My RtB bio says I started reading romance in 2007, but that’s not really true. I actually read a bunch of romance, at age 13, in 1982, when I had mono, and my harried mother brought home an unvetted pile of romance novels to help me get through a couple of weeks of bed rest (she’s not a romance reader). I remember two things really clearly from those books. In one of them, an antebellum romance, a Southern belle got splinters from being backed into a fence post and ravished by the hero. That sexual intercourse might cause splinters was a new and frightening idea. The second thing was heroine makeup. The heroines, at least in the contemporaries I read, looked great with just a bit of mascara, lip gloss, and a barrette. And this fact was often remarked upon by the hero, who compared her favorably to other women of his acquaintance, who piled it on. This idea of “nearly natural beauty” served as a kind of ideal for me in my early teen years.
I haven’t read any romances that feature butt splinters lately, but the naturally lovely heroine is still with us, especially in romances set in contemporary times, whether straight contemps or romantic suspense or erotic romance. It’s not that heroines don’t wear makeup — the romantic suspense novel I read recently that featured a heroine on the run who left her hiding place to buy foundation springs to mind — but there seems to be a happy medium, a kind of virtuous amount, that many authors have settled on. The makeup free female character is often portrayed as asexual or unappealingly lazy, while the Tammy Faye Bakers, often in real or imagined competition with the heroine for the hero’s attention, are demonized for their vanity and superficiality. Not their looks per se, but what heroines do with their looks is often used to convey important things about their characters.
Feminists have had a complex relationship with women’s makeup in the past 25 years. When I started teaching women’s studies over a decade ago, it was common to contrast the time and money average women in the US spent on cosmetics with the much cheaper and easier male regimen. Add that to the social disapproval and materially worse career prospects for the woman who has “let herself go” or “isn’t making any effort”, and you didn’t have a hard time arguing that the cosmetics industry wasn’t really a friend to women. When makeup’s defenders protested that makeup application was an artistic means of individual expression, many feminists responded, quite reasonably, that the purpose of makeup — except when Lady Gaga is wearing it — is to make all women look the same, according to the beauty ideal of the times. Other feminist voices were more pragmatic, acknowledging that while in an ideal world of gender equity, women would feel no more naked than men without their lipstick, we live in this world, and if women need lip gloss to feel confident, or if they recognize they need it (but not too much of it) to be taken seriously by a potential employer, then so be it.
I’ve been in the online romance community long enough to know that many here think romance novels, because they are written by women for women, and published by companies in which women have important positions, are empowering, even “subversive.” A lot of these arguments could be applied to the cosmetics industry itself. Think of Estee Lauder, Mary Kay, Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein. I’m not sure how far I can push this, but those cosmetics pioneers helped change the perception, common in the first half of the twentieth century, that makeup was for whores, just as romance writers and readers (while often buying into myths about women who wear a lot of makeup) often rejected the idea that a woman embracing her sexuality was a whore. And, just like romance novels, makeup rituals can serve to create community among women: moms teach their daughters about makeup (sometimes, not to wear it at all, of course), women shop together for makeup, share makeup tips, and trade makeup.
A whole new wrinkle, one I don’t have the space to explore, is men and makeup. Those stark contrasts between the rigors of male and female beauty regimens no longer hold. Men, with their own cosmetics lines, are catching up. Is there a similar “golden mean of makeup” in romance novels for heroes? I’m thinking romance novels are a bit behind the times on this point. When’s the last time you read a hero, as opposed to some vain rival for the heroine’s affections, applying brow gel, concealer, or oil absorbing face powder? Would a romance work for you that had the hero and heroine sharing kohl eyeliner?
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My first published story was triggered by a discussion of makeup with hubby. I can’t say I pay much attention to it when I’m reading, although I’d probably have a quick WTF if I saw the hero using it. Heck, I had one of those moments when a hero talked about shaving his chest, which took me places I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Next? His and hers waxing?
oh, the possibilities of his and her waxing…
It all depends on the story and I love variety. For example, if the story’s set in Ancient Egypt, the dude better wear make-up or I won’t believe it.
Good point about the importance of setting!
“When’s the last time you read a hero, as opposed to some vain rival for the heroine’s affections, applying brow gel, concealer, or oil absorbing face powder?”
You don’t read enough historicals, do you
oh, I knew was going to call me on the powder!
I’m trying to remember what happens at the end of Heyer’s ‘Powder and Patch’. *Runs upstairs to get the book*
The heroine, Cleone, rejects the hero at the start of the book:
“Cleone,” blundered Philip, “you-don’t want a-mincing, powdered-beau.”
“I do not want a-a-raw-country-bumpkin,” she said cruelly.
So he goes to Paris, gets sophisticated – lovely clothes, wig, make-up etc, and comes back to test Cleone. “I …. wished to see whether you wanted the real me-or a painted puppet.”
And actually, now that I have the book, it doesn’t say what happened to the make-up and wig after the HEA. But I think the suggestion is that he enjoys dressing well, and that he has become, to some extent, the ‘painted puppet’ he pretended to be.
It’s a 1923 copyright date – so one of Heyer’s earliest works, and not as good as her later books. But just as a story, it works. You don’t reject the hero because he wears make-up (indeed the story suggests he’s a more rounded person now he takes an intelligent interest in his appearance).
You people are hammering me on the historical. LOL. Is it time to note, in my defense, that the post focuses on contemporaries?
http://www.likesbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookReview.pl?BookReviewId=1972 Call me Heartless, but I ain’t sharing the Duke in Mary Balogh’s historical Heartless. It’s a Georgian and he minces and puts on a face, complete with beauty marks and let’s not get into his matching jewels and shoes with red heels BUT he couldn’t be more virile and dangerous.
Time for a re-read!
I will go with anything as long as it is written well. That said, I don’t really see a problem with a contemporary hero wearing make-up. Bees do it, birds do it, rock-stars do it. A well dressed man is a fine thing to behold and if that means that he was primping in the mirror and blow drying his hair, then by God, yes to men wearing make-up!
I like your idea about make-up as a subversive act between women. I was just reading how James I was very concerned that women were adopting poniards and stilletoes and that it was a trangression that must be stopped. Interesting how people’s choice of dress can be a rebellious act.
It’s all about the social meaning, historical context, and personal intention motivating the act, isn’t it?
Contemporary hero wearing makeup? That would be a book against the wall moment for me.
I’ll stick with my categories and their military heroes, cowboys, and cops. I like men. My real world is populated by men (five brothers, two sons, and a husband), and I like the fact that they’re guys. I’m more than happy to do the girl thing in response.
Say, anyone seen my rouge???
I rarely wore makeup in high school, often because I never remembered to put it on. And most of my guy friends wore more makeup than I did, even on my made up days. One wore eye liner, concealer, stuff to cover oil on his skin, and straightened his hair. And he looked Good. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever seen guys like him in a book. I think I’d like to.
Fascinating post. I agree about the golden mean — a lot of romance authors, particularly in contemporary romance, use the heroine’s make-up use as a signal about her character. As long as it is believable, I’m okay with it.
As others have said, I’m used to make-up, powdered hair, wigs and so forth in some periods of historical romance. I like it there, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen it in a contemporary.
Oh, and I must add, no list of female cosmetics entrepreneurs would be complete without Madame CJ Walker, the daughter of former slaves who made her fortune selling beauty products for Black women in the early 20th century. Talk about empowering!
Thank you for adding Madam CJ Walker. I regret not listing her in the post.
I remember once on Ally McBeal, one of the female characters said, “If women are so liberated, why do I have to put on mascara before leaving the house?” I think she had a great point–if you feel obligated to make yourself more sexually attractive in any situation, then you’re definitely not liberated from the idea that women are first and foremost sexual objects for men. But I think that’s more of an individual issue than one endemic to cosmetics–plenty of women use make-up, as you said, to feel more confident, and necessarily because they HAVE to. I think the romance novel examples you pointed out support the latter attitude.
I’d like to see a world where some people (of whichever gender) wear makeup, and some don’t. Where, of the ones who do, some where a lot, some where a little, and some only wear it on certain occasions. You know, like real people.
I don’t wear makeup. I tried it for a while, got a makeover and came home with a sack of stuff, and wore it to work for like six months. Ick. It was uncomfortable and expensive, and took too long to put on every morning, to say nothing of touch-ups. I finally trashed it and never looked back. I wore no makeup at my wedding — informing people of this, whenever they try to nag (and yeah, gentle hinting is still nagging) about how I really should do something with my face, usually shuts them up. The wedding is sort of a high-water benchmark of female grooming, and going natural to my wedding gives me a free pass to ignore it ever after.
I know I’m unusual in the modern, industrialized world, but I’m not unique and it’d be nice to see a few women in romances who are like me. Even better would be to see women in romances who are like me, and who aren’t used to show that you have to get a makeover and slather yourself in makeup 3/4 of the way through the story in order to get a good man.
And yes, a lot of guys, especially the younger ones, are hot in eye liner.
I’d like to see that too in contemporary romances.
Angie
About the only kind of make-up I wear anymore is lip gloss and I only buy it to collect all the different containers you can get it in. Hey, I decided I need to collect something besides books!
I think that if I ever did wear a lot of make-up my husband wouldn’t recognize me. I put some on for our wedding and it was gone by the time my maid of honor started down the aisle. Yes, I did put powder on so it wouldn’t “slide off”. Didn’t work. I think some of us just don’t wear it very well.
LOL! Sounds like my daughter. She hung around her fiance’s lab/office at FSU all summer before they were married, and his major professor came to the wedding and thought he was in the wrong place. Even the hotel event planner didn’t recognize her when she showed up to get dressed in full hair and makeup.