At My Soiree: Pretty Face, Ugly Cost

My last post was a link to Annie Leonard's new video on the cosmetics industry. Here is a link to the same topic from another blog: At My Soiree: Pretty Face, Ugly Cost

Annie Leonard's The Story of Cosmetics

Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff has become a widely viewed video attacking our culture of consumerism.  Now she has created The Story of Cosmetics, in which she takes the cosmetics or beauty industry to task for their cynical manipulations and unethical trade practises.  Personally, I find the industry's trageting of young girls particularly reprehensible.  You can also read my review of Harvard's Geoffrey Jones' uncritical study of the history of the Beauty Industry.

The Beauty Industry

It is funny how art historians and philosophers have so much to say about beauty while historians generally have ignored those companies who promise to make us all beautiful by producing and selling to us things like body lotions, deodorants, shampoos, perfumes, nail varnish and toothpaste. Harvard University's Geoffrey Jones has rectified this with his Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry.   My review of his book was published online by History Today yesterday and you can read it here.