In praise of make-up: from cosmos to cosmetics

Why do women wear make-up? Their answers are often evasive: “To feel good? Could they stop wearing make-up? “No!” The idea of no longer wearing make-up can even be perceived as an attack on identity. In an elegant, luminous style, the author plunges us into a history of make-up that demonstrates the importance of the cosmetic gesture since human beings became civilized. “S’arranger” is an art of compromise, of openness, a benevolent game rather than a deceptive artifice. Behind a lipstick or mascara, there’s a whole way of being, more nuanced, more enchanted, less violent than that of men.