1900's and 1910's

Before the 20^th century, “nice girls” did not wear makeup which was commonly called “paint.” This differed from cosmetics such as face creams and similar products that were intended to improve the skin, not mask it in the way that paint did. Even into the 1910s, what we would call makeup today was associated with prostitutes, dancing girls, and movie stars. It was the silver screen that made young women flock to the beauty section of their local department stores.

http://vintagedancer.com/1920s/makeup-starts-the-cosmetics-industry/

 

By the beginning of the 1900’s Edwardian Makeup Era, women sought after a ‘pale look’. Lemon juice either consumed or applied as a face tonic was a popular method of achieving this feminine complexion. Society hostesses sought to hold on to their ‘youth’ and to cater for this demand or perhaps to encourage it – exclusive beauty salons sprouted up in major cities.

To have a tan, was to suggest that a lady was of a lower class, who worked the land. So women of the ‘better class’ remained indoors or in the shade for most of their day.

The more daring women would mix up dyes from cosmetic preparations created at their chosen pharmacy. Edwardian Makeup was very much a DIY affair, and the objective was to create an effect of youthful beauty without anyone knowing you were wearing makeup.

http://glamourdaze.com/history-of-makeup/1900-1919

1909 makeup look

http://image.glamourdaze.com/2013/05/1909-Makeup-Look.jpg

1910 makeup inspiration

http://image.glamourdaze.com/2013/05/1910-Makeup-look.jpg

inspiration

http://image.glamourdaze.com/2013/05/1910s-makeup-style.jpg

 

This is the era of the Gibson Girl, a woman with big, soft hair and soft, delicate features. Since pale skin was incredibly popular, many women used powders with oatmeal or bismuth in them, with some more fancy people using ones with actual crushed up pearls in them

People didn't even want freckles messing up their porcelain skin, so there were various home remedies for "removing" or "lightening" freckles, including washing your face in buttermilk or with a mixture of "Jamaica rum to two of lemon-juice or weak vinegar, and a few drops of glycerine [sic],"

Aside from a gentle application of rouge on the lips and cheeks, there wasn't much else in the way of makeup until the late 1910s/1920s when things got way wilder.

The 1900s and 1910s were also a pivotal time in makeup evolutions, mainly because people were starting to make cosmetics that didn't straight up kill you after several uses. People looked up from their vanities, looked around, and said, "Wait a second, this stuff is making my face melt off oh sweet god no." Lead, arsenic, mercury, and zinc oxide started disappearing from formulations and several major cosmetic players came onto the scene – Gordon Selfridge (of Selfridges department stores, one of the first places to offer testers at a makeup counter), Coty, Maybelline, L'Oréal, Max Factor, and Elizabeth Arden, just to name a few – meaning that both the way that makeup was made and the way that women thought about makeup began to dramatically change.

 

http://millihelen.jezebel.com/eyeliner-and-liner-notes-a-history-of-makeup-1900