cosmetics Archives - Awful Library Books

An 1980s guide to makeup

October 28, 2020 Mary Kelly Be Pretty 7 comments

The Buyer’s Guide to Cosmetics
Boughton and Hughes
1981

I am going to guess that a buyer’s guide of anything from 1981 is going to be worthless for a modern public library collection. Buyer’s guides are only good for a few years. Products change, companies that make products change, and of course prices change. This book should have been weeded by 1990. As of this writing, this book was still in circulation. I know it is a reference book, but it is dull and not laid out in an interesting way. You can hear it yawn when you open the book.

An Avocado Love Fest

December 5, 2018 Mary Kelly You Ate What? 10 comments

Don’t Swallow the Avocado Pit
– and what to do with the rest
Rosenbaum
1974

I love this book so HARD! First, I totally love avocado on everything, as well as a good guacamole. This book takes love to a whole new level. Here are some sample chapter titles:

Sex and the single avocado (avocado reproduction and growing tips)
Avocado People (profiles of avocado fans doing stuff with avocados)
The Passionate Avocado (recipes for romantic cocktails)

This little book covers so much avocado love it’s ridiculous. Cosmetic recipes, growing plants from the pits, and dozens of avocado recipes, including – wait for it – another savory avocado mold (aka avocado jello).

Face Saving

December 3, 2018 Mary Kelly Be Pretty One comment

6-Minute-Sana-Facial-Exercises & Face-Care Program for Women
Treber
1972

Time to get your face in shape!

This book has page after page of facial exercises that will enhance your beauty and make you younger. I tried a couple of these. Nothing happened other than me feeling foolish. However, keeping an open mind, your mileage may vary. One of my favorite pieces of advice is to not make your face too expressive or you may get lines in your face. Maybe this is a warm up to Botox treatments.

Break Out the Curlers!

November 7, 2018 Mary Kelly Be Pretty, Ladies only! 8 comments

Beauty and Hair Fashions
by Suzanne
1971

Do you want some nice hairstyles? This little book will help you put the curlers in the right place so you will look your best. I would like to point out that all the curlers for each style are pretty much identical, yet we have a variety of hairstyles. Of course this is long before common use of blow dryers. I remember sitting with curlers under a bonnet dryer.

The styles themselves are a bit interesting. Check out the long snake-like pony tail. I don’t recall that style ever being one that caught on. In the 1960s, I dreamed of having hair like Marlo Thomas on That Girl. In the 1970s, it was Dorothy Hamill and Farah Fawcett hair. I failed spectacularly at all of these attempts.

DIY Cosmetics

September 17, 2018 Mary Kelly Be Pretty 7 comments

Cosmetics From the Kitchen
Donnan
1972

Why head out to a drugstore when you can just grab some stuff from the kitchen? I was browsing this and I couldn’t remember the last time I heard the term cold cream. It was probably the 1970s.

I did cringe at the reference to suntan oil. Back in the 1970s, no one even thought about skin cancer. An updated version of this kind of book would probably be a great choice for any modern public library collection. This one, however, needs to be weeded.