ALL MADE UP

How the use of cosmetics influences personal performance, culture, and society.

“Makeup is a simultaneous reflection of our understanding of the world around us and a presentation of sense of self within that world,” fashion journalist Nudson writes early on in this incisive sociological study. The author examines how makeup has been used to acquire, wield, and retain authority throughout early and modern society and how it relates to creativity, self-worth, image, and artistic fun for the user. She cites examples of how it can be both “required and stigmatized” in certain social circles and has evolved past the notion of rules for gender expression, femininity, identity, and sexuality for both heterosexual and queer communities. Nudson looks at a variety of interesting, historically relevant eras: among them, World War II, when women in the U.S. entered the work force in greater numbers; ancient Egypt, where men and women were “well known for using eye makeup”; and 1990s Japan, characterized by a massive recession, when some heterosexual men, dubbed “herbivore men,” began exploring a softer masculinity using makeup and androgynous looks. While acknowledging that everyone is a participant in the theater of “appearance politics”—a societal arena fraught with double standards, racial misconceptions, and often impossible expectations for women—Nudson presents the flip side as well. She applauds the importance of beauty communities on social media for creating a communal hive space among cosmetics users, who contribute ideas and share and endorse products, opinions, and tutorials. She also writes about how gender fluidity has positively disrupted beauty standards in creative ways. Incorporating studies, historical research, and entertaining anecdotes, Nudson offers a narrative that will provoke discussion and illumination for readers interested in how cosmetics influence global culture.

An exuberant critical study of how cosmetics and beauty culture shape the world and everyone in it.