Battle for Beauty

From hairpieces and health farms to the bustling cosmetics counters of New York’s department stores, this March of Time survey looks at the new beauty products and treatments available to American women in 1945. With a punchline that takes a dig at male vanity, the film gives a sense of a female population with increased spending power and confidence but also hints at the potential for consumer exploitation that the booming beauty business presented to unscrupulous operators.

A wonderfully nonchalant New York saleswoman offering beauty for ‘less than half a dollar’ is just one of the highlights of this issue, which is worth watching all the way through for the pay-off in which Westbrook Van Voorhis - the owner of the March of Time’s distinctive voice - makes a rare (and amusingly self-deprecating) on-screen appearance. The film adds a female narrator to complement Van Voorhis’s commentary, and the references to women’s increased spending power, the effect of wartime employment on America’s women, the regulation of the cosmetics industry and the increasing power of advertising help to place the issue in a wider social context which make it more than just an amusing period piece.