1940s Austerity Makeup
I have been fascinated with the 1940s for years, pretty much forever. I know a lot about my family at that period, my Mum's, Mum's parents were busy working in factories, doing essential war work, and my Grandma lived with her Grandma during the week so they could pull 12hr shifts. My Grandpa's Mum is German and had moved to the UK in 1933. Almost all of her family died either before, or during the war, and her husband signed up and spent the war in Canada and the Azores of all places - he didn't even have to touch a gun the whole war. And my Dad's Dad was a Navy Medic during the war but fell down stairs and broke his leg early on and by the time he'd recovered, the war was over. Yeah, my family was super dull :) No Battle of Britain pilots of anything but, trust me, it was still enough to get me hooked.
Anyway, I've been humming and harring over entering the NYX Face Awards Beauty Blogger contest for a while. Will I be too tired? Will it use up too many spoons? Is it a waste of time to even think about it if, in the long run, there is no way my health would allow me to go all the way through to the end? Finally I decided, screw it, I was just going to go for it and see what happened. So, with just over a week till the deadline I had to come up with a concept, film it, edit it and upload it.
Yeah, I know. I'm bonkers and it totally exhausted me but it was loads of fun.
I decided on 1940s makeup, but honestly, I didn't want to the same thing everyone else has done. No, old Hollywood or pin up looks. I wanted to do austerity makeup.
In 1940s Britain there were a lot of substitutions and unusual ways to make things go further. You could make mock-marzipan out of potato and almond essence, carrot, a little almond essence and plum jam made an apricot tart filling and you were supposed to eat a pound of potatoes per person at meal times to make the food go further. I wanted to do a makeup look as real women would have worn it at the time including all the crazy substitutions. So I did :)
Here is the video if you want to watch it but this post is basically the info etc that I found.
Above is an image of Rosie the riveter. If you really look, you'll notice she is wearing lipstick, nail polish and even, what are probably false lashes. And I know she was American, and I know they didn't have rationing the same way we did in the UK but she is still the best demonstration of 1940s women you are likely to see. Strong, kick ass and unbelievably beautifully made up. Oh, and also supposed to still look after the kids and do 90%+ of the cooking. It was a different era.
Anyway this is the look I did and I'll work through it step by step.
Anyway, I've been humming and harring over entering the NYX Face Awards Beauty Blogger contest for a while. Will I be too tired? Will it use up too many spoons? Is it a waste of time to even think about it if, in the long run, there is no way my health would allow me to go all the way through to the end? Finally I decided, screw it, I was just going to go for it and see what happened. So, with just over a week till the deadline I had to come up with a concept, film it, edit it and upload it.
Yeah, I know. I'm bonkers and it totally exhausted me but it was loads of fun.
I decided on 1940s makeup, but honestly, I didn't want to the same thing everyone else has done. No, old Hollywood or pin up looks. I wanted to do austerity makeup.
In 1940s Britain there were a lot of substitutions and unusual ways to make things go further. You could make mock-marzipan out of potato and almond essence, carrot, a little almond essence and plum jam made an apricot tart filling and you were supposed to eat a pound of potatoes per person at meal times to make the food go further. I wanted to do a makeup look as real women would have worn it at the time including all the crazy substitutions. So I did :)
Here is the video if you want to watch it but this post is basically the info etc that I found.
Above is an image of Rosie the riveter. If you really look, you'll notice she is wearing lipstick, nail polish and even, what are probably false lashes. And I know she was American, and I know they didn't have rationing the same way we did in the UK but she is still the best demonstration of 1940s women you are likely to see. Strong, kick ass and unbelievably beautifully made up. Oh, and also supposed to still look after the kids and do 90%+ of the cooking. It was a different era.
