Someone else: Makeup is actually a turn off for me. Whether it be a guy or a girl, if I’m kissing someone’s lips/cheek I want to kiss the person. Not some thick coating of chemical paint. Same with perfumes. I don’t know if it’s ridiculous amounts of people overusing, or if perfumes in general turn me off. But I’ve stood behind a woman in a shopping queue before (while doing groceries) and I’ve found myself on a few occasions wondering if I could draw parallel’s between their stench, uncleanliness, and sniffing petrol.
Me: Personally, I am in love with the well painted face, the scent and sensation of face powder, the lush slickness of a lipsticked mouth, the dark fan of false lashes against preternaturally flawless skin interest me far more than naked, dully human flesh but to each their own. Give me chemicals for they are what all matter is made of, and I would rather have someone self made than one who allows nature’s whims decide what it is they ought to look like.
Tag: cosmetics
I Have A Historical Materialist Theory Of Cosmetic Usage
Here’s how it goes, so you have fairly egalitarian hunting/gathering type societies (ur-communism), you’ll notice that in these societies makeup is used equally by pretty much all men and women or sometimes to denote specific roles (like religious official or similar) or particular activities (you paint your face a specific way at this particular festivity). Also interestingly cosmetics tend to be more “abstracted” during these periods (i.e. you’re not painting an idealized version of your face on top of your face, you’re painting your face half blue or what have you)
Then you have monarchies, peasants and lower class people no longer wear makeup, makeup is worn by all members of the aristocracy regardless of gender. Merchant class people may or may not wear some makeup. Ancient Egypt was an exception of course as at least eyeliner was used by nearly everyone (though Egypt being uniquely fertile and uniquely predictable allowed more luxuries for common people than elsewhere, and eye kohl both prevented infection and offered protection from sunlight). I am having trouble confirming the cosmetics practices of working people in ancient Japan, but I can say for certain aristocratic men and women did wear makeup, as there are accounts of Samurai rouging their cheeks before battle, as well as of the cosmetic practices of aristocratic women. I know that in ancient China aristocratic women did wear makeup, and we have little evidence on the cosmetics practices of working people and I am having trouble finding sources on what aristocratic men did or did not do (though I did find an interesting tidbit about nail color being used to indicate social class, with non-royals being forbidden to tint their nails ). In ancient India cosmetics were used by men and women, but I’m having trouble finding sources on how this related to class. Under the Aztec and Mayan empires it seems that cosmetics were used to indicate class by the color and design (and were relatively stylized, most feudal societies seem to do more “representational” types of cosmetics, where they paint an idealized version of a face) and were used by both men and women, though it does seem to have been used more readily by the upper classes (it’s often hard to find records on the stuff the underclass wore/what cosmetics if any they used, though apparently the Aztecs used red cosmetics of some sort almost universally)
After bourgeois revolutions you see makeup and adornment being shunned in line with bourgeois values (the victorian era for example, makeup being banned under Cromwell, the French revolution etc) and being seen as the realm of “disrespectable” women (read: Sex workers usually) but gradually coming back into general favor but only or primarily for women. Proletarian women wear more of it, lumpen prole men also may wear some at various points.
In Ancient Rome and Greece when they were closer to bourgeois democracies you see the same pattern of “generally frowned upon”, and “acceptable if used lightly” by women.
Obviously I’m extrapolating based on data points I have and will need to look for more examples and counterexamples world wide, but it is interesting. IDK exactly what it means but it seems to be like… repeatedly true, also I know I’m not separating “pre-feudal post ur-communism” from feudal very well… but those seem to have varied a bit some behaving more like feudal societies and some behaving rather like capitalist ones (in terms of cosmetics usage) which I think might have something to do with how those systems were shaped in terms of their states… I’m not even sure I’m precisely a Marxian historical materialist, but like the coincidence seems weird.
Here are some of my sources:
http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/…/…/pdf/pubPower_JCS.pdf
http://dlia.ir/…/Chemistry/QD_71_142_Analytical_…/014111.pdf
https://books.google.com/books?id=ckZhe0fdmaMC
https://www.amazon.com/Appearance-Sake-Histori…/…/1573562041
http://www.amazon.com/History-Costume-West-Fr…/…/ref=sr_1_1…
http://www.amazon.com/20-000-Years-F…/…/ref=pd_sim_sbs_14_2…
http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Luxuries-Fragran…/…/ref=sr_1_1…
http://www.amazon.com/Cosmetics-Perfumes-Roma…/…/ref=sr_1_3…
http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Eastern-Victori…/…/ref=sr_1_3…
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Costume-Tradit…/…/ref=sr_1_1…
http://www.history.com/…/did-lead-makeup-poison-samurai-kid…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2825132/
http://www.beautifully-invisible.com/…/nail-lacquer-blood-r
Some Life’s Entropy things
Also Are There Any Completely Worker Owned Large-ish Scale Cosmetics Companies?
Cause like there are obviously indie brands produced by individuals who make their own shit but like are there worker owned cosmetics cooperatives, cause that’d be fucking cool.
More Thoughts On Post Rev Cosmetics:
We can probably just keep producing every shade and finish and opacity of eyeshadow under the sun, but also we can explain what each one is like and does better like “this is a lightly pigmented shimmer that works for XYZ” “this is really heavily pigmented and is good for ABC”
Lipsticks in every color, liquid mattes in every color, glosses in every color, try to invent a smudgeproof non-drying formula.
Modular brushes for liquid eyeliner formulas.
Skin care and hair care are no woowoo, exclusively scientifically proven ingredients.
Felt tip eyeliners with reservoirs designed not to be exposed to air so they don’t dry out so fricking fast
Everything will be much better organized and it’ll be easier to find a product that does what you want because you won’t have to compare a million different product lines
Also After The Rev
Cosmetics packaging should all be pretty (and not a fucking pain in the ass to open), I want to do a lot of little things to make everything just experientially nicer for people.
Like pretty shit that makes your day just a little better.
Also cosmetics will all be considered gender neutral after the rev and there will be formulations designed for people who grow beard hair and stuff.
Some notes on how cosmetics should be produced after the rev
There should be many sturdy metal palette design options, that all fit standardized eyeshadow pans, they are designed to be easily swappable and refillable.
Colors should still have cute names to help you remember what they are
Lipsticks should come in refillable tubes
Liquid foundation should be custom blended and come in sanitary pump bottles, creams in refillable compacts, loose powder in refillable jars.
There should be a wide variety of opacity, finishes and so on available
Pencils are sustainable and can remain disposable
Certain products can be grouped together in little “lines” because they have the same aesthetic “pinup”or “goth” or what have you.
No all natural fear mongering woo, but there will be hypoallergenic formulas.
Modular brushes for a variety of mascara formulas
You can choose what bottle your perfume goes into. Perfume bottles should be opaque to best preserve the scent.
Mass production scents would have creative concepts generated by a committee within the collective (basically volunteers) and then those would be voted on on a big website (the most popular however many it’s sensible to produce getting produced, production runs based on number of votes for new scents, last years demand determining old ones along with consumer satisfaction surveys)
There should be a yearly survey asking people what we can improve in terms of product and selection. Consumers also vote on how well various scents matched their stated concept.
Perfumers pet projects may get production if they get a certain number of signatures.
What if we eliminate money but everyone has little ID cards they swipe when they get stuff so we know what stuff is popular where and with whom? What products people buy once and what they buy over and over. This kind of data will be immensely important in a post market economy
I’m Beginning To Develop A Theory About Makeup and Class and Historical Materialism
Ok so you have fairly egalitarian hunting/gathering type societies, you’ll notice that in these societies makeup is used equally by pretty much all men and women or sometimes to denote specific roles (like religious official or similar) or particular activities (you paint your face a specific way at this particular festivity)
Then you have monarchies, peasants and lower class people no longer wear makeup, makeup is worn by all members of the aristocracy regardless of gender. Merchant class people may or may not wear some makeup. Ancient Egypt was an exception of course as at least eyeliner was used by nearly everyone (though Egypt being uniquely fertile and uniquely predictable allowed more luxuries for common people than elsewhere, and eye kohl both prevented infection and offered protection from sunlight). I am having trouble confirming the cosmetics practices of working people in ancient Japan, but I can say for certain aristocratic men and women did wear makeup, as there are accounts of Samurai rouging their cheeks before battle, as well as of the cosmetic practices of aristocratic women. I know that in ancient China aristocratic women did wear makeup, and we have little evidence on the cosmetics practices of working people and I am having trouble finding sources on what aristocratic men did or did not do. In ancient India cosmetics were used by men and women, but I’m having trouble finding sources on how this related to class.
After bourgeois revolutions you see makeup and adornment being shunned in line with bourgeois values (the victorian era for example, makeup being banned under Cromwell, the French revolution, and actually considering the ultimately state capitalist character of many supposedly leftist revolutions, those too etc) but gradually coming back into favor but only or primarily for women. Proletarian women wear more of it, lumpen prole men also may wear some at various points.
In Ancient Rome and Greece which were closer to bourgeois democracies you seem the same pattern of “generally frowned upon”, and “acceptable if used lightly” by women.
Obviously I’m extrapolating based on data points I have and will need to look for more examples and counterexamples world wide, but it is interesting.
Sources:
http://www.history.com/news/did-lead-makeup-poison-samurai-kids-topple-japans-shogunate
I want there to be a cosmetics line that does makeup specifically for very dark and very pale skinned people (but also for people who have trouble finding their undertone, so basically anyone who isn’t the three shades of medium Becky every makeup company makes)
I think you could call it like Black and White cosmetics and do like foundation/powder/concealer/contour stuff, blush, and nude tone eye shadows and lipstick for underserved skin tones (the beautiful thing is you could do a line mostly for poc and people couldn’t whine about “reverse racism” because you could be like “we do cosmetics for white people who have trouble matching their skin in most lines too” and they’d be like “fffffffffffffff”)
After The Rev I Want To Help Set Up The Cosmetics and Perfumery Collective
We’d bring back people’s favorite discontinued colors and scents, and make foundations in colors you could custom blend together for a perfect match, and label all the stuff in everything so people wouldn’t have unexpected allergic reactions, and our chemists would be awesome and kickass and do actual proper research and it would be awesome.
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 