In this fascinating, meticulously researched romp through the annals of the beauty industry, New York Times patents columnist Teresa Riordan throws back the curtain on a century of shrewd, canny women who have knowingly deployed artifice in a ceaseless battle to captivate the inherently roving eye of the male.

We learn why the first lipsticks were orange. Why respectable women used the first vibrators not just for naughtiness but also to eradicate their wrinkles. Why the bustle started small but ultimately grew so impressive that a proper lady could balance an entire tea service on her rump. And why, but for mascara, Greta Garbo might have been just another chunky Swede with bad teeth.

Beauty inventions, Teresa Riordan has found, can put the resourceful and the imaginative on an even playing field with the congenitally beautiful. Countless women have pushed, pulled, tweezed, squeezed, and spackled themselves into synthetic loveliness. Inventing Beauty is a delightful history of that noble effort, from head to tail.

Broadway, 2004.
ISBN: 9780767914512. 336 pp.
Softcover. Near fine.