“Making Faces: The Cosmetics Industry and the Cultural Construction of Gender; 1890-1930” by Kathy Peiss

This article explores the cosmetic culture and industry from 1890-1930.  Kathy Peiss splits her article into three distinct sections, the commercialization of cosmetics, the segmentation of the industry, and cultural constructions of gender, class, and race.

In the first section, she talks about there was not much commercialization of cosmetics to start, that “from the 1840s, family keepsakes and formularies offered recipes to soften and whiten skin, cure freckles, and remove unwanted hair”(343).  She explains that there were many increases and decreases when it came to the popularity of makeup.  In the nineteenth century people tended to stray from commercially sold cosmetics, “many working-class women refrained from makeup use, given religious beliefs, ethnic cultural traditions, concepts of respectability, and the cost of the products”(343).  Peiss then states that before and after World War I is when we start to see the increase of the industry.

In the next section, the segmentation of the industry is explored.  This section explores the advertising of the cosmetic industry and how they persuaded women to believe they needed cosmetics to be beautiful inside and out.  “It popularized the democratic idea that beauty could be achieved by all women if only they used the correct products and treatment”(345).  It also points out what advertising was used in attracting different types of people.  Specifically the differences between the African American cosmetic community and the White community are explored through the products and the way they are sold.

The last section talks about the different ways the cosmetic industry reacted to gender, class and race.  Peiss points out that a lot of America products were said to be made in Paris because it was thought that “cosmetic practices of Parisian women as examples American women should emulate”(354).  The use of different races in advertising is explored and how being “white” was the ultimate goal.

So the truth is being a critic of this article is very hard for me.  Out of all the things we read this semester this one was my favorite.  I thought the topic was very interesting and I think the way Kathy Peiss organized it made it very easy to follow along.  But, I am the critic so I found two main things that I did not enjoy about this article.

The first thing that I do not enjoy was even though Peiss was only looking at a short period of time she did a lot of jumping around in dates.  For example on page 347, the first paragraph is talking about 1915 through 1925.  Right after that in the next paragraph she explores events that took place in the 1910s, then next 1900, then 1872, then 1905.  This did not make it terribly hard to follow but I think if she just put it in chronological order it could have been more useful.

The other aspect of this article I thought could have used more work was the representation of other minorities, besides African Americans, and their use of cosmetics at this time.  I was happy that by the end of the article there was some representation of “American Indian, Egyptian, Turkish and Japanese women” but they were used as advertising mechanisms.   I wish that we could have learned what cosmetic products these people were using and what they wanted to achieve.

This article did leave me with some questions.  My obvious one is what cosmetic products did minorities use and how did they get them?  What exactly caused the increase in cosmetic use?  Peiss originally states how women thought of prostitutes using cosmetics, but what exactly got everyday women to start using them?  What caused people to just start thinking cosmetics could change them into better women?

-Blake Cohen