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1960s Makeup: The Young Face and Its Critics

Medicated makeup sold beside the groceries to the young, false eyelashes by the million, a dermatologist at the counter — and, at the end of the decade, a trash can on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

The essayThe Young Face and Its Critics

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A 1960s collage: a black-and-white photograph of a young woman with a short crop, pale skin, a dark contour line above heavily lashed eyes and a pale mouth, surrounded by false eyelashes in an open box, a liquid eyeliner and its brush, a tin paintbox of eye colours, a pale frosted lipstick and a torn fashion page.
Commissioned illustration
1960 – 1969Youth & Dissent
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The 1960s opened with Noxzema’s medicated Cover Girl sold in drug and grocery stores to the young, moved the face’s emphasis from a paling mouth to the eye and its false lashes, and closed with Clinique’s allergy-tested counter and a protest that threw false eyelashes into a Freedom Trash Can.

  • Sold to the YoungMedicated makeup for teenagers, on drugstore and grocery shelves.
  • The Eye LeadsPale mouths, coloured lids and false lashes by the million.
  • Good for the SkinAntiseptic makeup, then allergy-tested skin care.
  • The ArgumentBlack Is Beautiful in 1962, a Freedom Trash Can in 1968.

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Ingredients

What the face was made of