Locating whiteness in Mexico

Whiteness is a multifaceted concept that has been associated with bodily traits, racial categorization, and colonial classifications.Footnote ³ For instance, following Nutini (Reference Nutini2004, 60–63), “good appearance (buena facha)” implies “a great preoccupation with race, particularly with the somatic characteristics exhibited by members of the aristocracy,” whom he describes as “blond Teutonic types” of “Visigothic extraction.” Here, whiteness is something foreign and intrinsic that needs to be preserved to maintain superior status.

Nevertheless, Moreno (Reference Moreno2010) emphasizes an aspiration toward whiteness among other social groups, too, enabled by the flexibility characterizing race in a mestizo nation. Analogously, Cruz (Reference Cruz2014, 13) finds physical characteristics attributed to the “indigenous body” in present-day Mexico to reinforce its subordinate position in the national imagined community, in which personal grooming helps navigate a particular context where “being beautiful is the culmination of a process of cultural incarnation.” In both cases, the exalted beauty practices become those of the mestizo population, in opposition to the Indigenous and Afro-Mexican population; that is, whitening formerly nonwhite bodies becomes explicitly possible and desirable. Its concrete manifestations depend on rank. Cerón (Reference Cerón2019) posits that in the lower and middle classes, a richer person can be perceived as whiter by exhibiting certain kinds of social status. Owing to its whiter composition, the elite is less likely to overlook racialized markers associated with lower status (see also Leal Reference Leal2016). These studies mostly focus on the realm of natural bodies and strategies of intergenerational or behavioral whitening, including resistance and critiques of it. As we will show, whiteness is not limited to biological features, since it can be activated and performed to varying degrees by individuals with widely diverging complexions. Here we look at the degree to which approximating the objective of whiteness artificially to overcome this experience of unfittedness brings individuals closer to their aspired ideal. The strategic value of bodily modifications, which may or may not denote (racialized) beauty, lies in the understanding of the body as finitely malleable. Our observations converse with what Hunter (Reference Hunter2011, 145) calls “racial capital”: “a resource drawn from the body that can be related to skin tone, facial features, body shape, etc.” However, racial capital is not limited to being read as pertaining to a certain racialized profile; it explicitly encompasses features noted to be faked, in contrast to a natural state of the body.

Whiteness—and by extension, race—is thus a fluid condition, constantly enacted by both observer and observed (see also Martínez-Casas et al. Reference Martínez-Casas, Saldívar, Flores, Sue and Telles2014). Moreover, through the conscious manipulation of certain traits, it can be distorted further. It is context dependent, situational, and embedded in specific historical moments (see also Godreau Reference Godreau2008). Thus race becomes a highly relational concept. Despite lacking a fixed definition, whiteness appears as an inextricable component and a “site of privilege” (Moreno Reference Moreno2010) in the Mexican racial hierarchy. To preserve the subtle nuances and everyday implications the term contains, our understanding here relies on the definitions advanced by our interviewees.

Participants perceive whiteness as a desirable multidimensional attribute and, by extension, an aesthetic asset, which they adjust according to the context in which it is expressed and the structural conditions that affect them. For them, whiteness entails race but also class, gender, and more; its moldability and situationality vindicates our use of contextual ethnographic research to better comprehend it.

Although social stratification by skin color is an empirical reality in Mexico, the denial of racism explicitly purported by national elites of the postrevolutionary regime (Knight Reference Knight and Graham1990) prevails as a cultural project today (Cerón Reference Cerón2019). It serves to legitimize the privileges brought about by personifying whiteness, historically held by a racialized minority. Institutionalized or informal practices of discrimination in the labor market (Arceo and Campos Reference Arceo and Campos2014) and many other public and private spheres (Solís et al. Reference Solís, Güémez Graniel and Lorenzo Holm2019; Trejo and Altamirano Reference Trejo and Altamirano2016) are variously explained away by a “culturization” of race, suggesting people are culturally and not physically different (de la Cadena Reference De la Cadena2000), or a racialization of class, by which racialized notions and class-related assumptions amalgamate to express allegedly merely socioeconomic differences (Cerón Reference Cerón2019). Despite their frequency, few studies in Mexico have analyzed these discrimination practices systematically, focusing on disenfranchised groups (Solís et al. Reference Solís, Güémez Graniel and Lorenzo Holm2019; CONAPRED 2012; Oehmichen Reference Oehmichen2007; Moreno Reference Moreno2016; Barabas Reference Barabas1979). However, perception of advantaged groups is equally marked by stereotypes and prejudice, which serve to locate power and point toward a hypothetical pathway to approach it.

In the data collected, not all informants desire to erase their nonwhite origins, and instead approach aesthetically approved representations as strategic devices to obtain access to material, social, and symbolic capital. In this way, we dialogue with contributions by authors like Castillo (Reference Castillo2010), Cruz (Reference Cruz2014), and Rivera (Reference Rivera2018), whose ethnographic data on the subject in Mexico expose convoluted paths of negotiation, denial, and incarnation of whiteness. This is because beauty is not one-dimensional, nor are its racialized ideals imposed without question. While whiteness is extolled through consumption and cosmetic practices, our findings also reveal that the benefits expected by getting closer to its bodily aspects may be gained through other ways of social recognition and access to material resources. Our focus on a public setting of interaction with professionals who help subjects overcome features considered undesirable (or emphasize desirable ones) shows that very private aspirations are taken to the open, thereby transforming into a collective experience while simultaneously reinforcing underlying hierarchies. Thus, we show how in the cosmetic industry certain discriminatory logics based on differences in skin tone and other racialized traits prevail, and indeed prosper.

Methodology

As we are interested in exploring the nexus between class, racialization, and gender with regard to Mexicans’ aesthetic preferences, as well as the practical enactment of these preferences, we follow a mixed methodology. Our analysis relies on information collected from nineteen focus groups and thirty-five in-depth interviews exploring perceptions of racialized profiles, socioeconomic characteristics, and aesthetic preferences and their connections, alongside an ethnography exploring the different versions of the concept of beauty in Mexico City and its impact on the work of employees in sales and application of makeup.

The focus groups and interviews were conducted as part of El Colegio de México’s Proyecto sobre Discriminación Étnico-Racial en México (PRODER) during the first semester of 2019 in Mexico City, Mérida, Monterrey, and Oaxaca City (to represent regional variety), as well as in the towns of Oxkutzcab, Teabo, and Valladolid in Yucatán State (to account for rural perspectives).Footnote ⁴ Each group included three women and three men. They were drawn from low, medium, and high socioeconomic sectors (SES), respectively.Footnote ⁵ In addition, a fourth group was composed of individuals vulnerable to ethnoracial discrimination. For Mexico City and Monterrey these encompassed individuals from upper-middle SES who self-identified as “dark-skinned” in the recruitment process, whereas in Oaxaca and Mérida this group comprised participants from upper-middle SES whose parents spoke an Indigenous language.Footnote ⁶

To follow up on issues arising during focus groups, thirty-five interviewees were selected following their participation in the group: seven interviewees in each of the four large cities (at least one from each focus group) and seven interviewees from the three Yucatán towns (at least one from each town), aiming for a balanced gender composition. Focus group discussions and interview protocols approached people’s cognitive frameworks, stereotypes, and discriminatory practices related to ethnoracial characteristics. For this article, we coded the resulting testimonies using three main categories: attributes of whiteness; “whitening,” that is, moldability of racialized characteristics; and aesthetic perceptions. This left us with over eight hundred excerpts to analyze in further detail.

The ethnographic data of the cosmetic sector, collected by Gómez in 2017–2018, include seven semi-structured interviews with six workers employed by formal cosmetic companies (these interviews were coordinated directly with their employers) and one independent makeup artist. The interviews lasted from forty minutes to an hour, corresponding to the duration of a complete makeup service demonstration held simultaneously (in some cases the service was paid for). Furthermore, nine participant observations were conducted, which included various events such as workshops, demonstrations, anniversaries, and reopening of stores. All except one were open to the public. The researcher participated as a customer, acquiring products and being part of the audience of the interventions.

The fact that the events promoted by the companies were held exclusively in middle- and upper-class municipalities in Mexico City (although the majority had branches in multiple urban areas) allowed us to further explore the relationship between aesthetics, wealth, and status. The purchasing power of the business segment targeted exceeds that of most Mexicans. Meetings with employers were held in the same areas, at their suggestion. The visited establishments had a similar audience profile: young adult women, dressed in Western clothes. Their bodies were not necessarily uniform, nor did all buyers possess a specific bodily trait. However, there were very few or no Afro-Mexicans present among either employees or public, and in some demonstrations the makeup artists signaled the ethnographer (of Indigenous and Asian origins) as an example of a darker skin tone and elongated eye shape, absent within the rest of the attendees. The exceptions were one store’s anniversary, which attracted a more socioeconomically diverse and younger public because of the presence of a known influencer; a pop-up shop organized by a company selling Japanese and Korean cosmetics, which many teenagers attended; a company branch located in an LGBTQ+-friendly neighborhood whose consumers were predominantly men; and a paid-admission, international congress where the audience was divided equally into cosmetics users, workers, and makeup artists.

For the interviews and observations, audiovisual recordings, printed material (including merchandise and samples), and virtual information related to each event, brand, and company were compiled.

The multiple dimensions of whiteness

How do different socioeconomic and class-identified groups understand and enact beauty and whiteness? Our interview and focus group data, comprising responses of informants from various geographic locations and class backgrounds, give insights into participants’ shared perceptions, which are strongly linked with their respective social positions. The ethnographic data provide more detail on related practices and their enactment, specifically among upper-middle class individuals. Perceptions of beauty are highly consistent in all subjects from both datasets. In aggregate, they display the possibilities of physical moldability to create appearances; they capture whiteness embedded in its Mexican context. We find that the corporeal is not necessarily a manifestation but a creation adjusted to variable needs, tastes, expectations, and possibilities. As such, all “white” is not equally “white” in Mexico. Instead, participants share a belief in shades of white: employing relational racial classification, somebody can be perceived as “whiter than you” thanks to “taking care of one’s appearance” (Monterrey, low)Footnote ⁷ or they can be “güero-güero” or “blanco-blanco”—unambiguously white. More than “especially white,” the expression denotes a relative aspect of whiteness. Although neither white nor whiteness have been commonly used terms in Mexico until very recently, their meaning broadened from referring only to Spaniards in the colonial period to later accommodating non-Spanish European and Middle Eastern immigrants.

By tracing the transformation of colonial caste categories into postcolonial “cultural categories,” Nutini’s (Reference Nutini1997, Reference Nutini2004) exploration of the racial underpinnings of what he defines as the Mexican aristocracy coincides with the group he identifies as white. The link to the upper class is established through the alleged historical racial composition within a social structure that has remained unaltered (see also Iturriaga Reference Iturriaga2016). Nevertheless, similar to Calvo Gonzalez’s (Reference Calvo González2019) study of Galicians in Brazil associated with poverty and manual labor, the existence of “second-class whiteness” does not dent the privilege of normative elite whiteness (also present in our data in the term güeros de rancho, equivalent to “white trash”). Once the social markers of poverty and coarseness could be erased, social mobility ensued swiftly. Likewise, a frequently told story is that of a “not-even-that-white” person shielding herself from the sun to avoid altering her “natural” skin tone (Oaxaca, low).

Whiteness is usually evaluated according to a corporeal manifestation that is not limited to skin color but includes it as one of its main components, alongside facial features, hair, height, posture, clothing, and others (substitutable to varying degrees). However, skin tone not only functions as a blanket term for a set of physical features but is also a lifestyle proxy: “When people say it’s about whiteness, it’s not necessarily to physically be white, it’s about wanting to access things white people have easy access to” (Rao Reference Rao2019). It further extends to social, cultural, and even moral attributes (the latter often being negative), as participants associate Mexican whiteness with expressions of affluence, education, or arrogance (Mexico City, vulnerable).Footnote ⁸ For example, “güeros” are considered not only as well-educated but as “very smart pals” (Monterrey, low), who “tend to express themselves more correctly [in Spanish]” (Oaxaca, low) and generally are “posh [fresitas], with their particular way of speaking” (Monterrey, medium).

This is not necessarily meant in a flattering way. Our inquiries about how their “poshness” is expressed are answered by allusion to allegedly immanent character traits ranging from “nasty and mean” or “ostentatious, smug, and wanting to attract attention” (Monterrey, medium) to “very close-minded, very tyrannical [déspota], very selfish” (Mexico City, low), and outright morally corrupt. Repeatedly, especially whiter migrants are associated with “dishonest work related to Narco business” (Merida, medium), although with the qualifier that “the white [person] narco is the one in a suit not getting his hands dirty, whereas the brown [person] narco is the one with the gun doing the bad stuff” (Mexico City, low). Moreover, whiteness is associated with avariciousness and self-interest, as in “the whites, it’s in their culture, always want more, are never satisfied” (Mexico City, low), and pretentiousness. “In my experience there are more white people that are super arrogant [mamonsísimas], beyond redemption” (Monterrey, low).

Given that much research has linked antisocial behavior to wealthier people (Harrington Reference Harrington2016; Piff Reference Piff2014), we might anticipate a popular association between socioeconomic status and personality traits. Nonetheless, this participant explicitly unlinked these features from a potentially wealth-induced superiority complex: “there are wealthy brown people, too. This has nothing to do with having money” (Monterrey, low). Considering the empirical fact that in Mexico whiteness and wealth largely coincide, it is unclear to what degree the much-stressed belief in “white Mexicans’ … character” (Mexico City, low), which remains even when discursively stripped of any accompanying wealth, is not instead a product of precisely this entanglement. The uneasy ambivalence of idolized disdain or scornful admiration underscores both an implicit social ranking of these traits and the impossibility of separating (desirable) physical appearance and socioeconomic status. As a participant apologetically clarifies upon dwelling on her limited positive experience of social interaction with “a white person [persona güerita]”: “I don’t really mingle with super high-class people [gente de la muy alta]” (Mexico City, low).

Despite a rejection of alleged character flaws, whiteness is overwhelmingly recognized as a desirable trait in Mexico because of its association with characteristics like wealth, beauty, or preemptive trust. A frequent concern among interviewees is the perceived “threat” presumably emanating from nonwhite persons, which leads to a sense of discomfort, whereas white individuals in practice are given the benefit of the doubt, for instance, by not being followed for suspicion of theft in a mall (Oaxaca, vulnerable) or receiving unjustified job promotions (Monterrey, vulnerable).

Interestingly, during participant observations in cosmetic stores catering to higher-class consumers, clients frequently wished to buy skin makeup that does not alter their skin color. In one company, a recurrent complaint was that certain products “look too light.” While there certainly exists a large demand for whitening cosmetics and lighter makeup, the brand’s middle- and upper-class clientele were either already perceived as white or light-skinned or did not gain any benefits from looking whiter. This contrasts sharply with strategies by women from lower social segments, who presumably have more to gain from whitening, even if their “powdering” [excessive makeup application] ends up revealing a noticeable difference between face and neck color, exposing (inferior) “fake” whiteness (Oaxaca, vulnerable). Following the aesthetic ideal of naturally lighter skin, whitened appearances present “an autobiographical revision of race performed on the surface of one’s own body” (Dorman Reference Dorman2011, 49). Where the premodified body approaches the ideal, alterations will underscore this natural closeness, as perceived artificiality can nullify the status expression altogether. At the same time, makeup companies confer on their products a transformative quality that has been publicized since the origins of the cosmetic industry (Tungate Reference Tungate2011). The resulting appearances are thus mediated by a shared racial ideology and consumerist practices, where the proximity of each corporeality to the standard of whiteness defines the degree to which they are cosmetically modified.

In short, whitening can be part of a conscious effort to secure benefits related to real or perceived white privilege, as well as a side effect of social mobility. As Fanon (Reference Fanon1952) describes, the sense of inferiority imposed on the nonwhite population will entice them to compensate by attempting to imitate the culture of the dominant to improve their self-worth and to allow for social mobility—hence the “white mask.” Glenn (Reference Glenn2009) adds that whitening reflects the legacies of colonialism and the internalization of the belief that whiteness is the dominant standard that must be embodied. Nonetheless, for some, this can never be achieved completely.

Raciality in the cosmetics industry

Cosmetics is the discursive and symbolic field under which the presentation of the subject is altered to make him or her embody beauty.Footnote ¹² Worldwide, the cosmetics industry generates $500 billion in sales a year (Gerstell et al. Reference Gerstell, Marchessou, Schmidt and Spagnuolo2020). The expanding Mexican cosmetic market boasted earnings of $1.98 billion in 2018, including $274 million in makeup sales.Footnote ¹³

Western beauty standards adopted in contemporary Mexico were imposed by European, Mediterranean, and Catholic dogmas. This background generated politically and socially correct formulas that maintain racism on a daily basis. Although the predominance of whitened profiles of women in cosmetics advertising might now be discussed, with few exceptions, the industry has not moved toward a significantly more ethnically diverse representation. In Mexico City, where “the social identity assigned to women depends on their image” (Castillo Reference Castillo2010, 149), women from Indigenous communities recount modifying their bodies in response to threats of job loss because of racist discrimination.

When Mexicans are asked what is beautiful, certain attributes constantly reappear. According to participants, “beautiful is always the whitest” (Merida, high). Indeed, light-skinned is often used interchangeably with beautiful in the description of an attractive person, especially for women (see also Moreno Reference Moreno2010). Likewise, tall and slim are features immediately linked to whiteness and beauty alike.Footnote ¹⁴ The categorization of white bodies as beautiful extends beyond physical description to socioeconomic position. Describing clothing style, mannerisms, and posture typically associated with wealthy people, participants use these filters in either direction. This tautological definition precludes nonwhite people from being perceived as beautiful, except by way of whitening themselves.

Aesthetics—the set of values considered appropriate to determine the perception of beauty—enters all spheres of contemporary life (Frankenberger Reference Frankenberger2008). It establishes a stratified system that acts to maintain preestablished relations of dominance and meaning. Being considered beautiful is a way of positioning the individual in class, racial, and gender hierarchies.

In practice, perfect skin was almost universally mentioned as an aesthetic principle: healthy (matching the entire face with foundation in a single color), lush (using highlighters to give the impression that the skin is hydrated and nourished), and without signs of disease (acne, rosacea) or age (fine lines). Here, general perceptions meet their cosmetic enablers. Consumers respond to aesthetic norms where nondisclosure of makeup (natural look) is praised while hiding part of the body. During Sara’s demonstration, she put pigmented eyebrow gel on the model and did not apply any other pigment on the eyebrow.Footnote ¹⁵ The makeup artist accompanying her added that this “is a very strong trend, more natural.” “Natural” beauty was elevated above any transitory fashion; when asked about what beauty meant, Dana answered, “Beauty … beautiful skin. Beautiful as natural …, be able to take a bath and go out just like that.” Benjamín defined beauty as “seize the products and using them to your advantage …, highlighting what you already have naturally without having to apply too much (makeup).” All of them respond to the idea that inherent beauty exists, but it needs cosmetics (makeup and skin care) to “let it out.” It is strongly related to the outer appearance of what a healthy body is assumed to look like and youthfulness without requiring the actual personification of physical health or chronological age (Gómez Reference Gómez2021).

It is worth noting that youthfulness is one of the corporeal signs to be acquired that allow self-identification with an idealization of youth (Rivera Reference Rivera2018). Rather than youth, what is cosmetically recreated is a “youthful” face (rosy cheeks, plump lips, smooth skin without sunspots or wrinkles, according to the interviewees). Signs of ageing and tiredness are hidden; Ricardo put eyeliner on the inner corner of his model’s eye, explaining “[you should use] one that is the color of your skin. Sometimes the water line is reddened and the eyes look bloodshot.” In other words, he removes all traces of bodily signs that appear as consequences of the daily lives of those whose income does not allow them to hold on to their temporary proximity to aesthetic models.

Workers in the makeup sector unanimously perceived the body as highly malleable and thus categorizable, making themselves interpreters of bodily presentations. Those individuals approaching the proclaimed aesthetic standards are preferred as customers over those clients whose perceived ugliness is a source of social exclusion (Jarrín Reference Jarrín2017) and a sign of poverty. “Natural” appearances are also associated with a higher quality of life, differentiating consumers who might already embody certain aesthetic standards and those who do not. The skin and its embodiment of beauty becomes the material proof of lifestyle and purchasing power (Mull Reference Mull2019).

The difference between facial and bodily color also matters. Chiming with participants’ mockery of “powder lines” appearing on some women’s necks, the professionals indicated that their clients generally had “wrong” ideas about how to choose the color of skin products, with a tendency to choose lighter shades or undertones (nuances of colors underlying skin tone) that were not yellow, according to them prevalent among Latin American customers. Supporting our findings about shades of white outlined above, makeup workers universally recognized there are not simply “light” or “dark” skin colors. The gradations and combinations between skin tones and undertones have long been addressed by the cosmetic industry. They represent embodied knowledge permanently in dialogue with the audience’s own bodily perceptions, which is reproduced through companies’ training, display of merchandise, and beauty tutorials.

Another factor are facial proportions. For Kevin, the makeup artist’s duty is to detect the “morphology of the face” and adapt his knowledge to the faces he will make up: “We all have different features and different face shapes …, the facial muscles, the shape of the eyes, the shape of the mouths.” The aim to fit corporeality into exact appraisals comes from two sources. The first one is in its origins; in ancient Greece, each part of the body was understood by means of geometric measurements and its materiality was ideally adjusted to numerical proportions (Eco Reference Eco and Pons2010). The second one stems from the relationship of cosmetics with anatomy and medicine. The beauty industry borrows its scientific vocabulary for face and body parts as well as measurement parameters. The parallel development of the hygiene and cosmetics sectors assimilated beauty with cleanliness and whiteness; its products served to “civilize” colonized peoples, ignoring the practices of local societies (Jones Reference Jones2010). Conversely, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the still-budding industry claimed that makeup could help overcome deterministic prejudices. Max Factor made specific products for the skin tones of Latina actresses from the golden age of Hollywood cinema such as Rita Hayworth, Dolores del Río, and María Montez (who would be considered light-skinned in the Mexican context) (Basten Reference Basten2008). The actresses’ mouths and eyes were enlarged and the cheekbones were more angled to reinforce the specificity of their features using a technique known as contouring.Footnote ¹⁶

Currently, contouring is used to reproduce an ideal oval face, which emulates European and “white” features. For Angelo, it serves to make the face “slimmer,” with a “nose more refined, … the forehead smaller, the cheekbones higher and the cheeks thinner; I’m going to hide part of the chin.” The shape of each part of the face can be altered and adjusted to a facial format that every makeup artist demonstrated as a quasi-universal pattern, and almost all customers accepted for it to be painted on their faces without questioning. Akin to Fanon’s (Reference Fanon1952) epidermal schema, for our participants “white” contains an entire package way beyond skin tone. If facial recognition reaffirms individuation, erasing certain physiognomies implies a negation of that person as such, and the potentially lasting stigma of a devalued human condition (Le Breton Reference Le Breton2010). This holds particularly for the (modifiable) nose as an indicator of both beauty and racial fixity (Jarrín Reference Jarrín2017).

The preference for whiteness is often presented as a kind of primordial physical reaction: “to the human eye, white is more soothing” (Merida, high). These systematic biases, presented as obvious and self-explanatory, matter as “the majority of human beings get persuaded by appearances; they prioritize a white person, who apparently looks better” (Oaxaca, low). The association between whiteness and beauty creates a hierarchy of phenotypes. Its normalization as a fact of nature, moreover, precludes even questioning the resulting hierarchy as illegitimate, thus aiding its perpetuation.

The perfidy of this discourse lies in its internalization through recurrence, often since early childhood: “I used to feel that I wasn’t pretty because I wasn’t as light as they were” (Merida, vulnerable). Embedded in participants’ most intimate environments, such feelings are transmitted by family ties: “My sister right away dyed her older daughter’s hair; she says, ‘I’m already waiting for the other one’s birthday so that I can dye her hair blond … I haven’t [asked the girls], but I suppose they are OK with it since they agree to being dyed; it must make them feel better’” (Merida, high). Thus, feelings of shame toward one’s own appearance are extended to one’s children and carry over to the next generation seamlessly. This channel is confirmed by another participant, sharing her niece’s reaction when addressed (affectionately) as “negra” by her family: “‘I’m not dark-skinned. I’m white, I’m just sunburned.’ She is ashamed of her color” (Merida, low).

Racially discriminated groups can come to loathe their looks, assuming the perspective of the oppressive ideology: “These [whitening] filters you got now [on your cell phones], I have used them. And now I’m wondering, why? Why don’t I just leave my actual color? We are our own worst enemies!” (Merida, vulnerable). Double consciousness means to see oneself as divided. Du Bois ([Reference Du Bois1903] 1996) described it as “a peculiar sensation, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” However, this fractured perspective allows for the recognition of discourses that justify those feelings and practices of rejection (Tate 2014) and allegedly helped participants to acknowledge their own intrinsic beauty eventually. Edmonds’s (Reference Edmonds2010) claim of beauty as a distinct realm of modern experience beside other inequalities (see also Mears Reference Mears2020) grants an (ambiguous) emancipatory potential to cosmetics usage to challenge traditional hierarchies.