El Genio Oscuro Que Inventó el Maquillaje (Y Cambió la Historia) — Transcript
Full transcript
- 0:00The year 1760. London, England.
- 0:05Sitting before a small, luxurious vanity
- 0:07table was a 27-year-old woman.
- 0:10All of London's high society whispered
- 0:12that she was the most beautiful and
- 0:14perfect woman in the city, but the pale
- 0:16face reflected in her mirror was not her
- 0:18own.
- 0:19It was a mask, a mask of white poison.
- 0:22Resting in front of her was a small,
- 0:24elegant jar containing a thick paste.
- 0:28That mysterious paste made her face look
- 0:29so white and so incredibly smooth that
- 0:31her human skin completely disappeared.
- 0:35Today I will reveal to you the
- 0:36astonishing, dark, and bloody origin of
- 0:38one of humanity's most lethal and
- 0:40lucrative inventions: makeup.
- 0:43Subscribe to El Genio Sabelotodo right
- 0:45now and join me as we unearth the dark
- 0:46and poisonous secrets of the beauty
- 0:48industry.
- 0:50To understand the magnitude of this
- 0:52aesthetic tragedy, we must understand
- 0:53how society thought centuries ago.
- 0:56In that era, possessing extremely white
- 0:58skin without a single blemish was the
- 1:00ultimate symbol of wealth and power.
- 1:02It showed you didn't have to work in the
- 1:05sun like peasants, but the modern
- 1:06concept of safe makeup simply didn't
- 1:08exist on the face of the Earth.
- 1:11This young woman rubbed onto her face
- 1:13every day the exact same chemical
- 1:15substance that was slowly poisoning her
- 1:17blood.
- 1:18That miraculous white paste was made
- 1:20almost entirely of pure, highly toxic
- 1:23lead.
- 1:24History tells us that her husband,
- 1:26terrified by the young woman's physical
- 1:27decline, begged her dozens of times to
- 1:29stop using that strange cream.
- 1:32He even went so far as to hide the jars
- 1:33, but she, addicted to the admiration of
- 1:35society, flatly refused.
- 1:37The name of this young woman was Maria
- 1:39Gunning, the famous and admired Countess
- 1:41of Coventry. Within months, her
- 1:43immaculate skin began to fill with deep
- 1:46sores.
- 1:48Her muscles weakened, joint pain became
- 1:50unbearable, her nervous system collapsed
- 1:52, and finally, at the tragic age of 27,
- 1:54she passed away.
- 1:57The doctors of the time and all of
- 1:59society knew for certain that the real
- 2:01cause of her gruesome death was that
- 2:02white paste.
- 2:07That lethal jar was the raw, historical
- 2:10origin of what we call foundation today
- 2:12.
- 2:13It was a decorative trend that, for the
- 2:15first time on a grand scale, killed
- 2:16human beings in the name of aesthetic
- 2:18beauty.
- 2:20Makeup has never been just color on the
- 2:22face; it is a display of power, a
- 2:23collective psychological obsession, and
- 2:25in its early days, it was a death
- 2:27sentence.
- 2:29But the history of the poisoning does
- 2:31not end in London. Decades later, the
- 2:33industry would create substances even
- 2:35more terrifying and destructive than
- 2:37lead, nuclear creams that literally made
- 2:39the face glow in the dark, hiding an
- 2:41industrial secret so macabre it will
- 2:43make your blood run cold.
- 2:49To understand the psychological root of
- 2:51this human obsession, we must turn back
- 2:54the clock drastically, about 5,000 years
- 2:56into the past, to the burning sands of
- 2:58ancient Egypt.
- 3:00On the banks of the immense Nile River,
- 3:02the desert sun was relentless and
- 3:04merciless.
- 3:05Ultraviolet rays scorched the thin skin
- 3:08around workers 'eyes, and flies carrying
- 3:10severe eye infections were a constant
- 3:12plague.
- 3:14To survive this climatic hell, the
- 3:15Egyptians weren't looking for beauty;
- 3:17they were looking for medical survival.
- 3:19They discovered a dark, intense powder,
- 3:22made by meticulously crushing a mineral
- 3:24stone called galena, which is rich in
- 3:27lead sulfide.
- 3:28By mixing this black powder with animal
- 3:30fat, they created a thick paste that
- 3:32they applied in thick lines around their
- 3:34eyes.
- 3:35We know this black paste today around
- 3:37the world as the famous kohl or kajal
- 3:39eyeliner. But listen to this carefully.
- 3:42In its origins, Egyptian makeup was
- 3:44genderless and not exclusive to the
- 3:46runways.
- 3:47This thick black line acted like
- 3:49chemical sunglasses that absorbed the
- 3:51glare of the desert light and repelled
- 3:53poisonous insects.
- 3:55The Egyptians believed with religious
- 3:57fervor that this dark eyeliner created a
- 4:00magical shield against the evil eye and
- 4:02disease.
- 4:04That is why, in ancient Egypt, women,
- 4:06warrior men, pharaohs, and even small
- 4:08children wore black makeup every day of
- 4:10their lives.
- 4:12When archaeologists open the ancient
- 4:14tombs of the pharaohs today, they always
- 4:16find small, luxurious containers filled
- 4:18with kohl. The Egyptians valued this
- 4:21makeup so much that they took it to the
- 4:23grave to use in the afterlife. And they
- 4:25didn't stop at the color black.
- 4:28Egyptian alchemists discovered that by
- 4:29crushing malachite, a semi-precious
- 4:31stone, they obtained a brilliant emerald
- 4:33green powder that they used as history's
- 4:35first eyeshadow.
- 4:37They ground red ocher earth to paint
- 4:39their lips and cheeks with a vibrant
- 4:41blood tone and used the henna plant to
- 4:43stain their hands and nails red.
- 4:46The iconic Egyptian style of immense,
- 4:48elongated eyes, green eyelids, and
- 4:50intense lips became humanity's first
- 4:52great aesthetic trend.
- 4:54And what is most astonishing from an
- 4:56industrial perspective is that there
- 4:58were no corporations, factories, or
- 4:59beauty laboratories.
- 5:01This entire complex chemical process was
- 5:03carried out by hand on the floors of mud
- 5:05houses.
- 5:07However, when Egyptian influence crossed
- 5:09the Mediterranean Sea and reached the
- 5:11powerful empires of Greece and Rome, the
- 5:13biological meaning of makeup underwent a
- 5:15dark mutation.
- 5:17It ceased to be a protective shield
- 5:19against the desert sun and transformed
- 5:21into an aggressive tool of social status
- 5:23and pure classism.
- 5:25On the marble streets of Rome, the color
- 5:26of your skin defined your worth as a
- 5:28human being.
- 5:30Peasant women and slaves who worked the
- 5:32wheat fields under the sun ended up with
- 5:33dark, tanned skin.
- 5:36Therefore, women of the Roman elite and
- 5:38senators' wives became obsessively
- 5:40fixated on having skin as white and
- 5:42cadaverous as possible to prove they
- 5:44were untouchable and had never sweated a
- 5:46day in their lives.
- 5:48And it is exactly here that the famous
- 5:50white paste that would murder Maria
- 5:52Gunning millennia later, lead carbonate
- 5:54, makes its macabre appearance.
- 5:56Roman women would grind this toxic metal
- 5:59into a powder and apply it daily.
- 6:02Instantly, their skin looked pale, matte
- 6:04, and flawless. But the Roman obsession
- 6:07with stopping aging reached disturbing
- 6:10and nauseating levels.
- 6:12Historical Roman documents reveal that
- 6:14wealthy women paid fortunes for facial
- 6:16masks containing unimaginable
- 6:18ingredients, including sweat scraped
- 6:19from the skin of famous gladiators.
- 6:23And most repulsive of all, fresh
- 6:25crocodile dung from the Nile, convinced
- 6:26that those fluids tightened the skin and
- 6:28erased wrinkles.
- 6:31Roman patrician women were willing to
- 6:33apply nature's grossest waste to their
- 6:34faces just to avoid losing their status
- 6:36of beauty.
- 6:39But what none of them knew was that the
- 6:41white lead makeup they used daily was
- 6:43being absorbed by their pores,
- 6:45infiltrating their bloodstream,
- 6:46destroying their kidneys, poisoning
- 6:48their brains, and slowly driving them
- 6:50insane.
- 6:52The white makeup was a silent and
- 6:54elegant killer.
- 6:56While lead destroyed the European elite
- 6:58, on the other side of the world, in the
- 7:00vastness of ancient China, makeup was
- 7:02being used as a weapon of social and
- 7:03hierarchical control.
- 7:053000 years before Christ, the Chinese
- 7:08imperial dynasties invented
- 7:09civilization's first nail polish.
- 7:13Court chemists meticulously mixed
- 7:15beeswax, raw egg whites, gelatin, and
- 7:17natural flower pigments to create a
- 7:19shiny, long-lasting lacquer.
- 7:22But this was not a simple aesthetic
- 7:24ornament; it was a strict and inflexible
- 7:26code of power backed by the law of death
- 7:28.
- 7:29Only the imperial family and high nobles
- 7:31had legal permission to paint their
- 7:32nails with the coveted gold and silver
- 7:34colors.
- 7:36If a peasant or a common citizen was
- 7:38caught in the street with their nails
- 7:40painted in those colors reserved for the
- 7:42elite, they were sentenced to death and
- 7:44publicly executed for the crime of
- 7:45usurping the visual status of kings.
- 7:48In China, the makeup on your hands could
- 7:50cost you your head.
- 7:56As the centuries progressed, history
- 7:58transports us back to Europe, to the
- 8:0016th century, where chemical tragedy
- 8:02reached state levels.
- 8:04Queen Elizabeth I ruled England with an
- 8:06iron fist. She was the most powerful
- 8:09woman in the world, but she hid deep
- 8:11physical trauma.
- 8:12In her youth, the Queen had survived a
- 8:15brutal bout of smallpox, a lethal
- 8:17disease that left her face completely
- 8:19disfigured, filled with deep craters and
- 8:21dark scars.
- 8:23For a monarch who had to project
- 8:24absolute power, perfection, and divinity
- 8:26before her enemies, showing physical
- 8:28weakness was unacceptable.
- 8:30Elizabeth I made the most lethal
- 8:32aesthetic decision of her life. She
- 8:34ordered the manufacturing of the
- 8:35infamous Venetian ceruse, the purest and
- 8:37most concentrated mixture of vinegar and
- 8:39toxic white lead that existed on the
- 8:41black market.
- 8:42The Queen applied such a thick and heavy
- 8:44layer of this lead paint to her face,
- 8:47neck, and chest that she literally
- 8:49looked like a solid, expressionless
- 8:51porcelain mask. She completed her iconic
- 8:54look by painting her lips an intense,
- 8:56bloody red. That pale, ghostly face
- 8:59became her signature of power.
- 9:01All the women of the British court began
- 9:03to imitate her, unleashing a toxic craze
- 9:05throughout England.
- 9:07But behind the closed doors of her
- 9:08castle, the chemical terror was
- 9:10destroying the Queen. Lead-based makeup
- 9:13corrodes living skin.
- 9:15At the end of the day, when her servants
- 9:17tried to remove the white mask by
- 9:18scraping her face, the Queen’s skin
- 9:20would fall off in pieces.
- 9:22The poison caused her to lose all her
- 9:24hair, forcing her to wear red wigs.
- 9:27Her teeth rotted and turned black, and
- 9:29her skin became covered in oozing sores
- 9:30that smelled of death.
- 9:33To hide the new sores caused by the lead
- 9:35, the Queen would order even thicker
- 9:37layers of lead to be applied the next
- 9:39day.
- 9:40It was a vicious cycle of chemical
- 9:41self-destruction from which it was
- 9:43impossible to escape.
- 9:45Many forensic historians agree that
- 9:47Queen Elizabeth I, the invincible
- 9:49monarch, died slowly poisoned by her own
- 9:51makeup.
- 9:54And it is exactly here that we must make
- 9:56an immensely deep, tense, and strategic
- 9:58pause in the history of human
- 9:59consumerism, because we are approaching
- 10:02the birth of the corporate beauty
- 10:03industry and I need to mercilessly test
- 10:05your industrial morality and your
- 10:07business vision.
- 10:10Imagine for a moment that you are a
- 10:12brilliant and ambitious chemist in 19
- 10:14th-century Europe. The Industrial
- 10:16Revolution has just exploded.
- 10:18Factories are spewing smoke and you have
- 10:20just invented a chemical formula to
- 10:22create a perfect, white makeup base that
- 10:24is cheap to mass-produce and that all
- 10:26the rich women in the country
- 10:28desperately want to buy.
- 10:30You know that if you sell this product
- 10:32in stores, you will become a millionaire
- 10:34overnight, but there is a dark problem
- 10:36that only you and your engineers know
- 10:38about.
- 10:40After testing the product in secret, you
- 10:41have discovered that the synthetic
- 10:43chemicals you are using cause
- 10:44irreversible long-term brain damage and
- 10:46ruin the skin of anyone who uses it in
- 10:48less than 3 years.
- 10:49The law in your country, at that time,
- 10:52does not require any safety testing. The
- 10:54government is not watching you. You have
- 10:56two drastic and definitive paths on your
- 10:58desk.
- 10:59Option A, you act with absolute morality
- 11:01and ethics, destroy the secret formula
- 11:03in the fire, close the factory before
- 11:05opening it, and refuse to sell a toxic
- 11:07product.
- 11:09You save the lives and skin of hundreds
- 11:11of thousands of innocent women, but in
- 11:13doing so, you condemn yourself to
- 11:15financial bankruptcy, lose the unique
- 11:16opportunity to create an industrial
- 11:18empire, and you know perfectly well that
- 11:20your competition will discover a similar
- 11:22formula next month and become
- 11:23millionaires themselves while you live
- 11:25in poverty for being honest.
- 11:28Option B, you bury the medical reports
- 11:30in the deepest drawer of your office and
- 11:32launch the product to the mass market
- 11:34with an aggressive marketing campaign,
- 11:35promising eternal youth and perfect
- 11:37beauty.
- 11:39By doing this, you become an untouchable
- 11:41tycoon, a titan of the global cosmetic
- 11:43industry.
- 11:44You fill yourself with millions of
- 11:46dollars, but you do it by coldly,
- 11:47consciously, and calculatedly poisoning
- 11:49the faces of an entire generation of
- 11:51women, knowing that by the time science
- 11:52discovers your deception, you will
- 11:54already be a disgustingly rich old man
- 11:55in a mansion unreachable by the law.
- 11:58What strategic, cold, and calculating
- 12:00decision would you make in the face of
- 12:02the market? Give up the millions to
- 12:04protect public health or embrace
- 12:06chemical toxicity to build an invincible
- 12:08corporate empire? I want you to leave
- 12:11your absolutely sincere vote and your
- 12:13coldest, most Machiavellian and
- 12:14analytical argument right now down in
- 12:16the comments.
- 12:18I will be reading with extreme attention
- 12:19and debating relentlessly with the most
- 12:21logical, courageous, and high-level
- 12:23responses from the entire community.
- 12:25Let’s continue our story because the
- 12:27makeup industry was about to become
- 12:29massive, legal, and unstoppable.
- 12:35With the arrival of the strict 19th
- 12:37century, the rules of the social game
- 12:39changed drastically. In England, the
- 12:41influential Queen Victoria publicly
- 12:43declared that the use of obvious makeup
- 12:46, such as red lips or extreme white
- 12:48powder, was vulgar, disgusting, and
- 12:50exclusive to street women and theater
- 12:52actresses, who at the time were
- 12:54considered to be of the same moral
- 12:56depravity.
- 12:58For high-society women, admitting they
- 13:00used makeup became the greatest possible
- 13:02reputation scandal, but the human
- 13:04obsession with beauty never disappears;
- 13:06it simply hides in the shadows.
- 13:09Makeup went underground.
- 13:12Wealthy women pinched their own cheeks
- 13:14with brutal force and bit their lips
- 13:16until they bled to fake a natural flush
- 13:18without using paint, and it was in this
- 13:20era of repression that a trend emerged
- 13:22so terrifying it surpasses Roman madness
- 13:24.
- 13:26Women in Europe and America began
- 13:28secretly consuming tablets called Dr.
- 13:31Campbell’s Arsenic Wafers. Arsenic is
- 13:33one of the most lethal, fast-acting, and
- 13:36painful poisons on the periodic table.
- 13:38If you give arsenic to rats, they die
- 13:40spitting blood.
- 13:42Corporations advertised these poison
- 13:44pills in newspapers, promising that
- 13:46their daily consumption would purify the
- 13:48blood, eliminate freckles, and give the
- 13:50face a pale, perfect tone and a glassy,
- 13:52seductive look.
- 13:54And they were right; the skin turned
- 13:56pale and the eyes sparkled because the
- 13:58body was slowly dying from the inside.
- 14:01Women were swallowing a deadly poison,
- 14:03risking liver failure and sudden death
- 14:05simply to avoid being caught using
- 14:07cosmetic powder and losing their
- 14:09reputation in high society.
- 14:12The demand for beauty was infinite; the
- 14:14only thing missing in the world was a
- 14:16corporate genius to find a way to remove
- 14:18the stigma from makeup and package it to
- 14:20sell it openly, in broad daylight.
- 14:23And those corporate geniuses did not
- 14:25take long to appear, smelling the
- 14:26financial blood in the water.
- 14:29In London, a visionary named Eugene
- 14:30Rimmel transformed the toxic mixture of
- 14:32ash into the first safe commercial
- 14:34product to darken eyelashes, creating
- 14:36the Rimmel empire.
- 14:39In the city of Paris, the house of
- 14:40Bourjois began manufacturing small,
- 14:42luxurious, and discreet cases of
- 14:44powdered blush so that women could hide
- 14:46them in their pockets.
- 14:49Makeup was leaving the secrecy of the
- 14:51kitchens to take over the bright shelves
- 14:53of department stores.
- 14:58But the absolute breaking point, the
- 15:00invention that would dominate the
- 15:02handbags of 20 th-century women,
- 15:04occurred at a grand exhibition in
- 15:05Amsterdam in the year 1883.
- 15:08French perfume experts presented a
- 15:10chemical rarity to the world: a dense
- 15:12stick with a texture as smooth as red
- 15:14butter, carefully wrapped in expensive
- 15:16silk paper.
- 15:18It was designed to paint lips a
- 15:20scandalous red. The invention was
- 15:22revolutionary, but the design was a
- 15:24logistical disaster.
- 15:26Women had to hold the red mass with
- 15:28their bare fingers, staining their hands
- 15:30and clothes, and the stick would end up
- 15:31broken or melted at the bottom of their
- 15:33bags from the heat.
- 15:36The mechanical genius behind the
- 15:37solution arrived in 1915, when inventor
- 15:40Maurice Levy designed a cylindrical
- 15:42polished metal tube to protect the stick
- 15:44.
- 15:45Years later, the internal twisting
- 15:47mechanism, the rotating tube, was
- 15:49invented. By just turning the metal base
- 15:51, the red bullet would slowly rise as if
- 15:54by magic.
- 15:56That perfect, elegant, and mechanical
- 15:57design is exactly the same industrial
- 15:59design that the massive makeup industry
- 16:01still uses today all over the planet.
- 16:09While the French were perfecting lips,
- 16:11in the United States of America, a
- 16:13Polish-Jewish immigrant fleeing extreme
- 16:15poverty had just landed in the city of
- 16:17Los Angeles.
- 16:19His name was Maximilian Faktorovich, but
- 16:21the world would know him as Max Factor.
- 16:24At the beginning of the 20th century,
- 16:26the silent film industry was being born
- 16:28in Hollywood.
- 16:29Actors of the time used the same thick,
- 16:31shiny, and greasy makeup that theater
- 16:34clowns and mimes used.
- 16:36On a dark stage 30 meters away it looked
- 16:38fine, but in front of the powerful
- 16:40lenses of the first Hollywood film
- 16:42cameras, the result was monstrous.
- 16:45On giant screens, the actors looked like
- 16:47corpses with cracked, rigid, and
- 16:49terrifying skin.
- 16:51Max Factor, observing this technical
- 16:53disaster, locked himself in his lab in
- 16:561914 and created a revolutionary and
- 16:58flexible greasepaint, a cream-based
- 17:00cosmetic that wouldn't crack when
- 17:02smiling, that absorbed the brutal studio
- 17:04lights, and that made the actors 'skin
- 17:06look perfectly natural and angelic on
- 17:09camera.
- 17:10Overnight, all the great stars of silent
- 17:13Hollywood cinema were lining up
- 17:15desperately at the door of Max Factor's
- 17:17lab, begging for his secret product.
- 17:21And, thanks to the psychological power
- 17:23of cinema, ordinary women who went into
- 17:25dark theaters to watch movies would
- 17:26leave wishing to look exactly as perfect
- 17:28as the actresses on the big screen.
- 17:31Max Factor made a brilliant marketing
- 17:33decision.
- 17:35He began selling his professional makeup
- 17:37to the general public, and he was the
- 17:38one who coined and popularized the word
- 17:40"makeup" all over the planet.
- 17:42Before him, it was called face paint.
- 17:46Max Factor built an empire by selling
- 17:48the ordinary woman the illusion that she
- 17:49could be a movie star in her own home.
- 17:52But the bloodiest, most relentless, and
- 17:54coldest corporate war in the history of
- 17:57beauty was waged between two titanic
- 17:59women, two immigrants who built empires
- 18:01from scratch and hated each other until
- 18:03the day they died.
- 18:05On one side was Helena Rubinstein, a
- 18:07shrewd and calculating Polish immigrant
- 18:09who opened her first beauty salon in
- 18:11London, then conquered Paris, and
- 18:12finally planted her flag in New York.
- 18:16On the other side was Elizabeth Arden, a
- 18:18fierce and relentless Canadian who
- 18:20opened her iconic Red Door salon in New
- 18:22York in 1910.
- 18:24Both multimillionaire women operated in
- 18:27the same city of New York.
- 18:28Both wanted to dominate the elite market
- 18:30of Fifth Avenue women.
- 18:33Their hatred was so legendary and deep
- 18:35that they spent entire decades competing
- 18:37street by street, stealing the best
- 18:38chemists from each other's labs, spying
- 18:40on secret formulas, and vowing that they
- 18:42would never exchange a single word
- 18:44face-to-face.
- 18:46If Elizabeth launched a revolutionary
- 18:48anti-wrinkle cream, Helena would release
- 18:50a better and more expensive one the
- 18:51following week.
- 18:53And in 1928, Helena Rubinstein executed
- 18:56one of the most Machiavellian, brilliant
- 18:58, and legendary financial moves that is
- 19:00still studied in Wall Street business
- 19:03schools.
- 19:05Sensing the market was inflated, she
- 19:07sold her entire American business to the
- 19:09massive Lehman Brothers corporation for
- 19:11a scandalous 7 million dollars in cash,
- 19:13an incalculable fortune at the time.
- 19:16One year later, in 1929, the
- 19:18catastrophic New York Stock Exchange
- 19:21crash occurred: Black Thursday.
- 19:23The global economy collapsed, banks went
- 19:25bankrupt, and people were jumping from
- 19:27skyscrapers.
- 19:28Shares of her former company plummeted
- 19:30to the bottom of the abyss.
- 19:32Helena, with her 7 million intact and
- 19:34safe in the bank, walked through the
- 19:36ruins of Wall Street and bought back her
- 19:38own company from the desperate bankers
- 19:39for less than 1 million dollars.
- 19:42She made 6 million dollars in pure
- 19:43profit in the midst of a global crisis
- 19:45and regained full control of her empire
- 19:47.
- 19:48That was the brutal mathematical and
- 19:50corporate genius of the makeup pioneers
- 19:52.
- 19:56But makeup was about to become something
- 19:58much more powerful and dangerous than a
- 20:00simple face cream. It was about to
- 20:03become a political weapon.
- 20:05In the years leading up to World War I,
- 20:07the women's suffrage movement erupted in
- 20:09the streets of New York.
- 20:12Tens of thousands of women marched
- 20:13demanding the right to vote and
- 20:15political equality.
- 20:16The conservative society of the time was
- 20:19terrified. Respectable women were
- 20:21supposed to be submissive and discreet.
- 20:24History books say that, in an act of
- 20:26pure corporate and political defiance,
- 20:28tycoon Elizabeth Arden stood at the door
- 20:30of her luxury Fifth Avenue salon and
- 20:32began handing out tubes of blood-red
- 20:34lipstick to all the women marching for
- 20:36civil rights.
- 20:39In the mind of the strict puritanical
- 20:41society at the turn of the century, a
- 20:43woman painting her lips bright fire-red
- 20:45in public was an act of rebellion, moral
- 20:47indecency, and an offense to good taste
- 20:49.
- 20:50The leaders of the suffragette movement
- 20:52took that stigma and turned it into a
- 20:54psychological weapon. They painted their
- 20:57lips bright red to march in front of the
- 20:59men in power. Red lipstick ceased to be
- 21:02mere paint; it transformed into a visual
- 21:04symbol of emancipation, strength, and
- 21:06defiance against imposed rules.
- 21:09Makeup had gone from poisoning queens to
- 21:11giving a voice to rebellion.
- 21:14While the war for the faces of women was
- 21:16exploding, a young entrepreneur in the
- 21:18city of Chicago was about to create
- 21:19another industrial monster by observing
- 21:21a simple home experiment.
- 21:23Thomas Williams was observing his older
- 21:25sister, named Mabel.
- 21:28She was desperate because her lashes
- 21:30were short, so she took crushed coal
- 21:32dust and mixed it with drugstore
- 21:33Vaseline, applying the black paste to
- 21:35her eyes to make them look dark and deep
- 21:37.
- 21:39Thomas's commercial brain
- 21:41short-circuited.
- 21:42He took his sister's rustic idea, hired
- 21:45a lab to refine the chemical formula,
- 21:47and in 1915 launched the first
- 21:48mass-market cosmetic product for
- 21:50eyelashes in the United States.
- 21:53And in a stroke of family marketing
- 21:54genius, he merged his sister Mabel's
- 21:56name with the word Vaseline.
- 21:59Thus was born Maybelline, a corporate
- 22:01giant that today dominates the entire
- 22:03planet by selling the same basic premise
- 22:05born from homemade coal dust.
- 22:10But the true lesson in psychological
- 22:12manipulation and corporate dominance
- 22:14would arrive during the darkest times of
- 22:16the American Great Depression.
- 22:19In 1932, while banks were collapsing,
- 22:21unemployment reached catastrophic levels
- 22:23, and families barely had enough for
- 22:25cabbage soup, three men decided to start
- 22:28a beauty company in a small corner of
- 22:30New York.
- 22:32They did not have the money or the
- 22:33prestige of Arden or Rubinstein. They
- 22:36were the brothers Charles and Joseph
- 22:38Revson along with chemist Charles
- 22:39Lachman.
- 22:40And as a fun fact, the letter L in the
- 22:42middle of their brand name came from the
- 22:44chemist's last name, Lachman. Together
- 22:46they created the Revlon corporation.
- 22:49Their only flagship product was a simple
- 22:52bottle of nail polish, but unlike the
- 22:54competitors' polishes, which were thin,
- 22:56transparent, and weak, Revlon's polish
- 22:58was dense, opaque, featured superior
- 23:00chemical technology, and came in
- 23:02aggressive, saturated red tones.
- 23:05With a single brushstroke, the nail was
- 23:07covered in a solid, brilliant color.
- 23:09And this is where Charles Revson
- 23:11executed the most lethal psychological
- 23:13marketing strategy of the crisis.
- 23:15He knew that American women were
- 23:17financially broke.
- 23:20They had no money to buy new dresses,
- 23:22fine shoes, leather handbags, or
- 23:23luxurious jewelry to feel renewed.
- 23:27The economic depression had stripped
- 23:28them of their status.
- 23:30Revson offered them a cheap escape.
- 23:33For a few cents, a woman could buy a
- 23:35bottle of Revlon polish, paint her nails
- 23:37in the kitchen of her modest home, and
- 23:39feel that, at least on her hands, she
- 23:40had the luster of high society.
- 23:43Revlon wasn't selling paint; they were
- 23:45selling the instant illusion of wealth
- 23:47and a mental escape amidst national
- 23:49misery.
- 23:50Years later, Revlon doubled down and
- 23:52created the revolutionary and addictive
- 23:54matching lips and nails campaign.
- 23:57They psychologically forced the market
- 23:59to buy two products instead of one,
- 24:00dictating that it was an absolute
- 24:02fashion crime to have lips a different
- 24:03color than your fingernails.
- 24:06In the 1950s, they launched the
- 24:08legendary and scandalous "Fire and Ice"
- 24:10advertising campaign.
- 24:12A full-page campaign in magazines where
- 24:13they didn't talk to you about the
- 24:15chemical ingredients of the red lipstick
- 24:16; they asked you psychological,
- 24:17provocative, and sexual questions.
- 24:20They asked you if you were brave, fiery
- 24:22, and daring enough to wear that color.
- 24:25Revlon transformed the industry.
- 24:28Charles Revson, the man who built a
- 24:30multibillion-dollar empire from a small
- 24:32bottle, once uttered the darkest, rawest
- 24:34, and most brutally honest phrase in the
- 24:37entire history of beauty capitalism.
- 24:40He said: "In the factory, we make
- 24:42chemical cosmetic products, but in the
- 24:44stores, we sell hope."
- 24:47That phrase is the beating heart of a
- 24:49corporate market that today is worth
- 24:50more than 600 billion dollars globally.
- 24:54Major companies like Estée Lauder,
- 24:55L'Oréal, Revlon, and Maybelline do not
- 24:57base their immense fortunes on the
- 24:58actual cost of the water, wax, and
- 25:00chemical pigments in their products,
- 25:01which is minimal.
- 25:04They base their million-dollar fortunes
- 25:06on mathematically exploiting insecurity
- 25:07, the fear of aging, the terror of not
- 25:09fitting in, and the human being's deep
- 25:11need to be desired by others.
- 25:16But now, and paying extreme attention to
- 25:18this point, we must return to the dark
- 25:20mystery that I mentioned to you at the
- 25:21beginning of this documentary.
- 25:24That miracle cream from the 30s,
- 25:26following lead-based makeup, promised
- 25:28dazzling and eternally young skin while
- 25:30hiding a lethal secret in its shiny
- 25:33containers.
- 25:35In the early 1930s, a line of extremely
- 25:37expensive cosmetics called Torradia went
- 25:40on sale in luxury Parisian pharmacies.
- 25:43The wealthiest European women spent
- 25:45fortunes buying this cold cream and
- 25:47facial powder, applying them generously
- 25:50every night to their faces, necks, and
- 25:52hands.
- 25:54The marketing campaign promised to
- 25:56cleanse pores, stop skin cell aging, and
- 25:58give the face a divine, inner glow.
- 26:01But what is chilling, what makes our
- 26:03blood run cold today when reading the
- 26:05old label on those jars, is that the
- 26:07company didn't hide its secret
- 26:08ingredient. They boasted about it in
- 26:10giant letters. Torradia cream was
- 26:13manufactured by mixing wax with two
- 26:15heavy metals: thorium chloride and
- 26:17radium bromide. Yes, radium.
- 26:20The same radioactive and lethal element
- 26:22that Marie Curie discovered and that
- 26:23ended up killing her slowly through pure
- 26:25radiation.
- 26:27In that strange, ignorant, and dark era
- 26:29of medical history, corporate society
- 26:31did not understand the dangers of
- 26:32nuclear material.
- 26:35They thought that radioactivity, being a
- 26:37warm energy that literally glowed in the
- 26:39dark, was a magical source of eternal
- 26:40youth and cellular vitality.
- 26:43Large corporations capitalized on the
- 26:45ignorance of the mass market. Think
- 26:47about the scale of this madness, of this
- 26:49immense and dark human irony.
- 26:51In search of beauty and status, the
- 26:53Romans poisoned their blood and brains
- 26:55with toxic white lead.
- 26:57In the 19th century, European women
- 26:59gobbled up lethal arsenic pills, risking
- 27:01fulminant liver failure just to look
- 27:04pale.
- 27:06And in the 20th century, modern elite
- 27:08women in Paris rubbed pure radioactive
- 27:10cream on their eyes and necks before
- 27:12sleep, inducing aggressive and incurable
- 27:14skin and bone cancer, all while smiling
- 27:16in the mirror, believing they were
- 27:18stopping time.
- 27:21Today, we live in the era of regulated
- 27:23laboratories, high technology, and
- 27:25dermatological testing.
- 27:28We think that, thanks to government laws
- 27:30, this era of blind poisoning is ancient
- 27:32history and that corporations look out
- 27:34for us.
- 27:36But the harsh, cold scientific reality
- 27:38hits us in the face when independent
- 27:40health oversight agencies, like the FDA
- 27:42in the United States, conduct surprise
- 27:44tests in modern laboratories.
- 27:47Over the last few years, they have
- 27:49repeatedly found alarming and silent
- 27:51traces of heavy metals like lead hidden
- 27:53in the formulas of thousands of famous
- 27:55long-wear lipstick brands sold at your
- 27:57nearest shopping mall.
- 28:00They have found asbestos, the
- 28:02cancer-causing dust that destroys lungs
- 28:04, quietly mixed into cheap eyeshadow
- 28:07palettes and mass-produced baby powders
- 28:09.
- 28:11Regulations haven't fully curbed the
- 28:13risk; they’ve simply made the industry
- 28:15much more sophisticated and quiet about
- 28:17tinkering with chemical ingredients to
- 28:19cut their colossal global production
- 28:21costs.
- 28:23And if you think this industry's
- 28:25toxicity is limited only to chemical
- 28:26risks on your skin, you are completely
- 28:28losing sight of the immense global
- 28:29ecological slaughter that modern makeup
- 28:31has unleashed.
- 28:34Every year, the global beauty industry
- 28:36manufactures the staggering and
- 28:38grotesque amount of over 120 billion
- 28:40plastic packages: mascara tubes with
- 28:42hard plastic brushes, small plastic
- 28:44eyeshadow palettes, thick acrylic liquid
- 28:46foundation jars, and lipsticks with
- 28:48complex metal mechanisms impossible to
- 28:50separate.
- 28:53The vast and relentless majority of
- 28:55these 120 billion containers are made
- 28:57with multiple layers of mixed plastic,
- 28:59broken mirrors, and metal springs,
- 29:01making them technically and
- 29:02mathematically impossible to recycle in
- 29:04any modern processing plant on Earth.
- 29:08Those small, beautiful, shiny containers
- 29:11you pile up in your bathroom drawers
- 29:12inevitably end up buried in giant toxic
- 29:15landfills or floating uncontrollably in
- 29:17Pacific Ocean currents, where it will
- 29:19take them over 500 years to begin
- 29:20degrading, breaking down into killer
- 29:22microplastics that are already choking
- 29:24whale stomachs, polluting saltwater, and
- 29:26returning to you through the food chain
- 29:28when you sit down to eat at your table.
- 29:32The real price of hiding our human
- 29:34imperfections is being paid with blood
- 29:36and pollution by the entire planet Earth
- 29:38.
- 29:44Let's talk now, at the end of this dark
- 29:45industrial and psychological journey, at
- 29:47the exact point where we began.
- 29:50Let's travel mentally back to the year
- 29:521760 in the city of London, to that
- 29:54quiet, luxurious room where the
- 29:56beautiful Maria Gunning, the young
- 29:58countess, was sitting in front of her
- 30:01mirror holding in her hands that small,
- 30:03elegant, and lethal porcelain container
- 30:05filled with poisonous white lead.
- 30:10If you look today at your own vanity or
- 30:12your home bathroom, you will find a
- 30:13mountain of modern chemical tools,
- 30:15long-wear full-coverage foundations,
- 30:17high-tech concealers, invisible
- 30:19translucent setting powders, and ring
- 30:21lights to illuminate your face.
- 30:24The names of the chemicals changed.
- 30:26The jars of radioactive poison were
- 30:28replaced by elegant acrylic containers
- 30:30and advertisements starring perfect
- 30:32movie stars.
- 30:34But the big, deep, and uncomfortable
- 30:36philosophical question remains exactly
- 30:38and painfully the same one Maria Gunning
- 30:40faced before she died of poisoning.
- 30:42Who are we really doing all this for?
- 30:44Who controls your face? Centuries ago,
- 30:47Maria Gunning had no choice.
- 30:49The rigid, class-based, and patriarchal
- 30:52London society had established
- 30:53unbreakable rules of power.
- 30:56If you weren't painfully white, pale,
- 30:58and perfect, you simply didn't exist;
- 30:59you were worthless and lost your place
- 31:01in the aristocratic world.
- 31:04But today, we face an invisible tyrant
- 31:06far more destructive, massive, and
- 31:08relentless than the old society of
- 31:10London.
- 31:12Today, our physical mirror has been
- 31:14joined by billions of high-resolution
- 31:16cameras on mobile phones across the
- 31:18planet, lit by the spotlights of the
- 31:20immense, addictive, and corporate matrix
- 31:22of social media.
- 31:25We are bombarded from the moment we wake
- 31:28up until we sleep by digital filters
- 31:29mathematically programmed by Silicon
- 31:31Valley engineers to alter the dimensions
- 31:34of your nose, erase human pores, and
- 31:35make you feel permanently insufficient,
- 31:38driving you like a machine to buy the
- 31:40next miracle product of the season.
- 31:44For over 5,000 long and strange years of
- 31:46civilizational evolution, the human
- 31:47being, fragile and insecure, has stood
- 31:49before their reflection.
- 31:52In their hands, throughout the millennia
- 31:54, they held in silence and solitude a
- 31:56handful of crushed black stone, a block
- 31:58of poisonous white lead, an elegant jar
- 32:00of radioactive cream, and finally, a
- 32:02powerful glass mobile device with an
- 32:04embedded camera lens.
- 32:07Chemical technology advanced to
- 32:09astonishing limits. Aesthetic trends
- 32:11mutated radically.
- 32:13Immense billionaire corporations rose to
- 32:15power and collapsed into bankruptcy in
- 32:16ruthless trade wars.
- 32:19But those human eyes, scared and
- 32:21insecure, staring back at you from the
- 32:22other side of the mirror glass, continue
- 32:24to mentally formulate the same
- 32:26heartbreaking, primitive question of
- 32:28survival and status that has moved
- 32:29mountains of millions of dollars
- 32:31throughout the centuries.
- 32:33Am I enough? Do I look good enough so
- 32:36that the world won't reject me?
- 32:38Perhaps the true, deep, and raw history
- 32:41of makeup was never, at any moment, the
- 32:43history of the evolution of creams,
- 32:45chemical colors, brushes, or plastics.
- 32:49Perhaps, and only perhaps, makeup is the
- 32:51purest and starkest historical record of
- 32:53the deepest human fear of not being
- 32:55loved, and of the immense, manipulative
- 32:57, and multi-billion dollar power of
- 32:58corporations that learned to package
- 33:00that primal fear, put a very high price
- 33:02on it, and sell it back to us in
- 33:03exchange for our health and our mental
- 33:05sanity.
- 33:08If you truly want to wake up from the
- 33:10intellectual and aesthetic lethargy of
- 33:12the system, expand your mind without
- 33:13artificial limits, master these immense
- 33:15and dark topics of corporate monopolies
- 33:17and mass manipulation, and take your
- 33:19level of historical understanding and
- 33:21the sharp analytical edge of your
- 33:22intellect to the next and ultimate level
- 33:24of development; if you truly wish to
- 33:26stand out massively above the noisy and
- 33:28manipulative average of conformist
- 33:29society; if you aspire to always shine
- 33:31and lead immediately and with absolute
- 33:33authority any high-level conversation,
- 33:37any financial negotiation, and any
- 33:39intellectual debate in your professional
- 33:40circle without ever letting yourself be
- 33:42brainwashed by superficial information
- 33:44from beauty media, fashion magazines,
- 33:46and boring corporate news outlets, you
- 33:47must take the next definitive, vital
- 33:49step for your analytical training right
- 33:51now.
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- 34:05exclusive guide in digital format where
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- 34:14corporations do not want you to know
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- 34:18stories of infinite ambition and
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- 35:29And yes, just like the brilliant and
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- 35:33our history, you feel that immense,
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- 36:49We are going to keep exploring together
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- 37:24ended up accidentally unleashing
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