Sarah Bellum says:
It’s MY turn to play one of Mid Brain’s favorite games: Actual Cosmetic Ads from the Past!
It’s a Beauty Brains feature we haven’t done in a while: We find actual ads for beauty care products and post them for your amusement. I found this ad for Mary Quant Cosmetics, a line of products from the ’70s that’s gotta be dead by now. (You just don’t see much Quant these days.) Anyway, this particular ad is apparently a reference to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
In Quant’s version, however, there’s no snake in the garden. Just an obscene amount of mascara, eyeliner, blush, lipstick, and nail polish. And that’s just what Adam is wearing! We’re not sure how turning the “original man” into a tacky cross-dresser with bad fashion sense would make us want to buy Mary Quant’s products, but hey, it was the ’70s. Just make sure your nail polish matches your fruit and you’re good to go.
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wow, lol. This looks like street-walker Barbie and Ken! Although this street-walker Ken is cross-dressed as a 60 year-old woman.
Tinni, we appreciate your comment but I think you’re being a bit too harsh. Street-walker Ken doesn’t look a day over 50.
Right Brain
After careful review of the ad I notice that one of the colors is called “Posh Prune.” Maybe androgenous Adam-Ken is over 60 after all!
Right Brain
Eve had tweezers back then?
check out this French cosmetics commercial from the 60′s:
http://sofiaspeaks.blogspot.com/2006/12/here-is-french-cosmetics-commercial.html
http://www.maryquant.co.uk/makeup.htm
Nope theyre still around!
My mother sold Mary Quant makeup for Men in the late 70′s in her beauty salon. It never caught on, but hey, you can’t win them all. Mary Quant DID invent the miniskirt. She was on the cutting edge of fashion in the 60′s and 70′s. Makeup for men was just one idea that didn’t pan out (though, there ARE plenty of men that wear makeup now). If you weren’t around in 1978, you wouldn’t know that this amount of makeup was normal for women. We wore pantyhose in the summer too! Beware of what you laugh at however because…. the fashions of the 80′s are on their way back in and if you think there was a lot of makeup in the 70′s… Well, do you remember the bands of the 80′s? We actually walked around looking like that!
Okay, admittedly the ad is a bit much, but I never understood the nastiness towards the 70s. Especially compared to the fashions of today. I’d much rather see a man with his shirt open and a heavy medallion, then a guy walking around with pants so baggy you can see his underwear. And take away the hideous patterns on the clothing, look just solely on the cut and shape of it, and it’s actually very pretty/sexy. Especially compared to today’s cuts and shapes.
Plus the music is better. Disco beats rap and hip-hop any day of the week.
That guy has THE WORST nose job I have ever seen.
Jami, I’ve got to agree. I see pictures of actors and bands from back then, and people think they look weird. Meanwhile, I’m like, “Yeah, don’t they just look awful! All that long, pretty hair, plus pants tight enough to see their figures! Gimme some buzzcut dork flipping off the camera with a denim tent buckled around his knees any day. Yum!” o_O
Aging Hooker Ken may be going a bit overboard, but I’m looking forward to the day when men no longer think it’s fashionable to walk around looking like surly, criminally insane piles of undone laundry. Prolly got a long wait ahead of me.
LOL Janis.
I think the men in the 70s were sexy. And frankly, better looking then the hippies. I mean, the hippies, by definition, don’t even take baths! At least disco men bathed! And to me there’s nothing sexier then a freshly washed man.
It went well into the 80s, too! You have NO IDEA how many teenagers I know of who are in love with the bands that were around when I was in high school now — and I swear, it’s because they’re all damn pretty. I know so many fifteen year olds who are all OVER Queen, Journey, Bon Jovi, Duran Duran … Hee! All that hair and tight pants …
*giggles*
Well, I often feel I was born in the wrong era. My music choices range from Big Band to Disco. While my friends were listening to Michael Jackson and Madonna I was listening to Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. While they dreamed of being on MtV or performing with Madonna I wanted to be on Lawrence Welk or sing with Sammy Davis Jr. My CD collection consists mostly of Barry Manilow, Michael Crawford, Neil Diamond, Sammy Davis Jr, Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby, etc. (This is also the type of music I sing as well.)
And I love, love, LOVE old fashion clothing and hairstyles. I’ve been collecting images of vintage hairstyles over in my Flickr account as possible choices for myself. I’ve bought some sewing patterns from the 60s and 70s from eBay because I want to learn to sew so I can make my own clothing.
Like I said, the makeup on the man here in the ad is too much. All in all though, I’ll never understand why people rag on the 70s. The 70s were actually really cool. A million times more then the 90s. And the 80s weren’t too bad, I’m glad of the return of the jean jacket, I want to find one in my size, but I do wish someone would bring back some of the 70s – with a touch of 40s and/or 50s flare.
i guess mary quant was just jumping on the glam bandwagon. t-rex was huge and marc bolan wore plenty of makeup and glitter.
Yep — no matter how much makeup that dude in the ad is wearing, Ziggy Stardust wore more. And Bowie’s always been hot. A little goofy, but hot.
Well, to be fair, Ziggy is a performer. And he has to wear makeup as part of that. Probably around the house he doesn’t wear a smidge of makeup.
Neither do I.
Still though — name me one guy performer who’s looked up to or is in a band someplace that’s popular nowdays who doesn’t look like a criminal with seventeen pairs of boxer shorts.
Um – Weird Al Yankovic?
I have never seen so many ping-backs in my life. Is it the ad or the reference to Ziggy Stardust?
Personally I prefer this Ziggy anyway -
http://www.comicstriparchive.com/Ziggy/
Wow! Love the idea of finding and posting these!