Looking at make-up by Marcia Weisbrot
3 inch double-sided round accordion is pasted into the base of the plastic compact. Compact is housed in a silver sequined pouch. Hand colored pictures of women applying blush and tweezing, a heavily made-up face, and a tabletop array of cosmetics.This small book housed in a mirrored compact expresses Woman's ambivalent relationship with cosmetics as both agent of transformation and of potential denial and constraint. Brief reminiscences of Charm School and of one sister tweezing another's eyebrows depict make-up's function as a rite of passage for girls, a chance to choose their own personas, what faces they will wear in the world. Make-up is part of the private language of women, a modern day initiation which we embrace or reject
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