All Made Up

A fascinating journey through history and culture, examining how makeup affects self-empowerment, how people have used it to define (and defy) their roles in society, and why we all need to care

Every woman has had to make a very personal choice about her relationship with makeup, and consciously or unconsciously, every woman knows that the choice is never entirely hers to make. Increasingly, people of all genders are wrestling with what it means to be a woman living in a patriarchy, and part of that means we will eventually need to talk about how looking like a woman--whatever that means--affects people's real lives.

All Made Up is a collection of reported and researched essays that examines how people throughout history have used makeup as a tool for empowerment and creative self-expression. Simultaneously, the book holds space for complicating factors, especially the ways that beauty standards differ across race, class, and culture. Using famous women including Cleopatra, Empress Wu, Madam CJ Walker, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marsha P. Johnson, Nudson unpacks makeup's cultural impact - including how it can be used to shape a personal or cultural narrative, how it reinforces the myth of white supremacy, how and when it can be used for safety, and its function in the workplace, to name a few examples.

There is a history that comes with wearing cat eye liner or a bold rep lip, one that many women feel to this day, even if they don't realize why - or don't realize they're impacted at all. Nudson uses makeup to look closer at a variety of issues that impact people of all genders daily. Read to expand the discussion around what it means to participate in creating your own self-image.