Bossy Femme!

rgr-pop:

makeup-foryou:

NEW NARS Lipstick Swatches!

From left to right top to bottom: Afghan Red and Shanghai Express

I couldn’t help but post swatches of these lipsticks too since NARS lipsticks have become my absolute fave. I’ll have a review on either these lipsticks or Wet N Wild’s tomorrow but I’m not sure which one. Tell us which one you’d like me to review first!

- S

Reblogging racist shade names isn’t exactly a productive thing for me to do all the time, and I know this, so I am going to take this opportunity to make a few points that expand the problem of racist makeup shade names.

1. It’s not just about “Afghan Red” being problematic. Like, “Afghan Red” is probably a lot less racist than, for example, “Lucky Lucky Lavender.” …
2. …it’s about the fact that you put “Afghan Red” on you, to become it, to eat it, to consume it. What does that mean? It means a lot of things.
3. Makeup is about becoming. Makeup is about becoming.
4. Hey so the thing about Shanghai is that it was forced “open” by British imperialism in the mid-nineteenth century and then was essentially a colony of European nations and the U.S. for a really long time. In the 1920s and 30s Westerners called it “the Paris of the Orient” and Americans moved between Shanghai and the U.S. and exported a lot of Orientalist imagery and fashion that was deeply tied up in notions of “modernization” that were unfolding in China and the U.S. If you know much about 1920s fashion, you know that it was really Orientalist, especially when it comes to appropriations and caricatures of Chinese people, especially Chinese feminities. 1920s Orientalism in the U.S. was in large part a product of American occupation of Shanghai. Incidentally, this was about the same time cosmetic mass-culture was created in the United States, and Orienalism was a constant in early makeup advertisements and styles. And, not surprisingly, a lot of makeup technology itself was taken from China.
5. Like, Shanghai Express.
6. I would argue that Orientalism is completely inextricable from American makeup culture and history. Again, remember: becoming, eating. And Shanghai is at the center of this.
7. Even if the “why” is largely forgotten, Shanghai is still very much a part of public cosmetic memory. MAC Shanghai Spice, NARS Shanghai Lily, Chanel Shanghai Red (especially poignant given Coco’s role in all of this herself, not to mention Paris-Shanghai), Buxom Shanghai, Cargo Shanghai Palette, OPI Shanghai Shimmer, YSL Opium Fleur de Shanghai (Yves’s Orientalism is vast and deserves its own post, but lol Opium).
8. NARS cosmetics—a French brand—are made in Hong Kong and owned by Shiseido.