Facing Beauty

There are quite a few make-up books that I should probably be putting up here - they are either great for inspiration or for technical know-how but Facing Beauty: Painted Women and Cosmetic Art which I received for Christmas is the best book on beauty, it's history, what has been, and is, considered beautiful and what women have done to accentuate their image in the eyes of the world.

Professor Aileen Ribeiro focuses on the period between 1540 and the women in Renaissance paintings to 1940  where the cosmetics industry really started to influence how women were able to change and adapt they way they looked. Facing Beauty: Painted Women and Cosmetic Art is full of beautiful colour plates showing real and ideal women throughout history and the costumes, fashion and cosmetics that influenced them.