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Theme · The Studios

Hollywood Sells the Face

The Technicolor close-up made a complexion a national concern, and Hollywood and the beauty counter became one industry.

Sound and then color changed the face. The close-up put a complexion on a forty-foot screen, and Technicolor made every flaw a problem to solve, so the studios built a science of make-up to survive it. Max Factor's Pan-Cake was invented for the camera, then sold to the audience that had watched it work.

The beauty industry and the film industry fused. Lux borrowed the stars, Max Factor borrowed the technology, and the fan magazines carried both, so that the reader could buy the exact means by which the face she admired had been made. For two decades, Hollywood was the largest beauty advertisement in the country.

The arc across the decades
1930s

Built for Technicolor

Max Factor's Pan-Cake is invented for the camera, then sold to the vanity.

Max Factor ›
1930s

The stars' own soap

Lux turns the studios' contract players into a national endorsement.

Lux ›
1950s

Glamour goes mass

The studio look reaches every drugstore, the aspirational face for a dime.

Revlon ›
The houses
See it in the record
Lux, 1921
Lux1921 Ladies' Home Journal
Lux, 1942
Lux1942 Photoplay
Max Factor, 1951
Max Factor1951 Modern Screen
Max Factor, 1930
Max Factor1930 Screenland
Max Factor, 1944
Max Factor1944 Photoplay
Woodbury, 1945
Woodbury1945 Screenland
Lux, 1907
Lux1907 Vogue
Max Factor, 1952
Max Factor1952 Screenland

Real public-domain advertisements the engine identified for these houses. Click any page to read it at the Internet Archive.

Open these houses in the record →
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