Once a year, I go to a ball. A proper ball. They always have mottoes, and this year, it was ‘The Golden 20s’. I was ecstatic at first – who wouldn’t love to dress up as Daisy from The Great Gatsby? So I got a dress, shoes, jewellery… And then, so I thought, came the fun part. The makeup. And it got slightly complicated. Read on for my easy 20s makeup look how-to!
20s makeup – the theory
The first thing to know is that it was still an era that viewed things in black and white. Movies, magazines, everything. While technology was still in its baby shoes, you’d need high contrast in makeup to make it properly visible in pictures. This lead to movie stars and models wearing tons of makeup. But in the end, people weren’t really that different – women would adapt a style to their own personal look, filmstars adapted styles for a role, and there were day looks, evening looks, and so on. There were only three key elements that are the thread through the labyrinth of looks. These were thin brows, a matte complexion, and the cupid’s bow lip.
The Face
While there was some kind of cream foundation actors used, women would usually rely on powder. Powders didn’t have that light-reflecting quality they nowadays might have, so the complexion is matte and pale. (The ideal, light skin, would only change shortly after when Coco Chanel fell asleep in the sun, and tanned skin was suddenly hip.) Compacts would become little works of art, and daring young things would suddenly start to show off their new flashy swivelling lipsticks and embellished powder compacts and touch up in public.
Blush came mainly (still) as cream, but Bourjois, for example, launched their powder blushes, and blush papers were also a new form of getting a healthy flush. Blush was applied on the apples of the cheek. Daring flappers, wanting to accentuate the high hemline of their dresses, also applied blush to their knees.
The Eyes
Eye makeup hadn’t come into the focus yet. There was mainly mascara (cake mascara/ or, colloquial, “spitblock” that came as a solid black block with a little toothbrush-looking brush). As the decade moved along, khol (when Tutankhamen’s grave was discovered) and everything Egyptian became a hit. Eyeshadow became normal in the 30s. In the 20s, it was still mainly for actresses and models, something with a slight stigma.
When we look at the movies of that time, we can see various ways to accentuate the eyes via eyeshadow. The most used look was a rather rounded eye look, with accents on the inner corner of the eyes. That made them look mysteriously deep-set or round, innocent and childlike. It was also a rather monochromatic look – nothing like our eye looks today!
The Lips
Red lips were linked to the women’s movement, and I guess that’s the reason rebellious flapper girls painted their lips red. Lipstick became easily re-applyable as well, when in the 20s, a lipstick case with a swivel mechanism was invented. Now you could actually carry your lipstick in your purse and take it with you. We associate deep colours with the era, because of the silent movie heroines with deep, deep lips, but that’s not the truth. One of the first lipsticks in a tube was a tangerine shade that turned coral/pink on your lips (from US brand Tangee). There was orange, there was pink, there was red – and different occasions would demand different colours.
The most important thing, though, was the shape of the lips. Style would demand an exaggerated cupid’s bow (with a heart shaped upper lip), while the lower lip wouldn’t be completely coloured in, but the outer edges would remain bare. The mouth would appear smaller. Women who found that too complicated, could actually buy metal lip tracers (a bit like some brow tracers we have nowadays).
The Nails
With advancement in technology for automobile lacquers, liquid nailpolish started to appear during the 1910s and 20s. First, the colours were a natural pink, but at the end of the 20s, reds appeared, and with them, the half moon manicure. You painted just the middle of the nail in a rounded shape, so that the half moon at the bottom and tip stayed bare. (My theory is that with that style, you don’t have to care about tipwear and nails growing out.)
How I did it
I started out with the best intentions, but found out that it doesn’t help to adapt a style that doesn’t suit you, because it shows. I did a small trial for the eyelook, and I didn’t feel it. Here’s what I did instead:
The Face
For my base makeup, I went for quite a full-coverage foundation, Illamasqua’s Skin Base in SB06, that fits my skintone very well. I used a primer (Smashbox’s regular one), and for the finish, NARS’ Translucent Setting Powder. Then I also used Urban Decay’s All Nighter Setting Spray, because ball=dancing, eating and heat. I didn’t went lighter with my foundation and also didn’t opt for a matte finishing powder because I’m 40 and I’m starting to need all the dewiness I can get.
As blush, I used MAC’s Extra Dimension At Dusk, and placed that right on the apples of my cheeks. I usually don’t do that, and I liked it – it gave my oval face a nice fullness. Then, I also lightly contoured and highlighted – the effect was subtle, but needed. I wore my hair completely back, and I wanted to have facial features in pictures, you know, and not just a white oval blob.
The eyes
My adherence to a proper 20s look was already crumbling, so I decided against concealing my brows. Which was pure laziness on my part, I but also had doubts about the whole procedure. In all tutorials I saw, it never looked really good, and I didn’t have time to practice. My concession to the thin, arched brows of the era was combing them down and trying to fill them in as thinly as possible and overdrawing the ends.
I actually did one test run for the eyelook. I did a charcoal look that focussed majorly on the inner corners of my eyes, and I didn’t like it one bit. For us, nowadays, it’s really counter-intuitive to focus on the inner corners instead of the outer corners. While we strive for that elongated cat-eye look, in the 20s it was rather the deep-set, mysterious look.
Dark and rounded
I instead tried to go for a very rounded eye look with a halo effect on the mobile lids. It’s not that historically farfetched, and I found it suited me better (and is, of course, not that much of an alien look nowadays). I decided on this about an hour before I had to be ready, and a lot of frantic rummaging through drawers ensued. In the end, I settled for the NARS Sarah Moon palette. I build up the colour very slowly – going through the socket of my eye with the brown shades first, and then deepening that with the charcoal grey, until it reached a smokiness that I liked. I strove to create a very round shape, the highest point of the half circle directly above my pupil when I looked straight ahead.
When I liked what I saw, I created the ‘halo’ – I used a bit of Too Faced’s Glitter Glue and MAC’s Dazzleshadow in She Sparkles. I powdered over that with a bit of translucent powder to not let the glitter transfer to my upper lid, and didn’t either highlight under the browbone nor the inner corners. It’s all about that round shape. I used a lot of black smudgy eyeliner, especially on the lower lashline, and tried to draw a round shape especially on the outer corner of my eyes. Mascara, and done. Lashes were spiky in the 20s, and I just used three coats to achieve that look. No false lashes.
The Lips
I tried the typical doll-shaped rosebud lips, and man, those are hard. Especially if you have full lips anyway. In the end, I settled for a pronounced cupid’s bow and called it a day. Because, you know, the food!!! (And there would’ve been no chance in hell to keep that lip intact during a dinner with several courses.) As for lipcolour, I first wanted to do a warm brownish red, but decided otherwise and went full vamp with MAC’s Media. (Which is still somehow historically accurate. Somehow.) It suited the whole look better than a warmer red.
The Nails
I’m a total nailart freak and would’ve loved to do a proper half-moon mani. BUT. You need almond shaped nails for that, and I was rather unwilling to give up my squovals. They suit me. So, having thrown all accuracy out of the window anyway, I went for Chanel’s Black Pearl, which matched my dress very well, and was a nice twist on the darker, vampy nails. I made sure to have short nails for that – I find that those look best with vampy, dark colours.
What I learned
I was very, very happy with the final look I came up with. Instead of strictly adhering to tutorials and guidelines, I adapted the 20s look. I made it into something that suited me. In the end, it didn’t feel totally costume-y, but still like me. And that was great.
I’m not a makeup artist. My ‘model’ is always me, and the idiosyncrasies of my face. In the end, the valuable lesson was to find out what I liked, what looked good on me, and creating that look from scratch – inspired by a lot of tutorials, but in the end, completely mine. Which made me think – isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? Always? Lesson learned.
Resources – easy 20s makeup look how-to
Lisa Eldridge, Facepaint (reviewed here).
YouTube tutorials: Michelle Phan, Vintageortacky, Pixiwoo, So Pretty in Pink (hair) , Sephora
A lot of pictures for inspiration (The History of 20s Makeup)
An overview to 20s makeup and hair from the Hair and Makeup Artist Handbook
The Smithsonian on the history of the flapper
An authentic 20s makeup tutorial
