Despite the technology, for the content of the makeup advertisements, the notion of “Beauty” changes overtime. For example, from advertisements of 1880s to 1980s, most of the woman’s pictures were mostly featured with a classic smile, showing their confidence and beauty.
However, in the past 20 years, the notion of beauty becomes much more diverse. In a printed advertisement of Dolce & Gabbana Perfume Pretty Woman (1998) from the digital archive, the woman, unlike the previous pictures, didn’t give a smile at all. She looked at the audiences with a distasteful gaze. It was a black and white picture, and she was wearing a sexy underwear suit with a knife in her hand. This advertisement shows a unique characteristic of “beauty” and it might want to tell the female audiences “beauty is to be special and this perfume will make you special”.
In the previous makeup advertising, the whites were in dominant place. All of the beautiful makeup models, no matter males or females, are all whites. This advertisement of 1910 used the different painting styles, relatively sizes, details of appearances and face expressions to show the racist ideas towards black people.
However, as time passed, the makeup advertisements showed that the racial ideas in the society had been reduced. In the lately published advertisements, starting from 1970s, black people start to play a positive role in makeup advertisements.
The society learned to appreciate the beauty of black people. And it was surprising that in the combination of makeup advertisements from 1990s, there are four makeup advertisements featured black beauties. It was a significant progress.
From the changes of how makeup advertisements portrait colored people, especially black people, we can tell the change in the contents reflects the shift in social values towards a more equal, open-minded direction.