The 50s make-up, as we have already revealed from the title, is characterized by the busty and alluring pin-up style typical of girls in those years. Do you want to know all its secrets and easily recreate it at home? Follow these steps.
Unlike the 20s makeup, the 50s makeup is very different, much more provocative, and certainly does not go unnoticed. Both eyes and lips are the center of attention, the first well outlined in black and the second voluminous and a beautiful bright red
50’s make-up: history and icons
The 1950s are defined by some as the Italian economic miracle, this is because, after the great war, the country’s economy recovered quickly, returning to be even stronger than before. Private industrial companies began to produce a whole series of consumer goods such as cars, scooters, appliances, and televisions, counting on the full support of the public industry.
At the end of the war period there is also a rebirth of femininity, it is no coincidence that the 50s looks show a desire to dare, have fun, and emancipate oneself. The term pin-up (trad. “To hang”), or of the posters with curvy, winking women that were used in the United States to persuade men to enlist.
The 50s make-up fully reflects what has been said up to now: the pin-up make-up is made to get noticed, with seductive red lips, black mascara, and very long eyelashes, as well as the black eyeliner that makes it look magnetic.
The 50s look from hair to clothes
The well-known designer at the time, Christian Dior, invented the hourglass silhouette, with dresses tight at the waist accompanied by full skirts. This type of dress fits perfectly also and especially for pin-up women, especially shapely on the hips and breasts, but with a very narrow waist. To combine with these dresses, accessories such as gloves, scarves, and hats of all shapes are inevitable. Glasses, considered medical devices up to that time, now become glamorous ornaments to match the dress; the frames sparkle with a thousand colors and are embellished with rhinestones and decorations. Anything but minimalism: in the 50s every look was also embellished with an infinite quantity of jewels: necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and brooches with which to play the perfect match.
The characteristics of 50s makeup
As we said, the 50s make-up is made to attract attention: the face has a pale color tending to ivory, this is because the real protagonists are the eyes. A beautiful line of black eyeliner with a tail end was inevitable in any makeup of the time. The eye makeup was then completed with black mascara to lengthen and thicken the lashes and a light / golden eyeshadow on the mobile eyelid. Lips
are the second great protagonist: contoured to perfection with a dark red pencil and filled in the center with a bright and creamy red lipstick.
50s make-up: the base
We have already repeated it several times, the 50s make-up is focused on the eyes and lips, which is why the face becomes a blank canvas that must be the background to the look and the voluptuous mouth. Women used a foundation or rather an ivory powder to even out and brighten the complexion, and nothing else. The simple face base was due to the fact that the rest of the makeup was rather elaborate. A very popular habit in this period and brought to the fore by Marilyn Monroe, is the fake mole to be drawn on the side of the lips, simply using a brown eye pencil.
How to make up your eyes
The eyeliner is the great protagonist of the 50s eye makeup, so much so that to give it the right emphasis, the entire mobile eyelid is left bare. You use a light, flesh-colored, powder pink, or a light golden color and then move on to the line of eyeliner. After drawing the line of eyeliner at the lash line, we try to stretch the eye through the final tail which must point in the direction of the eyebrow. The idea is to draw the two lines of eyeliner perfectly the same, but in reality, we must consider that our eyes are different from each other and moreover, Marilyn herself, never had the perfectly identical make-up between the right eye and left eye. To finish, mascara is used on the lashes and 2 or 3 strokes are made to make them long and volumized
The lips of the 50s
Lips are the other centerpiece of 50s makeup. Marilyn Monroe’s makeup artist had come up with a whole new way to style them and make them stand out, which literally changed the look of the lips. What did she do? In the meantime, she drew the outline with a dark pencil (it is said she used a brown pencil for the eyes) then she filled the center of her with a pencil that was always brown but tended to be a brick color. Finally, it was time for the red pencil to be used on top of the two shades of brown used before her. In this way, her lips were full and defined, and any shape defects could be corrected without them being visible.
The final touch was some sort of highlighter to apply to the center of the lips and a little balm or lip gloss for a lacquered effect.
Eyebrows and nails: details not to be underestimated
For a true 50s makeup in perfect pin up style, there are still two aspects to consider. The first concerns the eyebrows: the shape in vogue in those years is that of seagull wings which, if already present, was further marked by a pencil stroke. If you had round eyebrows and very distant from the squared shape, then the pencil was used not only to fill them, but also to draw them.
The second aspect concerns the nails : the 50s are the first years in which there is the boom for the care of nails that had to be perfectly lacquered and combined with lipstick.The favorite shape was the almond shape, able to refine even hands that are not properly tapered.
