What is beauty? “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!” Sure, but when our society is built on European beauty standards, the “beholder” suddenly struggles to find beauty in anybody that doesn’t conform to these “norms” without exoticising or fetishizing them. The whitewashing of beauty has its roots in elitism throughout the ages, as…
Cultural Appropriation of Beauty
Before jumping into discussion of cultural appropriation of beauty, I think it’s important to define cultural appropriation, and distinguish it from cultural appreciation. Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture. Elements are copied from a minority culture by members of the dominant culture, and…
White Privilege in Cosmetics
I remember the day I decided I wanted to buy makeup for the first time. I was about fifteen years old, and I begged my dad to drive me to the drugstore close to our house on a school night. He stayed in the car as I ventured into the makeup section for the first…
A Brief History of Beauty
When you think of the history of makeup, what kinds of images come to mind? Maybe the grungy eye makeup of the 1990s, or the big lash look à la Twiggy of the 1960s. While those are iconic looks of the past, the truth is that makeup has been used for thousands of years in nearly every…
Welcome!
Hello, and welcome to Critical Beauty Analysis! My name is Olivia, and I am a college student interested in examining the racial disparities in America’s beauty industry. Growing up, I was the epitome of a “tomboy” in spite of my older sister’s infatuation with everything stereotypically “girly” (including beauty). Funnily enough, the roles have switched in…
