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A History of the Innovations that Have Made Us Beautiful
Broadway
October 2004
On Sale: October 5, 2004
336 pages
ISBN: 0767914511
EAN: 9780767914512
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.
—Helena
Rubinstein
In this fascinating, meticulously
researched romp through the annals of the beauty industry,
New York Times patents columnist Teresa Riordan
throws back the curtain on a century of shrewd, canny women
who have knowingly deployed artifice in a ceaseless battle
to captivate the inherently roving eye of the male.
When it comes to the opposite sex, males from many
species are easily deceived. Male fireflies will flirt with
flashlights. So is it any surprise that the male of the
human species has been fooled by lips painted cherry red and
breasts built up into silicone summits? Riordan explores
that strange intersection of science, fashion, and business
where beauty is engineered and finds that, for generations,
social trends and technological innovations have fueled a
nonstop assembly line of potions and contraptions that women
have enthusiastically put to use in the quest for feminine
flawlessness.
We learn why the first lipsticks were
orange. Why respectable women used the first vibrators not
just for naughtiness but also to eradicate their wrinkles.
Why the bustle started small but ultimately grew so
impressive that a proper lady could balance an entire tea
service on her rump. And why, but for mascara, Greta Garbo
might have been just another chunky Swede with bad
teeth.
Beauty inventions, Teresa Riordan has found,
can put the resourceful and the imaginative on an even
playing field with the congenitally beautiful. Countless
women have pushed, pulled, tweezed, squeezed, and spackled
themselves into synthetic loveliness. Inventing
Beauty is a delightful history of that noble effort,
from head to tail.
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