Under rationing and blackout, a painted mouth became a symbol of resolve, and beauty advertising learned to speak to the working woman.
War might have ended beauty advertising. Instead it repurposed it. With cosmetics rationed and factories full of women, the industry reframed a painted mouth as patriotic duty. Tangee's War, Women and Lipstick argued that keeping one's color was a small act of resolve, a refusal to let the enemy dim the home front.
The audience changed with the message. Jergens Lotion spoke to the hands doing war work, and the foundation houses shaped a practical, capable silhouette. Beauty advertising learned, for the first time, to address a woman as a worker and a citizen, not only as an object of romance, a register it never entirely gave back.
Tangee frames color as morale and patriotic duty, and women keep it on through rationing.
Tangee ›Maidenform's foundations shape the practical, working figure of the decade.
Maidenform ›
Real public-domain advertisements the engine identified for these houses. Click any page to read it at the Internet Archive.
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