For one thing, its initial popularity among everyday women was almost entirely the result of a few enterprising businesswomen who set up door-to-door and mail-order companies. The history of modern cosmetics is an interesting one, diverting in several ways from the history of worn fashions. Now I can choose from pretty much whatever major line of makeup I want, and that was only over the space of a dozen years. I remember when I first started wearing makeup having to buy this horrible oily cheap stuff called “Love My Face!” because no other manufacturer made an affordable concealer light enough for my skin tone. Makeup has gone in and out of favor throughout history, but the sort of “beauty culture” we have in America today–large superstores devoted entirely to cosmetics, consultants whose sole job it is to convince women that they could be more beautiful, the ever-more-customizable range of creams, powders, pencils, cleansers, and lotions–is another thing entirely. The amount of time it took for cosmetics to traverse the distance between “painted whore” to “cosmopolitan lady” is astonishingly short.
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