Name: 1940s World War II Makeup Tutorial | History Inspired | Feat. Amber Butchart and Rebecca Butterworth
Uploaded: 2020-05-08T19:20:27.000Z
Duration: 22 min 29 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I'm standing in the tunnels at English Heritage's Dover Castle where the

Basic passive voice

military was stationed during the nation's fight for victory in the Second World War

Among those were ladies from the Women's Royal Naval Service

otherwise known as the Wrens. In addition to their

formidable contribution to the war effort, women across the country had

another weapon in their arsenal - makeup. Cosmetics became crucial for morale and

were encouraged by everyone from Vogue magazine to the British government. Today

we're taking a look at the surprising role cosmetics played during the Second

World War when Britain put on a brave face. Are you ready? Let's find out more

Well today we're focusing on the Second World War which began in 1939 and lasted

for six long years. We're also focusing on the Wrens, so Rebecca tell me about

the look that you're going to recreate for us today

We're going to be creating something that feels very classic 1940s so

beautiful powdered skin and a bright red lip on our gorgeous model, Ella

We're also going to be incorporating some homespun hacks from our brilliant

is often dismissed as frivolous but during the war it took on extra

importance in terms of morale. Vogue even talked about it as 'cherished a last

desperately defended luxury' so it's going to be great to explore makeup and

especially the women who wore it and their huge contribution to the war effort

and let's start with skincare. Now we had an account from a Wren who

was based here in Dover called Doreen, and her account says that skincare

became really hard to get hold of during the war it was like gold dust but she

had a chemist friend that could make her a vanishing cream that she could use

throughout the war and so I found a vanishing cream that's made to an

authentic late 1930s, 1940s recipe that I'm going to use on Ella here. And what a

vanishing cream does is it vanishes into the skin and it also provides a

It's very much like a primer, yes. Interestingly with makeup from the

beginning of the early 20th century it started out being something that's quite

unseemly and something that's under the counter

But as we move onwards into the 1930s and into the 1940s makeup now is not

only an accepted part of your routine it's also almost an essential part of

your routine and in fact during the war beauty became a woman's duty

Well this is an idea that the government really promoted as well. The Board of Trade

proclaimed in 1940 'keep up the morale of the homefront by preserving

a neat appearance' and this was a line that fashion magazines really echoed as well

In fact, for example, they even advised women against turning into frights and slovens

That's a real shame that it seems to be just a woman's

duty not to turn into a fright or a sloven. We're in a time where women are starting to

take on newer jobs and also have to keep the home fires burning and then also

they have to look awesome while they're doing it

So let's finish off this skincare and I'm going to apply a powder now this is an

powder puff this is a homemade powder puff which feels very in keeping with

the time. And you'll notice that this is in a cardboard box. Now during the war as

austerity started to kick in, manufacturers of cosmetics couldn't use

metal anymore all the metal had to go to the war effort so more and more

cosmetics were produced in cardboard containers just like these

Long, luscious lashes are a really integral part of the late 1930s into the 1940s look

But as austerity started to bite, women had to look for alternatives to darken

and lengthen their eyelashes. We had some amazing tips and tricks from our

audience to do with mascara but the one that intrigued me most was using burnt

corks as a mascara. The suggestion was to burn a cork and then use the ash

mixed with some Vaseline as a mascara. So we're going to give that a try

Well speaking of austerity these ideas of rationing and austerity

really define this era in terms of personal appearance. Clothes rationing

lasted from 1941 to 1949 and was really all about fairness, it was about making sure

that everybody had access to the essentials and it was also about

conserving materials for the war effort as well. So when we think of rationing we

can sort of broadly think about three different areas. Firstly there were

coupons which were issued and this was to make sure there was a sort of equal

distribution of clothing. So you'd need money as well as coupons to buy specific

items. For example, 11 coupons for a dress or 8 coupons for a men's shirt or pair of trousers

There was also the utility scheme that was brought in by the

government and this was a range of sort of well designed, price-controlled

clothing that really made factories much more efficient and so freed up

production again for the war effort. Now finally we have austerity

regulations. These were again brought in by the government and determined what

you could and couldn't design basically. So for example, the turn-up on men's

trousers was abolished, lapels you know the width of lapels was defined. There

were a whole host of rules brought in which help to conserve materials and

labour so they could be put towards the war effort. Now with all of this

rationing of fabric and food as well going on, women also have to be very

creative when it came to their makeup, didn't they?

Although makeup itself wasn't actually rationed, it did become much more

expensive and harder to get hold of and a couple of reasons for that is that the

government put a luxury tax on makeup and also it limited cosmetics companies

to just 25% of their pre-war output so it was much harder to get hold of which

meant some makeup had to do double duty and I'm going make this burnt cork do double duty

by applying it through the eyebrows as well

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1940s World War II Makeup Tutorial | History Inspired | Feat. Amber Butchart and Rebecca Butterworth

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