1940-1949

A new facet of the fashion of cosmetics for American women appeared in this decade. Instead of being everyday grooming, using cosmetics graduated to, as historian Kathy Peiss calls it in Hope in a Jar, "an assertion of American identity". A larger study, or one focused on the 1940s, could explore this more as an example of American nationalism. For the purposes of this exhibit, the focus will remain on the fact that made-up women now represented American culture and the American way of life. 

Women 'making-up' were considered the face of the homefront. Hardly any advertisement, film, or poster featured a woman without makeup on; if she was not made-up, it was to make a statement about its absence. The Elizabeth Arden Company coined the term "war face" in reference to this. Images of factory workers in makeup symbolized women's sacrifice for the nation during wartime.

The two advertisements on the right are examples of the continuity of advertising for cosmetics during this period.

The beauty industry experienced a period of extreme growth in the period of post-war prosperity following World War II. By 1948, a majority of women across the United States used some form of cosmetic product on a regular basis. A study found that a quarter of women used eye makeup, two thirds used rouge, and an overwhelming majority of 80-90% used lipstick regularly. Although rouge had been a constant in beauty routines and advertising since the 1910s, lipstick was the clear favourite product of women. It was so popular and in such high demand, in fact, that during the war, when metal was hard to come by, companies devised different packaging for their lipsticks to continue to be able to sell them. Lipstick ads in this decade appeared with more frequency than in previous decades. Brands that focused more on face products previously, such as Max Factor and Princess Pat, began advertising their lip products more, as the two ads on the left show. They even innovated new products; the Princess Pat is for a new liquid lipstick. Prior to this, lipstick was always sold in the classic bullet shape or variations of it.

The period of growth in the 1940s, especially after the war, spurred the cosmetics industry to branch out and expand its customer base. This decade is when cosmetics companies began to target the youth market, posting advertisements in popular teen magazines such as Charm and Seventeen. The ads that appeared in these teen magazines were very similar, if not identical, to ads that were posted in film and women's magazines. It was still a popular tactic to mention screen stars and actresses in the ads geared towards the younger consumer. The ad shown here, for a makeup line by Anatole Robbins, was posted in Seventeen and features actress Jennifer Holt. The turn to advertising to the teenage consumer is proof that there was demand, and also implies that the culture was becoming even more expectant of women and girls to use cosmetics.