Made Up

Made Up exposes the multibillion-dollar beauty industry that promotes unrealistic beauty standards through a market basket of advertising tricks, techniques, and technologies.

Cosmetics magnate Charles Revson, a founder of Revlon, was quoted as saying, "In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the store, we sell hope." This pioneering entrepreneur, who built an empire on the foundation of nail polish, captured the unvarnished truth about the beauty business in a single metaphor: hope in a jar.



Made Up: How the Beauty Industry Manipulates Consumers, Preys on Women?s Insecurities, and Promotes Unattainable Beauty Standards is a thorough examination of innovative, and often controversial, advertising practices used by beauty companies to persuade consumers, mainly women, to buy discretionary goods like cosmetics and scents. These approaches are clearly working: the average American woman will spend around $300,000 on facial products alone during her lifetime.



This revealing book traces the evolution of the global beauty industry, discovers what makes beauty consumers tick, explores the persistence and pervasiveness of the feminine beauty ideal, and investigates the myth-making power of beauty advertising. It also examines stereotypical portrayals of women in beauty ads, looks at celebrity beauty endorsements, and dissects the ?looks industry.?



Made Upuncovers the reality behind an Elysian world of fantasy and romance created by beauty brands that won?t tell women the truth about beauty.

. . .a thoughtfully argued, well-documented study of how the beauty industry has created ?unattainable beauty standards? in order to ensure its products sell . . . Organized into sections focused on the beauty industry, standards of beauty, advertising, and the dramatic increases in body modification practices, Laham explains why women fear aging, how they react to it, and what the beauty industry does to ensure this anxiety fuels consumerism.