Beauty Aids in Western Culture

Beauty Aids are products or services that claim to alter one's physical appearance, for better or worse, for the sake of beautification.

In Western culture, believing in an ideal

beauty causes unwarranted harm to a

person's mental and physical health.

The floors throughout this exhibit will

be a light wood laminate (as pictured

below) in order to keep the visitors

concentrating on what is around them

instead of what they are walking on.

The main walls throughout this exhibition

will be different shades of blue with white

trim. While the entrance to the exhibition

will have bold blue walls, the other sec-

tions of the exhibit will fluctuate in their

shade. Sections with large amounts of

advertisements, photographs, and posters

will have lighter shades, while sections

with interactive activities will be darker.

In the United States, standards

of beauty are constantly chang-

ing. However, some things re-

main true. Tall, thin, fit, and

symmetrical features are consid-

ered the most beautiful. The in-

troduction to the exhibit will in-

troduce visitors to the concept of

ideal beauty in Western culture.

Promoting Racism Thinking of our target audience

(Millennials, Adult Men and Women),

we want to have a color scheme that

best appeals to those groups. Blue and

Red are the typical colors that those

groups prefer (Bogle, 2013), which is

perfect for an exhibition focused on

American Beauty Culture, as well as

our main exhibition colors. Using blue

and white as a simplistic theme for

our main walls, this section feature

red accent walls.

This exhibit will display both advertisements for

products and the products themselves that promote

racist thinking through the encouragement of men

and women to make physical alterations in order to

appear more fair-skinned. Such products include

skin bleaching (pictured to the left) and skin light-

eners (pictured below).

The advertisements pictured

right are for products created

by Madam C.J. Walker.

Considered the first female

self-made millionaire in

America, she developed and

marketed a successful line of

beauty products for black

women. This section will

examine the implications of

her products.

Promoting Sexism

A terrarium of nightshade. Nightshade, a poisonous purple

flower, was used in eye drops by women to dilute pupils to

seem more seductive. There are many side effects of this

plant, including permanent blindness.

This exhibition features a series of

mannequins wearing popular corsets

from throughout the decades (the one

below is from the 1860s). Male girdles

will also be featured, such as the one

pictured to the right.

Because all of the items in this section

of the exhibit address the issues of sex-

ism that are promoted through beauty

aids and beauty products, the accent

colors will all be gender-neutral (white,

yellow, green, etc.).

All of the items in this exhibit relay

important information and thus

they will “work together to support

the intent and goals of the exhibi-

tion” (Chicone and Kissel, 2014, p.

109).

The tools used

for permanent

make-up ap-

plication will

be displayed in

order to show

their mental

and physical

implications.

Promoting Ageism

This section will feature a make-shift cosmetic stand

which will feature bright lighting to emphasize the

unnaturalness of the featured cosmetic products.

There will be three rooms in this section of the

exhibit.

The first room will feature sterile lighting

and white displays. They will also contain light

blue walls in order to increase the bright effect

of lighting but to keep the exhibit cohesive.

The light blue/bright light combination will

also remind visitors unnatural lighting.

The second room will provide visitors with an opportunity to experiment with texture. There will be large scale images of skin damage due to anti-aging creams, large photographs/images of naturally aged skin, and much more. These walls will be a darker shade of blue to facilitate a change in feeling for the viewer from the first room.

The third room mimics an anti-aging center. It will be set up to look comfortable, yet futuristic. The accent colors will be purple and black, while the main walls will be blue and white like the rest of the exhibition. Like the first room, it will have a clinical appearance with bright lighting. There will also be large scale photographs of models who “never age,” and displays featuring content on the huge price tag of hormone replacement therapy/anti-aging and images of the health side effects.

This section will also

feature advertisements

from products that

promote ageism. One

such advertisement, Oil

of Olay (shown above), is

considered one of the

earliest attempts to

develop and market an

anti-aging cream.

Body Dysmorphia This section will feature advertisements,

products, and various photographs of beauty aids that contribute to body

dysmorphia, which is a belief that one’s own body is defective. This section will

include neutral colors as accents, including green, beige, and brown. These warm

tones will be used in order to help visitors

feel more comfortable while observing and participating in potentially emotional ex-

periences. These neutral colors will also provide a nice juxtaposition to the

"unnatural" beauty aids.

The tapeworm diet has been around for

almost 100 years with the idea that only half

the food you eat goes to your stomach and the

rest goes to the tapeworm.

To the left, is a black-lit

photograph of a tapeworm. To

the right, is a poster that displays

the negative side effects of using

steroids. These photographs,

posters, and advertisements will

help introduce visitors to the

absurdity of certain product

uses.

Modification

This section will feature approximately fifty

percent images and fifty percent objects. The images will range from poster-size

charts of procedures, such as facial cosmetic surgery, to drawings of how the surgery is

done and what the goal of the procedure is. These charts will also explain the medical

uses and, more importantly, the lack of

medical reasoning for said procedures.

This section will also include wall-mounted glass cases featuring, in chronological order, specific implant types, such as breast implants or cheek implants. In the case of breast implants, this will run from early materials such as ivory and glass to silicone injections and implants to the saline and silicone gel implants used today. The image to the left shows an opportunity that visitors will have to touch silicone gel that is used in these implants.

Many visitors are likely to feel shocked by this section's inclusion of surgical images and direct links to the body, so a cool color palette (such as pale greens) will be used as accents in order to hopefully "relax the visitors and aid in their concentration" (Bogle, p. 190).

Habits This section will feature a large room split in half. One

side will feature historic ads that advertise that smoking and drinking are healthy habits, while the other side will

feature contemporary ads and editorials showing that smoking and drinking are beautiful habits. The side

focusing on the past will feature yellow and red accent walls. These bold colors will help energize visitors. The

contemporary side will feature lighter colors in order to

draw the visitors’ attention to the various photographs and advertisements displayed.

"Graphics not only convey information—they can also set the tone, create a sense of time and place, decorate, and give pattern and texture to surface. Enlarged patterns, images, photographs, or type (often called "super graphics") convey in-formation, act as decoration, and create atmosphere" (McLean, p.136). Keeping this in mind, this section will focus on graphics to tell the story of the implica-tions that these habits have on the beauty industry and, more importantly, on a person’s physical and mental health.

References

References

Bogel, E. (2013). “Color and Lighting.” Museum Exhibition Planning and Design. Alta Mira Press .

Chicone, S. and R. Kissel. (2013). “Material of the Visual.” Dinosaurs & Dioramas: Creating Natural History Exhibitions.

McLean, K. (2001). “On the Surface: Color, Texture, Graphics, and Materials.” Planning for People In Museum Exhibitions.

Washington, DC: Association of Science-Technology Centers .