How Many Women Wear Makeup In The United States

This section includes products such equally rouges and lipsticks. The text below provides some historical context and shows how we can use these products to explore aspects of American history, for case, the links betwixt changes in American feminine identity and the American beauty manufacture. To skip the text and go direct to the objects, CLICK HERE

A store window advertising sign depicting a stake-complected, red-lipped dazzler idealized at the start of the 20th century. Warshaw Drove of Business concern Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Establishment

In eighteenth century America, both men and women of the upper classes wore make-up. But, presently after the American Revolution the use of visible "pigment" cosmetics (colored cosmetic for lips, skin, eyes, and nails) past either gender gradually became socially unacceptable.  For most of the nineteenth century few pigment cosmetics were manufactured in America. Instead, women relied on recipes that circulated among friends, family, and women's magazines; using these recipes, they discreetly prepared lotions, powders, and skin washes to lighten their complexions and diminish the appearance of blemishes or freckles. Druggists sold ingredients for these recipes, as well every bit the occasional prepare-made preparation. Painting ane's confront was considered vulgar and was associated with prostitution, then any product used needed to appear "natural." Some women secretly stained their lips and cheeks with pigments from petals or berries, or used ashes to darken eyebrows and eyelashes. Woman worked to achieve the era's ideal feminine identity; a "natural" and demure adult female with a pale-complexion, rosy lips and cheeks, and vivid eyes.

In the 1880s, entrepreneurs began to produce their own lines of corrective products that promised to provide a "natural" look for their customers. Some of these new companies were small, woman-owned businesses that typically used an amanuensis organisation for distribution as pioneered by the California Perfume Visitor, afterward rebranded as Avon. This business model immune many women to make money independently. Also, more than women were earning wages and ownership cosmetics, thereby enlarging the market further. Women could brand a living in the burgeoning cosmetics trade as business organisation owners, agents, or mill workers. Well-nigh of these entrepreneurs came from fairly humble origins, and some managed to transform their local operations into successful businesses with a wide distribution of their products.  Florence Nightingale Graham, for instance, was the daughter of tenant farmers, and worked many low-paying jobs before opening a beauty shop for aristocracy clients and reinventing herself as Elizabeth Arden. African American women likewise plant success through this model, but faced extra obstacles. Many white shop owners refused to consider stocking African American beauty products until successful businesses similar that of Madam C. J. Walker created enough of a demand through other distribution channels.

By the 1920s, it was fashionable for women, particularly in cities, to wear more conspicuous make-upwardly. This shift reflected the growing influence of Hollywood and its glamourous new film stars, as well as the manner of theater stars and flappers. "Painted" women could at present also identify as respectable women, fifty-fifty as they wore dramatic mascara, eyeliner, dusky eyeshadow, and lipstick like the stars of the screen. The growing indigenous diversity of the United states of america also influenced how cosmetics companies marketed their products. "Exotic" or "alluring" ethnic stereotypes became inspirations for make-upwardly fashions that ostensibly reflected the American melting pot. White women could experiment with a trendy, exotic identity – and then launder it off. African American identity, even so, was explicitly excluded from this ethnic mingling. In the tardily 1920s and 1930s, it became fashionable for white women to sport the advent of a "healthy" tan. Previously, a tan had been equated with working-form women who performed outdoor labor; now a tan identified a woman every bit modern and healthy, participating in outdoor recreations and leisure. Make-up colors were marketed in various "suntanned" shades, giving women the option to remove the "tan" whenever they wished to reclaim a fair complexion.

At this time, the cosmetics business experienced a major shift. Small cosmetics companies, many of which were owned by women, were replaced by larger corporations. Business models had changed: in order to remain competitive and achieve wide distribution, a business organisation had to engage in wholesale bargaining with male-owned chain drug and department stores. Because women were ordinarily excluded from these distribution channels, most female-owned businesses could non compete. By 1930, a small scattering of companies controlled 40% of the cosmetics industry. These companies now released thousands of factory-produced, similar products under various brand names.

1930: The J.R. Watkins Company owned the Mary Male monarch Cosmetics line. Here, agents sell Watkins products and Mary King cosmetics. Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Spending on cosmetics increased dramatically when millions of women entered the workforce during the Second Globe War, gaining greater independence and purchasing power. Younger women embraced an overtly flirtatious persona, signaled through the conspicuous use of assuming rouge, pulverisation, lipstick, and nail polish. Many working women wore shorter, more than "manly" hair styles, and brand-upwards was used to reassert femininity. When nylon stockings became unavailable because of state of war-fourth dimension commodity shortages, women turned to leg make-upwardly—paint-on hosiery maintained the illusion of nylon-clad legs. Cosmetics advertisements and armed forces recruiting campaigns during the war emphasized women'due south dual responsibilities: support the war effort and maintain ane'due south feminine identity through the use of make-upward. Government-produced posters encouraging women to join the war attempt depicted female person nurses and manufacturing plant workers in bright ruby-red lipstick and dark mascara. Makeup, especially lipstick, had go such an essential component of American femininity, that the federal government rapidly rescinded its wartime materials-rationing restrictions on cosmetics manufacturers in gild to encourage use of brand-upwards. As Kathy Peiss writes in "Promise in a Jar," the utilize of make-up had become "an assertion of American national identity."

Afterwards the war, fourscore-90% of American women wore lipstick, and companies like Avon and Revlon capitalized on this now-ingrained fashion. By the 1950s and 1960s, teenage girls were commonly wearing make-upward and cosmetic companies devised separate marketing campaigns to target the younger age groups.

In the late 1960s, using makeup became politicized. Counter-cultural movements celebrated ideals of natural beauty, including a rejection of brand-up altogether. Cosmetics companies returned to advertisements that claimed that their products provided a "natural" look. These ideals still relied on racial whiteness as the basis of feminine beauty, but under continued pressure from women of color, major cosmetics firms began to cater to the African American market, not only by producing products geared toward black women (oftentimes nether separate brands), just likewise by hiring black women as sales agents. However, the then-chosen "indigenous" segment of the cosmetic market remained modest, making upward only 2.three% of full sales in 1977.

1977 Revlon advertisement campaign for the "Polished Ambers collection...an heady drove for black women." Revlon Advertisement Drove, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Bibliography ~ see the Bibliography Section for a full list of the references used in the making if this Object Group. Nevertheless, the Make-upwards section relied on the following references:

Gill, Tiffany M. Beauty Store Politics: African American Women'southward Activism in the Beauty Manufacture. Urbana; Chicago: Academy of Illinois Press, 2010.

Jones, Geoffrey. Dazzler Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Printing, 2010.

Jones, Geoffrey. "Blonde and Bluish-eyed? Globalizing Beauty, c.1945–c.19801." The Economic History Review 61, no. 1 (February ane, 2008): 125–54. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2007.00388.x.

Morris, Edwin T. Fragrance: The Story of Perfume from Cleopatra to Chanel. New York: Scribner, 1984.

Peiss, Kathy Lee. Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Dazzler Culture. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998.

Scranton, Philip. Dazzler and Business: Commerce, Gender, and Culture in Modern America. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Source: https://www.si.edu/spotlight/health-hygiene-and-beauty/make-up

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