Recently I have seen quite a few videos about makeup and beauty through the ages.
I have seen ones that are generally iconic for that particular decade and one, that stood out to me the most, was realistic beauty through the ages by Karolina Żebrowska.
I found this video so interesting as it shows the different sides of what was happening through each decade. You can watch the video here, and I recommend you do!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =t__RhUyZMDM
So today I thought I would use my inspiration from Karolina Żebrowska and show you different sides of makeup from 1900-1950, using images from google.
1900-1919 Makeup:
Commonly known as the Edwardian Era, where makeup was a taboo:
Lower class women generally found work in domestic services or in factories. Therefore makeup was not worn.
Upper Class women would usually be found enjoying the finer things in life, having tea with their friends, planning meals and sometimes would be involved in charity work. Nannies looked after their children and made the meals. However, makeup was not worn unless women worked in movies.
1920 - 1929
Wearing makeup really took off in the 1920's.
As I'm sure you're all aware The Great Gatsby is of course an example of the type of makeup that could be seen in the upper class 1920's, cinema had a tremendous influence on these women. Smokey eyes and bold lips were worn through out this era.
For the lower class women in the 1920's there was again a lot of women working in domestic service, one in every nine.
1930 - 1939
The 1930's were a horrendous time due to the great depression which effected pretty much everyone, but there was still a certain class divide through out this time. Many people struggled with losing there job, little altered for women's jobs and the women who had employment were working in the factories or domestic service, although due to better education jobs such as teaching, being a clerk and nursing were sometimes done by women.
In comparison to the 1920's the 1930's was a lot more subdued, a lot of luxury activities were put on halt, however the cinema was still being enjoyed. For makeup this meant people were still loving "trends", pale skin was loved by all, but towards the end of the thirties there was a love for an undertone of pinks. Women's eyebrows were plucked very thin, an array of eyeshadow colours were worn and lipstick colours were still bold.
1940 - 1949
Of course the year of 1945 meant World War 2, this then saw a lot of women working as nurses, working in factories making bombs and aircraft supplies and other jobs that needed to be filled to help out during the war. If by some miracle during rationing women did manage to get their hands on makeup they made themselves look very glamorous. Women started to become very resourceful if they did want to apply some kind of makeup. I was told in my theatrical and media makeup course that the shape lipstick bullet, such as the shape of MAC's lipstick, was because that was what women were used to making, they would make shell caps for war and therefore it was the only shape they knew how to make!
1950 - 1959
That then finally brings us onto our last decade for this post.
The 50's held place for a lot of housewives, who looked glamorous whilst being the 'perfect wife', their jobs at home included cooking, cleaning, shopping and looking after the children. There were a lot of expectations for these housewives and some did it all while wearing cream face products, red lips, slightly thicker eyebrows than seen previously (thick then tapered towards the end), and towards the mid 50's we even had some winged eyeliner coming into fashion!
The 50's also saw the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, 2 fashion and beauty icons to this day! It is clear to see why they are still so admired.
With their perfect complexions, rosy cheeks and red lipstick, and of course today's ever loved cat eye, they are beautiful!
I hope you enjoyed seeing how makeup has evolved!
This is only a very small section timeline of the enormous timeline that is makeup, but it's very interesting to see how things have changed but also how many trends have actually stayed the same!
Love El
xxx
