Chapter 4: The Rise of the Mass Market

  After World War I, the beauty market flourished and the number of cosmetics manufacturers nearly doubled as women's acceptance for them grew. Women had grown tired of methods of sales by druggists, mostly miscellaneous private labels, and had grown to prefer patent remedies, spurring on the growth of cosmetics manufacturing. However, this take off had a few bumps along the road, with Perfumers not wanting to sell to the masses, competition from the French, and more safety regulations of these products (establishment of the 1906 Food and Drug Act), but some older companies collaborated with the newer entrepreneurs to set up this modern makeup industry while some pharmacists relied on private formulas created locally but sold in the national market. Men, like Carl Weeks and Max Factor, also took advantage of this way turn earn easy money, further developing the mass market.

                Due to private-label manufacturers, many companies used the same standard products under different brand names and added minor additives for slight differentiation. As make up in the cosmetics industry began to rise in demand, more startup business relied on them for special equipment and expertise. Simultaneously, a wide array of cosmetic firms filled the market with thousands of new products, leading to competition for shelf space. This caused major companies to promote their products by offering window trims, advertisements for retailers or druggists, and free samples. Advertising became a key component to boosting sales as technology created better means of advertising, like radio broadcasting, causing the cosmetics industry to have a large expenditure on ad placements. However, women’s role in the cosmetics industry steadily went downhill as consumerism caused many ladies to purchase makeup from department stores or other business rather than beauty parlors or salons where it was previously most popularly sold, especially after 1920, but the beauty culture tradition still remained intact with the higher class segment. Men in large manufacturing companies gradually overtook women’s smaller businesses and deemed the trade in makeup, a temporary beauty business.

                For African Americans, business was still segregated but more exclusive to the black community even as time went on. They tended to support and help one another, like the rise of Anthony Overton’s High Brown product that inspired other white entrepreneurs to focus solely on black cosmetics. White manufacturers noticed the growing attraction to cosmetics and began soliciting black patronage. African American cosmetics manufacturers attempted to form a trade union in 1917 to counter this but cooperation proved to be difficult. In addition, the Great Depression was the downfall for many businesses, though beauty shops and agent operator systems did not go extinct.

                Throughout the 1920s, men looked for ways to legitimize their stance in the cosmetics culture, emphasizing their masculinity as salesmen and denouncing homosexuality in ads. They also had difficulty appealing to their female customers and started hiring female beauty experts that identified with their brand or creating fictive characters, Mrs. Gouverneur Morris for Primrose House. This displaced women from ownership but more advertisers and manufacturers turned to them for advice and knowledge, creating the first generation of advertising women.

                The rise in national advertising in the 1920s also created synergies, ties between cosmetics manufacturers, advertisers, retailers and mass media. The main women magazines, Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, Delineator…,  redesigned their layouts to break up the texts among advertisements, mostly cosmetics, while still promoting natural beauty and purity. On the other hand, newspapers and cheap magazines provided the buzz for beauty news, becoming a leading source of advertising revenue and caused major cosmetics manufacturers to start kissing up to beauty editors for free publicity. The beauty editorial style, a light and intimate tone, took hold as the distinction between editorials and advertisements became blurred, persuaded famous people to lend their name to the brand, and conducted early market research. The tie-in became popular because of its way to connect popular trends with national advertising, especially with the stage and screen (Max Factor’s frequent product demonstrations at matinees and became extremely popular at department stores with public lectures and booths) and with garment manufacturers to rationalize the fashion trade, turning cosmetics into accessories but connected fashion’s successes and downfalls with cosmetics. The hidden or closed demonstrator pretended to be a saleswoman at a store and touted her employer’s products method began to expand (another version was push money or p.m.s in which a saleswoman was paid a commission directly by the manufacturer if she pushed their line) and continued into the 1940s even with passage of legislation to curb the phenomenon. It demonstrated to the male manufacturers that the cosmetics business required information, educated consumers, services, and women’s sociability.  

Questions: What were some juxtapositions regarding the development of the cosmetics industry into a mass market?

To what extent was the importance of women’s role in the promotion of cosmetics advertising and sales?