The 1920s saw several major innovations in hair care and makeup products. Here are some details about makeup and hair products from the 1920s:

Makeup Products:

• Besame Cosmetics, founded by Gabriela Hernández, is a leading purveyor of vintage-style cosmetics today. Their 1920s cake mascaras, in black and brown, are authentic and beautifully packaged.

• Pale and creamy skin was desired, and the solution for white women lay in an array of powders, paints, and bleaches.

• Black women had limited options for hair and skin products, and two of the largest companies within the black community did not sell hair straighteners or bleaches.

Negative Aspects:

• Cosmetics from the 1920s contained dangerous ingredients such as radium, arsenic, and lead.

• Lead-based make-up was used for centuries, and it continued to be applied to faces until the Victorian preference for ‘natural’ beauty pushed the style out of fashion.

Positive Aspects:

• Homemade cold creams and lotions were a Victorian ‘no make-up’ alternative, and many of these recipes were harmless, listing simple waters scented with flowers.

• By the turn of the 20th century, many of the dangers within cosmetics were better understood.

Ingredients or Materials:

• Makeup products from the 1920s contained powders, paints, and bleaches for white women.

• Black women had limited options for hair and skin products.

• Cosmetics from the 1920s contained dangerous ingredients such as radium, arsenic, and lead.

• Homemade cold creams and lotions were made with simple waters scented with flowers, but some recipes included poisons such as mercury, arsenic, and lead.

• Today’s hair styling products have proliferated into a wide range of formats and textures, designed to allow the most demanding of consumers to create their individual style.