Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty from Victorian times to the Present Day

I thought for price I would be getting a cute, little reference book on compacts, but instead this book is a lot more. The history of make up and beauty presented in a well written way with lots of interesting facts! Lots of great pictures as well ! I highly recommend!

I bought this as a Kindle book and read it on my Kindle Touch, which was sometimes a little bit annoying because of the pictures. No matter how big you set the letters to be, most of the times pictures and subtitles don't go together and you have to keep flipping from one page to the other. Other than that, no problems. The book itself is a delight. I saw many people writing bad reviews because they thought it would be strictly a book about compacts, but it's much more than that. Because the author is a historian, Marsh always connects the innovations in beauty to the social moment. Therefore, this isn't a book only about makeup, but about the idea of beauty through time. A very pleasant reading!

Fun read

I bought the book based off a recommendation from the amazing Lisa Eldridge. I was anticipating her book and starting looking into other books that cover the history of cosmetics and beauty. This was truly a fantastic book. It covers much more than compacts and the historical aspects of her writing are enthralling. The different eras combined with wonderful pictures makes it too easy to read the book in one sitting. I still love to open to a random page and read it over again. It ceases to interest me and it was a marvelous read.

I saw Madeleine Marsh featured in a YouTube video and she seemed like a wonderful and eccentric lady. She said she wrote a book on compacts and cosmetics and I was sold! The basic concept of this book is a historical overview of makeup (and their containers) throughout time. While it does not cover every aspect of each decade, the author does a splendid job of highlighting the important trends happening to women (and men) of the time. Every so often, the text is punctuated with gorgeous examples of compacts and makeup products used during each period (and many were from the author's private collection!). I liked reading about compacts as status symbols and I personally loved learning about cosmetic use/disuse during the two world wars (as it's so rarely the topic discussed when talking about war). Overall, a great and accessible book about the history of compacts and cosmetics... I'd say it was easy to read, but Madeleine sometimes made me glad I had my Kindle dictionary (I mean, what the heck is a "maquillage"?!) :P

Nice coffee table book, not for extensive research and study.

Very enjoyable. Nice to have a British author so that you have a well rounded history of U.S. and U.K. cosmetics . Loved all of the photographs. Brought back many pleasant memories of Mom and Grandmother's compacts and makeup styles, hairstyles, clothes and nail polish. Very informative and so interestingly told that I didn't want to put the book down.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I love vintage compacts and even own a few. I found this history of the times told through make-up and beauty to be fun and interesting. I never thought about how much we can learn from beauty routines through the ages. I am now quite fascinated with this subject and hope to read more along these lines!

I expected a lot more from a studied historian, which the author is. But actually the book doesn't deliver any surprising or in-depth information on make-up and its history. The author often simply states something without offering any explanation or historical proof. The book seems really poorly researched. Also many photographs inside are black and white - I seriously don't want to look at lovely vintage make-up and its packaging having to guess(!) what it looks like in colour. I can't recommend this book to anyone.

Proprio come me lo aspettavo. Tante belle foto. Molto interessante.

So much better than I expected. I'm so happy I finally have it :)

The book unfolds the history of cosmetics in a very engaging way and tells the role of cosmetics in people’s everyday life during both the war time and peaceful times. It’s fascinating. A very interesting book whether you are into cosmetics or not.

Super bouquin, avec une bonne sélection d'archives visuelles. Lisa Eldridge l'avait conseillé dans une des ses vidéos sur le maquillage vintage.