Make Up in the 1970's

One of my unlawful pleasures in the '70s, while still only a schoolgirl, was purloining a peek in my Mum's Cosmopolitan mag. It was exactly banned of course, being 'unsuitable' for me, and kept hidden in Mum's bedroom. Within were pages of gloss and glamour, hints at risqu activities I could only guess about, the peculiar naked body, and arty shots of models with wonderfully made-up faces. I can remember seeing a feature on Zandra Rhodes, complete with green hair and superb make up drawn onto her face -totally unique and now quite iconic.

Glittery glam rock make-up of the early '70s made maximum impact - not least becausemost of its main proponents were men. So David Bowie shocked our folks with ZiggyStardust, complete with full theatrical make up ; Marc Bolan's short-lived career also challenged popular stereotypes, with his long, glittery, curled hair and kohl-rimmed eyes ; Alice Cooper took eyeliner to another extraordinary, together with dramatic face paint. All of a sudden sexual ambiguity was big news and transvestism was SO not frightened to be centre-stage! But the glam look, while great for clubbing, was unrealistic for everyday wear. Around 1973, a new fresh-faced look became trendy, as fitness and health crazes boomed. All of a sudden, the' no-make up look' was in, and even though it could have required just as many products to achieve, the key was to try and look bare-faced and 'natural'. I can remember the fuss created by something called 'blusher' and a 'blusher brush', which, when used together, had the spellbinding effect of making you appear to be you'd just spent 2 weeks in Tenerife! Before this, it had just been Mum's old style 'rouge'. And when Charlie's Angels hit the screens, each girl in our college was wearing Miners' honey flavoured lip gloss ( if I ever smell that again, I will be right back in the third form ).

More extremes were to come with punk and its shocking, assertive, stark make up. Safety pins found a new use, swastikas were painted onto shaved heads, all notions of taste and goodness were attacked and challenged. My punk buddies got into trouble in school for home piercings and ridiculous black and red make-up ; this was exactly what they were hoping for! As the '70s came to a close though, I most remember dressing up to go clubbing. With new romantic music coming to the fore, along with the upcoming trend for pop videos, there had been a definite sense of 'posing' when getting made up to go out in town. Different to the outrageousness of glam rock, but definitely flaunting a 'look', hours were spent applying foundation, powder, mascara, liners and gloss. Looking backwards now, it seems biased that the 1970s have been dubbed by some critics : 'the decade that style forgot'. Definitely most unlikely to categorise it smartly and amix of extremes, make-up in the '70s wasn't to be ignored. But more than any timebefore, it set new limits in regards to what was acceptable both for men and for women.