A history of beauty advertising

In our first lecture with sharon, we looked at a wide range of beauty advertisments and explored their history and how they have developed over time. There are several factors that influenced changes in beauty advertising- technology development, beauty trends and ideals always changing and the way women are perceived in the media.

Beauty ideals are forever changing, and make up brands are constantly altering their advertisments and coming up with new designs to convince the customer that they need these products in order to rock this new beauty trend. These days, you don't just see these advertisments in magazines, they are absolutely everywhere. Billboards,TV, Instagram and they even pop up on the side of the screen when you're trying to shop on ASOS. I feel that instagram has a huge influence over young women. Beauty brands are now paying celebrities to advertise their products on their instagram accounts. These women are always very beautiful and influential, so young girls/women feel like they need to buy the products in order to look like them. (even though these celebrities very rarely actually use these products.)

The media plays a huge part in these ever changing beauty trends. For example, people went absolutely mad for the contouring trend when the Kardashians brought it onto the scene. 'Contour kits' have only really been available for the last few years and are already a beauty must have in most women's make up bags.

I feel that beauty advertisments have always been sexy and playful- some more outrageous than others. Obviously the models are always made to look beautiful and sexy as this makes the viewer think they will look the same way if they use that product. I think that some adverts are empowering, everyone wants to be sexy, but then some are borderline sexist. Tom ford is notorious for his risque advertisments. Sex always seems to be the main theme in his adverts, often containing both men and women, with the woman sometimes looking quite vulnerable.

I found this beauty advert from 1942, published in cosmopolitan. It is advertising palm olive soap and is titled 'just for him'. The advert shows a beautiful young woman, longing for her husband to return from war. She is holding a letter in her hands, it reads 'I can almost feel your soft smooth cheek against mine'. Then underneath the letter it says 'When he comes home, will he find you as lovely as his heart had dreamed you'd be?' The whole advert is all about the woman prepping herself for her husbands return. She is to use this soap for her husbands enjoyment, rather than her own. This something that you would never see in advertising today. Women are want to be sexy and confident for themselves, not to please a man.