"ALL MADE UP"

I got a book out of the library which celebrates 100 years of cosmetics advertising.

Some interesting and useful points, comments and statists;

"the twentieth century cosmetics advertising industry aimed to sell women an ideal image of themselves and a lifestyle by the use of association and persuasion. It also strove to develop and maintain brand loyalty in a hugely competitive market."

Now advertisements have to compete with the vast numbers of adverts in other  medias such as those on television and the internet.

Some main themes i have noted, that run through the cometic advertisements;
 the adverts are aimed at women who want to 'catch a man', or older women wanting to look younger and more beautiful - this reinforces my theory that the depiction of women as beautified sexual objects, and the desire in women to strive for unattainable beauty in inbreeded in women's heads mainly through the advertising industry.

There was an influence of cinema from the 1930's onwards to sell products which would make women appear more glamorous (like the stars endorsing the products)

The advertising industry utilised the influx of financially independent women to aid sales.

and there was a growth in the teenage market from the 1970's onwards when magazine buying was enormous amongst young girls.

"the aim is to get the reader to buy the product because she is lead to believe that she could look and feel as glamorous as the model wearing the products in the advertisements."

"cosmetic products could also help women look younger and more beautiful. (Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Ardern and oil or ulay)

There is definitely and element of sexual allure in the advertisements, especially those for lipsticks. we often see sexually seductive poses in the ad's.
During the 1970's era there was a suggestion that women wanted to look goof for themselves rather than to ensnare a man. However since then i believe there has been a swift change and the majority of people. whether it be subconsciously or not, do want to look good to attract potential partners.

Judith Williamson talks of advertisements in their ability to sell hopes and dreams, to full fill aspirations and the ability of a product to embody it's consumer. The advertising market continually does exactly that and promotes it's products in women's lifestyle magazines as well as in other medias of T.V and on the internet. Direct Marketing gathers information of a specific user and directly aims "appropriate" products at them.
The advertising industry continues to promote make-up as a means of transforming age and even ugliness into youth and beauty.

"The essence of advertising generally and advertising photography in particular, is to turn something which is ostensibly mundane into an exciting and arresting image. The advertising photographer is selling dreams and aspirations - sometimes his own. Commercial photography of this nature means painstakingly creating an elaborate yet intimate image that invites the viewer to almost imagine a story rather than just see the objects in the shot" (Ward, 1990 : cited in Wells, 2009: 220)

When the concept of the cyborg and the advertising industry collide - for example, car advertisements.
They are one example of a current representation of the body as the merging of the corporeal and the technological, and the potential displacement of the body by machine. By presenting a seamless merging go the human and machine, car advertisements reassure us of the harmlessness of the car, and conceal the fact that technology can harm bodies.