Painted Ladies

Whilst working on the more mundane aspects of freelancing (sorting through invoices and receipts and such), I like to catch up on my binge watching. This week, I’ve been werking through episodes of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel.”

Conspicuous makeup plays a big role in both of these shows. I have been very tempted to start wearing layers of heavily applied makeup and all kinds of wigs. And while I have plenty of hairpieces (when we bought this house, one of our moving boxes was labelled “Wigs and Bats”), I’ve lost the will to wear makeup.

I do have a small collection of vintage cosmetics and perfumes. Watching “Mrs. Maisel” made me think that maybe there’s a market for vintage makeup packaging. I found a small cache of these things in my closet. Some go back to the 1960s. Most were acquired from a time capsule perfume store called Fritsch’s in Kitchener (it is now shuttered).

There are all kinds of classic cosmetics in this collection: Mary Quant, Helena Rubinstein, Christian Dior, Hermès and more. I am going to list them in my Earnestine Etsy store today or tomorrow. I kind of hope that they’ll find their way to Hollywood stardom, just like Mrs. Maisel!