From the Primitive Magic

Cosmetics have held their place in public esteem with the same tenacity as religion, with which they have much in common, and as both practices lurch precariously towards the end of the twentieth century they can be compared as equally illogical, egotistical and based upon primitive necessities.
Using color on the face is a ritual which has lost surprisingly little ground in our century when types of make-up have altered and evolved with a speed and general acclamation of various motor or electrical car designs. Is it charm against evil, as it was in the most primitive ages?

The swift limning of a mouth with lipstick is usually the last thing a woman does before she steps out of the house and into the street, not with the intention of transforming herself into somebody more attractive or more colorful, but to make herself complete. This macabre slash of red switches a woman into her outdoor self, removing her from the safe cell of the home environment, and into public life. The fact is that many women are insecure without make-up. The feeling is such as, "I am not dressed," but they obviously are.

For now, the superstition might be passed, as more natural appearance became fashionable, and younger women appear in public with bland, uncolored faces. But meantime, the old habits cling tenaciously allied with cosmetic manufacturers by producing the bare or total look of amazing awareness of the new trends of cosmetics. Perhaps, it is important to belong to a group, like the Carolean vision of the happy milkmaid of the seventeenth-century impulse.