign of sin but of sovereignty.” (p. 63-64)
While it’s been confirmed that Arden had a line of “Venetian” skincare products by 1912, her lip makeup products were still in development. There was a Venetian Lip Salve advertised in Vogue, but I’m guessing it was a clear or slightly tinted balm and not “paint”, and I could not find any mention of Venetian Lip Paste/Pencil until 1919. Additionally, 2 pages after her claim of the paste and pencil being being handed out, Johnson seems to contradict herself by stating that “after the suffrage parade, [Arden] started introducing makeup products into her Venetian skincare line.” So if the makeup was not introduced until after the parade, how was it handed out? It’s entirely possible Arden was making a prototype of these lip items available through her salons – most likely she was mixing up limited, small batches of makeup to select clients who requested it – but no ads, trademark, etc. for Venetian Lip Paste and Lip Pencil prior to 1919 seem to exist, which leads one to believe that they were not being mass produced and able to be distributed to thousands of people. Perhaps any records relating to the origins of Venetian Lip Paste and Lip Pencil and for that matter, any records of Arden giving them out at a rally are in the mysterious “Elizabeth Arden papers”, which, as one historian explains, are scattered about across the U.S. and not readily available. Still, I find it curious that the company has never provided any documentation that Arden handed out lipstick, and specific products at that. I also reached out to Behind the Red Door’s author – twice – asking for her to clarify where she came across the story of the Venetian lip products and did not receive a reply.
Curmi further embellishes the tale by remarking that mostly because of Arden, suffragette leaders began to wear red lipstick as well. “While turn-of-the-century actresses like Sarah Bernhardt and Mary Pickford helped to bring red lipstick into vogue in 1912, it was Elizabeth Arden who gave it political power, elevating it to a symbol of rebellion and female empowerment…red lips were still considered illicit and immoral at the time, so the women wore them in unison as a rebellious emblem of emancipation and defiance. [Leaders] of feminist movements such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman began sporting red lips as a symbol of female empowerment. Since then, red lipstick has mirrored resilient femininity.” Once again, I’m going to direct you to Lucy’s article on the subject, where she points out that Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in 1902. Continuing to wear lipstick 10 years after one’s death would be quite an impressive feat, no?
Finally, anyone who has researched makeup’s rise in the early 20th century understands there were many other factors at play in terms of how lipstick and other makeup became socially acceptable. Yes, wearing obvious makeup was certainly a seismic cultural shift and viewed as rebellious, but it cannot be credited to any one person or movement. “One of the first female entrepreneurs in 20th century America, Arden remarkably turned a $6000 investment into a billion-dollar brand. She opened the Red Door Spa on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1910 at a time when makeup and cosmetics were considered improper. She was instrumental in changing how the world thought about beauty—the ultimate influencer,” Curmi says. These statements demonstrate the pitfalls of letting a company executive guide the narrative instead of an actual historian, as a brand employee has a vested interest in presenting their business as groundbreaking rather than telling the truth. In this case, not only does Curmi offer no hard proof for the suffragette-related claim, she conveniently leaves out the contributions of other major “influencers” of the time, i.e. Helena Rubinstein, Max Factor and Madam C.J. Walker, to say nothing of smaller brands and figures, technological advances, and economic and political factors other than suffrage. Obviously these omissions make sense as her role is to promote the Arden brand and because the reporter reached out to Arden specifically and not other companies for this article, but they also make for a rather incomplete and biased snapshot of lipstick’s history.
Finally, the subject of makeup and political power is one for another time, but for the record, most early advertising marketed it as a way to better meet white supremacist beauty standards and continue enforcing compulsory heterosexuality rather than for any “empowering” purpose. Once again, nuance is wholly neglected in favor of pushing a feel-good story that serves primarily to buoy a company’s reputation.
I’m ending this post with several requests. For journalists, one: if you must interview brand representatives, please do not rely on them as a credible source for the stories you’re trying to get to the bottom of, unless they furnish documentation from the company’s archives or other legitimate pieces of evidence. Otherwise your article runs the risk of resembling a glorified ad rather than journalism. Two: please choose another makeup topic to cover besides red lipstick (or at least, an angle not focused on cis-het white women’s history). Maybe red lipstick’s fame and status as a “classic” means stories about it get more clicks, but makeup history is so incredibly varied and rich, many other subjects would be of interest to the general public. The last plea I’m making is for the Elizabeth Arden company to show the world a shred of historical evidence that their founder provided lipsticks to suffragettes. We’re still waiting.
*These were all from the New York Times: “400,000 Cheer Suffrage March,” Nov. 10 1912, p. 1; “New States to Lead in Suffrage Parade: Army of 20,000 Expected to Participate in Fifth Avenue Procession,” Nov. 9 1912, p. 22; “Torches in Hair to Guide Parade: Electric Novelties Planned for Tomorrow’s Big Suffrage Demonstration,” Nov. 8 1912, p. 7.
Lots going on behind the scenes! Not necessarily a bad thing, but doesn't leave much time for blogging and social media. Realistically Curator's Corner will have to be cut down even further so that it's on a quarterly basis instead of trying to post it monthly…I know I should abandon it entirely but I can't! Anyway, onto some links.
– I learned so much prepping for the Museum's presentation for the Art Deco Society UK. You can check it out here (and see first-hand why I'm not a YouTuber.) I do hope to turn it into an article or maybe an exhibition.
– "I don't understand why makeup brands don’t have [women over 40] — we're the face of a lot of things and we're not the face of makeup right now." Allure points out the issue with brands that seemingly cater to the over-forty crowd: namely, they refuse to acknowledge that some mature women (ahem, like me) have not abandoned bright color and other vibrant makeup. Being over forty does not automatically sentence you to focus on hair and skin and wear only minimal, no-makeup looks, and just once I'd like to see a brand feature an old lady with glitter seeped in her wrinkles.
– If anyone can tell me exactly what Sulwhasoo and the Met are partnering for, I would be most appreciative.
– Been spending far too much time on Reddit and should probably cut back, as this post sent my blood pressure soaring. Coupled with this school calling makeup a "drug", makeup is experiencing a backlash. I'm not sure why people can't discuss it with nuance and acknowledge that while it has a long history of being a tool of the patriarchy to oppress cis-het women, makeup is so much more than that.
– Along those lines, I'm still ambivalent about companies selling makeup intended for kids – feels like an indoctrination of sorts into harmful beauty standards – but if they're going to do it, Zara Beauty's Mini Artists line is the way to go. At least they're trying to emphasize the artistic aspects and the packaging/names aren't overly gendered, unlike, say, Ulta's Petite and Pretty. It's also safer ingredient-wise than most kids' makeup and since it's water-soluble, much easier to remove than stuff formulated for grown-ups. Plus, Diane Kendal designed it, so it's quite sleek and stylish compared to other kids' face-painting kits on the market.
– Hate to break it to you, people of Tiktok, but layering mascara is not new.
– Between Isamaya Beauty's LIPS and E.L.F's O Face lipsticks, sexual makeup names (and packaging as well in the case of LIPS) continue to be attention-getters. Admittedly I purchased LIPS for the Museum, but I wholeheartedly co-sign this piece by Jessica DeFino on the ridiculousness of it. (Also, LIPS should be modeled after a vulva, no?)
– Some spring 2023 goodies – three of the five collections shown here were collabs (MAC x Richard Quinn, Clarins x Foxco and Shu Uemura x Nicolas Lefeuvre) so I'll just add them to the pile I hope to cover eventually.
The random:
– In '90s nostalgia, I'm watching Living Single and loving it. Get Hulu if you don't have it already so you can enjoy the hilarity. Also, two of my very favorite movies turned 25: The Wedding Singer and The Big Lebowski.
– If you weren't already petrified of AI taking over the world, let me introduce you to ChatGPT. I fear for the future of both my day job and the Museum.
– So as not to end on a down note, I got some test shots back from a professional photographer for the Museum's collection and they are stunning. Doesn't this little Paul and Joe fellow look extra jaunty?
How are you? How is your spring so far?
I admit I purchased this object without fully understanding what it was.
I couldn't unearth any ads for Opaline1 and very little exists about the company. There were a couple calls for De Baranta-Windsor salespeople in 1898 for totally different products – no mention of beauty preparations, so I had to rely on other clues to suss out what Opaline could possibly be. The substance appears to be a powder in the bottle, but there were a few reasons why I didn't believe it was a face powder upon closer inspection. Namely: 1. powders were normally packaged in boxes, not bottles; 2. the directions instructed the user to shake well and apply with a sponge, and powders did not usually require shaking and were applied with a puff; and 3. the directions also insinuated the product was a liquid by including the phrase "when nearly dry…".
So what exactly was Opaline? Certainly not perfume and most likely not a skincare treatment either. It was clearly some kind of liquid makeup (with the liquid obviously evaporating over time) but not quite foundation as we know it today. Thank goodness for Cosmetics and Skin, as I really didn't know what I was looking at until some frantic Googling led me to their website, which has an excellent summary of the three most common types of "liquid powders" popular at the turn of the 20th century: calamine, wet white and liquid pearl (not to be confused with pearl powder).
Liquid pearl was essentially white face powder mixed with water and glycerin. Despite its tendency to streak, it had several advantages over dry face powder, namely that it lasted longer and provided slightly more coverage. Although the powder component consisted of the same ingredients as face powder (usually zinc oxide or bismuth oxychloride), liquid pearl was used on the body in addition to the face, primarily for evening wear to impart an even, whitening effect on any exposed skin – ideal for the plunging necklines and short-sleeve styles of fin-de-siècle Europe and the U.S. It was also less frequently recommended as a sort of sunscreen for daytime due to the zinc. Sources detailing liquid pearl from the early 1900s align with Opaline. A 1904 recipe instructed the user to "Keep in a tightly corked bottle and apply with a sponge when required,"2 and in 1910 beauty columnist Margaret Mixter advised, "When bottled there will be a white sediment at the bottom, and the preparation must always be shaken before any is put on the face. In applying a piece of muslin or linen should be used."3 Opaline's name, color, packaging, and instructions perfectly match liquid pearl. Compare to others from the time, which were packaged in bottles and claimed to have a whitening effect.
I can't uncork the Opaline bottle due to its fragility, but I was very tempted to try to sprinkle out some powder to get a sense of the texture and opacity. Instead of potentially damaging or breaking the bottle, to sate my curiosity I decided to whip up a batch of liquid pearl using a common recipe – this one appeared in a column by Harriet Hubbard Ayer4 in 1902 and was reprinted in several other beauty guides: "pure oxide of zinc, 1 ounce; glycerine, one dram; rosewater, four ounces; essence of rose, fifteen drops. Sift the zinc, dissolving it in just enough of the rosewater to cover it, then add the glycerin, next the remainder of the rosewater. Shake well and apply with a soft sponge or antiseptic gauze." All ingredients were procured via Etsy.
My measuring may have been off, but the mixture ended up being very thin and watery.
I didn't have any cheesecloth on hand to strain it nor a pretty little bottle to put it in, but I did have plenty of travel containers. After a good shake I used my trusty Beauty Blender sponge (dampened) to apply a thin layer – I was also short on linen, muslin and gauze.
Once applied, it's actually not too dissimilar from today's zinc-based sunscreen lotion in that it leaves a pretty noticeable white cast, even with just a small amount on my pasty skin. Smelled lovely though! And the texture was surprisingly smooth and comfortable. Not as emollient as a lotion, but it didn't feel dry or like it was just sitting on top of my skin. I'm sparing you a photo, but I did try it on my face and neck in addition to my inner arm…looked quite ghostly. I also neglected to take a photo of it in the bottle a few hours after, when it had separated with all the zinc on the bottom – the instructions to shake well were definitely necessary.
Given its unnatural appearance – I can't imagine putting on more layers – I found myself wondering if liquid pearl was commonly worn. Whiteness was (is) highly prized as a beauty standard, and liquid pearl was one way to achieve it, albeit temporarily. As was the case for centuries, the starkness of ultra-white skin wasn't an issue despite being at odds with the "undetectable" makeup that middle-class women were expected to adhere to; the whiter, the better, especially according to ads for liquid pearl. A 1914 ad for a liquid powder called Derma Viva states, "It whitens the skin at once, a single application being most effective. Red, brown or dark complexion – face, neck, arms, and hands – made a beautiful milky white by use of this wonderful beautifier."
Judging from my experiment, liquid pearl doesn't seem like it would look remotely natural on even the palest of skin tones, but it appears whiteness trumped any concerns about liquid pearl's obviousness. It could also be that as there were so few formulations, liquid pearl and other liquid powders were relatively natural-looking by fin-de-siècle standards, or at least, that's what companies wanted customers to believe. Derma Viva notes that it is "absolutely invisible" and "will not show as does face powder," while Mme. Gage's Imperial Japanese White Lily, "a delicate liquid powder for evening use" was also advertised as invisible. "A successfully made-up woman does not look in the least artificial," proclaimed Mrs. Henry Symes, who then followed up this statement by a recipe for liquid pearl.5 Another column from 1903 advises using one of the new "flesh" tinted liquid powders instead of white, but notes that white powders were still preferable to the harshness of theatrical makeup. "Only a few years ago Milady was forced to be content with just two colors of face powder, chalk white and rose. Both of these were easily discernible, for they made her either too red or too pale…Not only are there fifteen tints of complexion powders, but they are put up in different forms to suit different occasions. There are liquid powders, which are to be 'shaken before taken'…at any big entertainment the women may be seen with their faces chalked till they resemble nothing so much as a company of corpses. These women do not bother about preparing the chalk; they simply take a chalk pencil and rub it into the skin with unction, and the more ghastly the result the better they are pleased."6 Given that every liquid pearl recipe dictated careful application with a sponge or other piece of cloth, it seems that as long as women were using it primarily for nighttime and paying attention to how and where they applied it, liquid pearl was an acceptable cosmetic for the average (white) woman.
We also can't discount the fact that electric lighting wasn't totally ubiquitous at the time and liquid pearl was mostly recommended for evening wear, so perhaps it was less obvious in darkened settings. In any case, while some cosmetic recipes hold up today and all the ingredients in this particular concoction are still used in contemporary cosmetics, it appears quite crude by comparison and is best left in the 1900s.
To conclude, I'm 99.9% sure Opaline is liquid pearl, but less certain is whether Mme. De Baranta was a real person. I am skeptical! Perhaps the Cortland Historical Society, which also has this artifact in their collection, could shed some light on the company.
What do you think of Opaline and liquid pearl? And have you ever tried DIY'ing makeup? Believe it or not, this was my first experiment despite all of the recipes that have been printed in various makeup history books and seeing it done numerous times before. I think recreating old formulas would be pretty fun Makeup Museum events. 😉
1There were several instances of liquid powders named Opaline from the late 1800s/early 1900s including one by UK-based Crown perfumery and the Opaline Toilet Manufacturing Company in San Francisco, but no Opaline from the De Baranta company.
2Emily Lloyd, "The Skin: Its Care and Treatment," (Chicago: MacIntosh Battery and Optical Co) 1904, 104-105. The story of this book's author is fascinating by itself – apparently Emily Lloyd was an alias used by Ruth Maurer, who established the Marinello company. Once again, Cosmetics and Skin has all the details.
4"Harriet Hubbard Ayer Responds to Many Inquiries Directed to the Sunday Post-Dispatch," The St. Louis Sunday Post Dispatch, May 25, 1902, 42.
5Mrs. Henry Symes, "How To Be Healthy and Beautiful: Use of Cosmetics for Improving the Complexion's Appearance – When It Is Justified," The Minneapolis Tribune, February 16, 1902. This entire column is a hoot – Symes basically calls out the hypocrisy of men judging women who wear makeup, and states that if they weren't so obsessed with certain beauty standards, women would not feel the need to wear makeup.
6"The True Uses of Powder for the Complexion," Evening Star (Washington, DC), Nov. 14, 1903, 32.
I am so honored to present at the Art Deco Society UK's winter event series! On Tuesday, March 14 at 7pm BST (3pm EST) join the Museum for "Makeup Moderne: Art Deco Influence in Cosmetics Design". Admittedly I knew very little about Art Deco so it's been quite the learning process, but I hope I deliver a good talk. Get your tickets here.
2022 was the year I realized that I shouldn't try to stick to any kind of schedule in terms of blogging or even exhibition openings. I need to assign target dates, but also try not to beat myself up too much when inevitably they are not met. No progress was made on many of the blog topics, exhibition ideas, and bigger initiatives from last year – for example, as predicted, the website is exactly the same. Nevertheless I want to keep soldiering forward.
In an effort to have slightly more realistic expectations and stay focused, this year I've made three categories of exhibition topics. The first group is the Museum's shortlist, topics that I think and that might be doable by myself. The second group consists of exhibitions that I think would have wide appeal but require co-curation, which, again, will be difficult as no payment can be offered at this time. The last category highlights the non-priority topics, i.e. ones that are good but not quite as immediate as the first group. If the title has no notes next to it, that means the description hasn't changed since last year.
Priority:
"Indies and Influencers: The Changing Makeup Landscape"
"Age Before Beauty: Teens and Makeup"
"Vanity Projects: Celebrity Makeup Brands"
"Color History Through Cosmetics: Blue"
"The Medium is the Message: Makeup as Art"- same themes as described in 2022, but I'd love to add a smaller gallery just for Makeup as Muse artists.
"Ancient Allure: Egyptomania in Makeup" – Tweaked the title from last year, and since I delivered a paper on this subject in October 2022, it might not take quite as much time to pull together an exhibition. Plus, I just discovered the Cleveland Museum of Art is opening an Egyptomania in fashion exhibition in the spring, so there's definitely interest.
"Just Desserts: Sweet Tooth Revisited" – I'd love for Sweet Tooth to return on its 10-year anniversary. A section on savory food would have to be added since bizarre food collabs reached a new level in 2022.
"Beauty Marked in Your Eyes: A History of '90s Makeup" - Nearly 10 years and still not much progress since I first got the idea in 2014, but I'm not giving up yet. I was thinking it might be better to try to work on individual segments than the entire history. So far, chapters include: the rise of makeup artist brands, the impact of the internet on cosmetics, the battle for the "multicultural" market of the early '90s, makeup in various subcultures/genres (grrrls, grunge, goth, hip-hop) and how these styles got co-opted by the mainstream beauty industry. The epilogue would be the transition to Y2k makeup and the impact of '9os makeup on today's makeup, including various comebacks.
"Design is a Good Idea: Innovations in Cosmetics Design and Packaging"
"Nothing to Hide: Makeup as Mask"
Here are the ones the Museum will need much help with. Who wants to be a volunteer curator?
"From Male Polish to Guyliner: A History of Men's Makeup"
"Queens: A History of Drag Makeup"
"Aliengelic: A Pat McGrath Retrospective"
"Ugly Makeup: A Revolution in Aesthetics"
Fashion x Makeup (still haven't thought of a decent title!)
"Working Beauty: Makeup Artistry as Profession" – I found myself pondering who the first makeup artist was (and I love the hilarious Makeup Artist Memes Instagram account), so perhaps a history of how the career of makeup artist came to fruition would be interesting.
"Mineral, Animal, Vegetable: 5,000 Years of Cosmetic Ingredients" – We really do put a lot of weird stuff on our faces in the name of beauty. This exhibition would explore the main ingredients used in makeup, along with the more questionable and downright dangerous ones from history.
And the last set, which are things I'm still debating or that need to wait a bit.
"From Mods and Hippies to Supervixens and Grrrls: '60s and '90s Makeup in Dialogue"
"Gilded Splendor: A History of Gold Makeup"
"Black and Blue: Punk Makeup, 1975-2000"
"Pandemic: Makeup in the Age of COVID-19" – As COVID case numbers remain high, this is getting tabled until it might actually be reasonably safe to go outside without a mask.
"Catch the Light: Glitter in Cosmetics from Ancient Times Through Today" "Wanderlust: Travel-Inspired Beauty"
"By Any Other Name: The Rose in Makeup"
"Lash Out! A History of Eyelash Beauty" – This one is new and while it might be boring, I am honestly sick of lipstick getting all the attention. There are so many books on it, why not have an extensive look at another makeup category? Thinking eyeliner, blush, highlighter and face powder might all be great options too.
Now for the blog posts. It's too much, but my brain is so eager to research and write!
MM Musings (1-2): In addition to museums as activists/agents of social change (which is coming soon!), I want to write about museum accessibility and revisit building a permanent collection and the issue of ethics in collecting. As the Museum evolved over the years to discuss makeup prior to 1900 and the cosmetic practices of Indigenous peoples, related objects have been on my collecting radar. But none of them have been purchased because their provenance remains questionable. This could also tie into the idea of using replicas of ancient artifacts as a more ethical way of displaying them. Oh, and I've been very inspired by the DMDA – a post exploring in-person events and activities would be really fun.
Makeup as Muse (1): Finally got around to Sylvie Fleury in 2022, so hopefully will be covering Janine Antoni, Rachel Lachowitz, Asa Jungnelius or Tomomi Nishizawa. But there were a couple of others I discovered in the past year, so those are possibilities too.
MM Mailbag (2): I only got one MM Mailbag post up in 2022. Two posts in 2023 would be ambitious, but I'd like to get them up as I think people searching for information find them helpful.
Vintage/brief histories (4-5): Mostly the same as last year, but I am sidetracked by newer ideas I had later in 2022, which are: ear makeup (the knee makeup article yielded a decent amount of website traffic), mouches and skin tone, true crime and makeup, a history of face gems, bindis (got a little obsessed with kumkum and bindi boxes), matching portraits on vintage compacts, the art of shibayama inlay, makeup for glasses wearers, spray (airbrush) makeup, Russian cosmetics during the communist era, guns and makeup, and Riot Grrrl makeup. Local (Baltimore/Maryland) beauty history might be interesting too. I also like the idea of an article on vices in makeup divided into 4 subjects: gambling/casinos, smoking/cigarettes, junk food and alcohol. Previous ideas included dolls and makeup, histories of early modern powder applicators, setting sprays and color-changing cosmetics, copycats, profiles of some more obscure makeup artists from the '60s through the '90s, and histories of defunct brands (a slew of celebrity lines, Diane von Furstenberg, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Inoui ID, and revisit Stephane Marais), especially Black-owned brands like Marva Louis and Rose Morgan.
Artist collabs (5): The list is absolutely staggering. In 2022 alone there were the following collabs: Marleigh Culver for Laura Mercier, Steffi Lynn for Ulta, Robin Eisenberg for Urban Decay, Obi for Fenty, Katie Scott for Hourglass, Elie Top for Clé de Peau, Cho Gi Seok for RMK, Kazuki Hioki for Osaji, Caho for Blendberry, and Andy Paiko for Kanebo. There are tons of other collabs from previous years too, including Kelly Beeman for Laura Mercier, Charlotte Gestaut for Clé de Peau, Cecilia Carlstedt and Ethar Balkhair for Bobbi Brown, Masumi Ishida for Osaji, Åsa Ekström for Estée Lauder, El Seed for MAC, Connor Tingley for NARS, and the Shiseido Gallery compacts and lip balms. Not to mention I found a couple of Native American artists who made some beautiful pieces, and some other artists whose work appeared on vintage compacts (Raymond Peynet and Jean Cocteau, for starters.) The series on the artists whose work appears on Pat McGrath's packaging is better suited to the Aliengelic exhibition so that might be at the end of the queue for now.
Book reviews (2-5): The list is seriously out of control. Two more beauty books are coming out soon, plus I came across a couple I didn't know about previously.
Fashion: The collections of Dries van Noten, Off-White, and Marco Ribeiro for Pleasing are at the top of the list, along with a couple of vintage brands.
Color Connections (1-2): Slowed down a bit from the beginning of 2022, but still keeping up with them!
Miscellaneous: Kawaii collections like Kakao Friends, BTS, Sticky Monster Lab and others, along with newcomer Isamaya Beauty, a line by makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench. And I want to keep plugging away on Indigenous peoples' makeup and lesser-known LGTBQ+ histories. I'm finding the latter difficult to locate – the same figures and stories keep popping up, and I want to find others that haven't been shared much before. Finally, it's not even a fully formed idea, but I'm giving myself a crash course in material culture, so I'd like to write something about how that relates to makeup objects. Oh, and some reflections on the Makeup Museum in honor of its 15 year anniversary, which is coming up in August.
Tabled for now: history of colored mascara, how makeup language has evolved (for example, why we typically say "blush" now instead of "rouge" for cheek color, the idea of makeup as jewelry, day and night makeup, wear-to-work makeup from the 1970s-90s, profiles of Halston, Calvin Klein and Nina Ricci brands, BIPOC salespeople and customers in MLM companies, and makeup ad illustrators.
And finally, the books I can't seem to even start. Meh. New idea for this year is an edited volume of alternative makeup histories. I've seen many examples of "beyond the canon" in other fields and think a book like this is needed for makeup, and I think the Makeup Museum would be perfect to put out such a publication since it has always tried to tell the story of makeup in a different way and uncover hidden histories. Still need a title.
So, tell me: which of the topics from the first exhibition category and which blog posts do you want to see the most? And do you want to see exhibitions and blog posts or would you rather see a book finally get published and the website redone? It's a constant battle between regularly putting out content and devoting time to larger projects.
Hello! It's been so quiet on the blog because I've been prepping the Makeup Museum's latest exhibition. I am incredibly pleased and honored to announce that I was asked to organize an exhibition in conjunction with an academic conference! "I’m Your Venus: The Reception of Antiquity in Modern Cosmetic Advertising and Marketing", was hosted by Drs. Laurence Totelin (Cardiff University) and Jane Draycott (University of Glasgow) and "aims at better understanding the centrality of antiquity in the construction of modern standards of hygiene and beauty, as well as examining and critiquing the image of antiquity that emerges from the modern material. The conference seeks to explain the prominence of certain ancient figures, be they divine or human, in the modern cosmetic industry, and how these ancient figures are used to promote certain standards, such as whiteness or exoticism, thinness, femininity and masculinity, and youth." As you can imagine, over the years the Museum has amassed quite a few artifacts that fit the conference theme so naturally I jumped at the chance to organize an accompanying exhibition. Plus it was a good opportunity to really start planning the Egyptian exhibition. 🙂
The conference has come and gone (and I did a virtual walk-through of the exhibition!) but the program is still available here. There were so many wonderful presentations! I'm still adding objects here and there to the exhibition, but you can check it out at the Museum's special exhibition website here.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and questions on this topic!
Today the Museum is featuring a flash-in-the-pan brand from the 1940s. Shem el Nessim was a very short-lived line, lasting only about 6 months during the second half of 1946. I couldn’t find much info, but one thing I can say is that it’s not related to the fragrance of the same name by British perfumer Grossmith. The collection consisted of a lipstick (six shades), lipstick set with 2 refills, face powder, and a face cream. All were advertised as being plated in 14kt gold.
Let’s talk about the cultural appropriation aspects first. Shem el Nessim appears to be an incorrect, or at least outdated, spelling of Sham el Nessim, a roughly 5,000 year old Egyptian festival/holiday that is celebrated the day after Orthodox Easter (which, this year is today…yes, I’ve been planning this post for a while). The day marks the beginning of spring and is accompanied by several traditions, including dyeing eggs and enjoying picnics and other outdoor activities. Shem el Nessim loosely translates to “smelling the breeze”. Why Grossmith spelled Shem with an “e” is beyond me, but it seems this new brand did too. And while Grossmith engaged in cultural appropriation to market this fragrance and others, they came relatively close to understanding the holiday and translating it correctly. The Shem el Nessim cosmetics line, meanwhile, claimed it was Arabic for “bloom of youth,” which is totally off. Also, the name of one of the three lipstick shades appears to be nonsense. “Garfoz” does not seem to be an actual word in any language.
Next, the face cream container is shaped like an “Aladdin lamp”?! No information turned up about the brand’s founder, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Shem el Nessim was started by a white American who wanted to capitalize on Western fantasies of the “exotic” Middle East. It’s certainly an eye-catching design for a face cream , but completely inappropriate for a brand with no roots in or discernible connection to Egyptian or Middle Eastern heritage. Not to mention that if the entire jar was filled, it would be cumbersome to dig out product from the pointy front part of it. What’s even weirder is the attempt to connect the ancient Middle East to modern-day Hollywood, where the company was headquartered (8874 Sunset Blvd, to be precise.)
In addition to using an existing product name, Shem el Nessim may have been looking at Amor Skin’s lamp-shaped face cream, which debuted in 1927. It seems Amor Skin’s lamp was originally a “Pompeiian” design, but by 1929 they were largely marketing it as an Aladdin Lamp.* Additionally, in the fall of 1946 Amor Skin heavily increased their advertising for the lamp and emphasized the Aladdin aspect, perhaps as a direct response to Shem el Nessim. Of course, the uptick in advertising may have been a simple coincidence, as Amor Skin had just returned to the market in the fall of 1946 after temporarily shutting down production during the war.
According to an October 1946 article in WWD, the collection, or at least the lamp, was allegedly designed by a “Viennese sculptor” named Peticolas. After a fairly exhaustive search, it seems this artist did not exist. There was a Sherry (Sherman) Peticolas who lived in L.A. and was active in the 1930s-40s, but as far as I know he was American, not Austrian. Additionally, his style was markedly different from the pieces in the Shem el Nessim line, and I couldn’t find a record of Peticolas designing cosmetics. (image from commons.wikimedia.org)
So while it’s certainly possible Peticolas was involved in the design, there’s no concrete evidence to confirm. As of July 1946 Shem el Nessim had hired advertising agency Klitten and Thomas, so I’m wondering if the claims about the meaning of Shem el Nessim and the Peticolas design in the ad copy were entirely their doing. In any case, there doesn’t seem to be any mention of Shem el Nessim after December 1946. I’m guessing Grossmith put a stop to the company very quickly, as the Shem el Nessim fragrance was most likely trademarked, and perhaps Amor Skin also told them to back off. Or it could have happened in the reverse: Shem el Nessim’s owner(s) were unaware of either the Grossmith fragrance or Amor Skin lamp when creating the line, quickly realized their missteps and abandoned the business. What’s interesting is that the Shem el Nessim Sales Co. did not seem to change names, they simply disappeared. Oh, if only all businesses that ripped off existing brand names (knowingly or not) would go away forever…the world would be much better off, yes? I also suspect the price points for a fledgling brand that was not an offshoot of a fashion/perfume house or other well-known entity were too high. A more established brand, or one started by a big fashion name or celebrity might have had better luck charging the 2022 equivalent of $110 for a lipstick. Per the ad copy, Shem el Nessim was intended to be “exclusive” and not mass market, but that may not have been a profitable tactic to start with.
Cultural appropriation and unoriginal name aside, the Shem el Nessim lipstick case remains a unique specimen of makeup design. The style recalls both classical busts and Surrealist art, with a dash of Camille Claudel in the graceful tilt of the head, dreamy, far-away expression and rendering of the hair. It could also be considered a more sophisticated and artistic precursor to the doll-shaped lipsticks that would prove popular some 15-20 years later.
Finally, while I haven’t seen actual photos of the other items, the lipstick looks to be the most elegant, albeit impractical, design – certainly more visually appealing than the powder urn (the poor woman looks decapitated) and lamp (overtly culturally appropriative and the figure’s silhouette and pose are a bit tacky).
Thoughts? If anyone can contribute any other information on this brand I’m all ears. 🙂
*While nearly all of the newspaper ads between 1946 and 1950 referred to the Amor Skin lamp as Aladdin’s, a handful of them along with the November 1946 issue of Drug and Cosmetic Industry used the previous Pompeiian description.
On average, the Museum receives one inquiry a week. It doesn’t seem like much, but if it’s something that can’t be identified easily or a broad question about historic trends, they can take up quite a bit of time. Here are a handful of inquiries I worked on over the past year or so.
First, we have some questions about wartime makeup. One of the Museum’s Instagram followers asked about this lovely set she had purchased on eBay. She suggested it may have been a kit provided to service women during the war.
The following week, by pure coincidence, another person got in touch with an identical kit in red.
As it turns out, the hunch from the tan kit’s owner was spot-on: this is Elizabeth Arden’s service kit, which dates to about 1939-1956. I don’t think the company provided them for free, but it seems like the kit with Stop Red was recommended specifically for the women in the Auxiliary Fire Service in the UK, at least initially. A book called the Home Front Pocket Manual contains an excerpt from the Nov. 1939 issue of a British publication called Britannia and Eve, and it mentions the set.
The kit was sold in Canada starting around 1942 and continued to be sold there into the 1950s, but was advertised just as a regular travel kit for the “busy” woman, not service women. It also looks like the red leather was not available until 1942. In any case, it’s a compelling piece of wartime women’s history – kits were actually created to help women adhere to the “beauty is your duty” motto.
So this was mostly solved…except for the number that appeared on both kits. If anyone knows what “R.D. 1941” means please get in touch. The only possibly relevant thing I found was “Reserve Decoration” which is an award for the Royal Navy Reserve in the UK, but it doesn’t seem like that would be appropriate to put on this particular kit. Update, September 2024: a very kind reader wrote and explained that R.D. most likely referred to Registered Design. That makes sense!
Next up, a vintage enthusiast and YouTuber, Katie May, asked about the use of gravy browning as leg makeup during the war. As silk and nylons were scarce, liquid leg makeup was sold as a substitute for stockings.
But in the UK, where shortages were even more dire and cosmetics prohibitively expensive, more women tried to DIY liquid stockings through a number of substances. According to some sources, ladies tested out a bunch of things to mimic the look of stockings. Along with gravy browning, cocoa, wet sand, tea, iodine, walnut juice and brown shoe polish were all experimented with. Katie wanted to know how the gravy was applied and whether it was a widespread trend. I’m afraid I couldn’t turn up much concrete information given the limited access I have to resources, not to mention I know very little of where to begin looking for sources on WWII history in the UK. This BBC archive provides a brief 1st person mention of the stockings, but my findings consisted mostly of newspaper snippets and book excerpts, which may not be reliable and don’t provide exact figures as to how many women were actually partaking in the practice.
So it’s really difficult to say how widespread DIY leg makeup was, at least on a regular basis. It must have been so cumbersome to mix and apply, and it definitely was not waterproof. Even the expensive pre-made leg makeup sold by cosmetic companies were not necessarily waterproof formulas despite their advertising. The gravy browning in particular was rumored to attract dogs and flies.I can’t envision women applying it themselves or going to the leg makeup “bars” to have others apply it every day, but maybe they did. It was a very different time; one woman remarked that it was “embarrassing” to go without stockings, so perhaps the social stigma was strong enough to force women to try DIY alternatives, and the cosmetics shortage in the UK was a lot worse than in the U.S. As for face makeup, the same ideas apply – I’m skeptical of how widespread DIY makeup was, but it seems most women in the UK could not afford cosmetics during the war even if they were readily available (which, again, they weren’t…lots of shortages. While the UK government believed that cosmetics boosted morale so they didn’t completely stop producing makeup, it was still difficult to obtain.) I must point out that men enjoyed making fun of us silly, shallow women’s efforts to keep up with the constant societal expectation of beauty. And of course, they always had it worse. I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at these clippings.
In any case, some sources state that beetroot juice was substituted for lip makeup and blush, shoe polish or soot (!) for mascara, and starch for face powder (NOT flour, as proposed by the sexist windbag above). Some women melted down whatever was left of their existing lipsticks and mixed them with Vaseline to make a balm. The two sources I found to be most useful on DIY makeup were 1940s Fashion by Fiona Kay and A People’s War by Peter Lewis. Madeleine Marsh’s book Compacts and Cosmetics (p.124) and Geoffrey Jones’s Beauty Imagined (p. 136) also have brief mentions of DIY wartime makeup. Finally, I also recommended to Katie that she reach out to Kate Thompson, who has written several historical fiction novels about women who worked at the Yardley cosmetics factory in the UK during the war, and my understanding is that she’s done quite a bit of research into WWII makeup. Anyway, Katie bravely tried out the gravy browning and a bunch of other homemade wartime beauty substitutes! Kudos to her for re-creating these unusual and rather messy cosmetic practices.
Next, an antique store owner asked about some old cosmetics sales kits by the name of Velens that she had come across. I didn’t turn up much on the brand’s products, but here’s what I was able to find. The company was founded in 1930 by a Swedish ex-pat named Leo B. Selberg. Selberg had a background in chemistry and previously worked for Luzier, another cosmetics brand at the time. The Velen’s Educational Cosmetics name was copyrighted that same year, as well as something called “Paul Velen’s Color Harmony Chart”. As it turns out, a man by the name of Paul Velen (based in Kansas) had actually come up with all the formulas prior to Selberg’s involvement. The relationship between Selberg and Velen isn’t clear; however, from newspaper clippings it seems that before moving to Missouri, Selberg socialized frequently with an older brother of Paul, A.R. (Reuben) Velen, so I’m assuming they knew each other. Paul also had a degree in chemistry, although what inspired him to start a beauty business remains a mystery. Maybe Leo approached Paul about being the owner of the business while continuing to sell under the Velen name and keeping the formulas, but it doesn’t seem like either of them were too involved/hands on with the line. Selberg sold Velen’s in 1959 to a company called Greer and Associates, but I couldn’t find any mention of Velen’s Cosmetics after 1955 so it may have been on its last legs by that point anyway. Paul Velen died in May of 1969 at the age of 68; Selberg in 1979 at the age of 83. There was also a man named Albert Colborn who served briefly as Chairman of the Board of Velen’s Cosmetics from 1930-1933 and started his own beauty company called the Modernistic Beauty Service in 1933, but I couldn’t turn up much about him other than his obituary.
Anyway, the Velen’s line wasn’t used for training at beauty schools but rather for demonstrations in salons to sell to salon customers. In fact, it was almost exclusively sold in salons with some direct sales (door-to-door/traveling) agents, not in department or drug stores. The “educational” part of the name meant that beauty salon employees would “educate” their clientele on the best products for them and how to apply them. It looks like it was sold primarily in the Midwest and Texas, with some salons as far away as California and New Hampshire, which is why it’s a little surprising there aren’t more records or product photos. So this was quite a find and an interesting tidbit.
Skipping ahead to the late 1950s, the Museum received a few questions about Helena Rubinstein’s Mascara-Matic. First, someone sent in a box with some adorable packaging, which was released for the holiday season in 1958.
I couldn’t find a magazine ad, but there were a couple of newspaper ads. A year later Rubinstein released another holiday edition of Mascara-Matic with a Christmas ornament design on the box. As far as I know the “harlequin” style in the photos sent in to the Museum was only released in 1958, and it doesn’t seem like Rubinstein released any other holiday edition boxes of Mascara-Matic except for 1958 and 1959.
Then another person wrote in asking about the value of an original Helena Rubinstein Mascara-Matic, believing that the one she had found was from its first production run and worth a whopping £3,000 according to this Daily Mail article. It’s hard to say with certainty whether any Mascara-Matics are from the first run. Perhaps those had the patent number and everything after that was marked “waterproof” or did not have any markings around the middle. However, the one I purchased for the Museum has the patent number but also came with a refill, and refills were not sold until 1958, a year after the mascara’s debut. Even if the one the person had was original, it’s not clear where the figure of £3,000 comes from. The Museum does not do valuations, but I will say Mascara-Matics, either with patent numbers or marked “waterproof” typically sell for about $50 so I can’t see an original being worth 60 times more, unless there was proof it belonged to a celebrity or something like that. There was also a listing for one with a patent number at eBay – from what I can tell it was unsold with a starting bid of £49.95. If it was in fact sold, again, I can’t see it going for £3,000 even in mint condition.
Lastly, another vintage store owner inquired about a skincare kit sold by blender brand Osterizer. (There are larger photos of the jars at Etsy.)
Based on the coupon included in the photo and some newspaper ads it was sold between 1971 and 1975. It looked like quite the gimmick. There wasn’t a ton of information on it, but it seems Oster was trying to cash in on the “natural” cosmetics trend of the late ’60s/early ’70s and sold these kits for those who already had a blender and wanted to make their own organic skincare with fresh ingredients.
But who really needs brand name pink jars and labels for homemade cosmetics? One could go to any craft store and get their own supplies. And while Google didn’t exist back then, the recipes would have been pretty easy to find as well. I’m just a bit astounded at what they were trying to sell, as it really seems to be a cash grab. Anyway, it’s a fascinating bit of beauty history and definitely an expression of the era.
Which one of these were you most intrigued by? While I’m not the best at solving makeup mysteries I do enjoy receiving them, so please don’t hesitate to send any objects or questions to the Museum!
