Replete with the voices and experiences of ordinary women, Hope in a Jar is a richly textured account of the ways women created the cosmetics industry and cosmetics created the modern woman. Walker-in shaping a unique industry that relied less on advertising than on women's customs of visiting and conversation.

And she highlights the leading role of white and black women-Helena Rubenstein and Annie Turnbo Malone, Elizabeth Arden and Madame C. She shows how women, far from being pawns and victims, used makeup to declare their freedom, identity, and sexual allure as they flocked to enter public life. In Hope in a Jar, historian Kathy Peiss gives us the first full-scale social history of America's beauty culture, from the buttermilk and rice powder recommended by Victorian recipe books to the mass-produced products of our contemporary consumer age. And it's only by being your true self that you can find happiness.įrances is going to need every bit of courage she has.Ī coming-of-age read that tackles issues of identity, the pressure to succeed, diversity, and freedom to choose, Radio Silence is a tour de force by the most exciting writer of her generation.How did powder and paint, once scorned as immoral, become indispensable to millions of respectable women? How did a 'kitchen physic,' as homemade cosmetics were once called, become a multibillion-dollar industry? And how did men finally take over that rarest of institutions, a woman's business? It's only by facing up to your fears that you can overcome them. Meanwhile at university, Aled is alone, fighting even darker secrets. She has to confess why Carys disappeared. Suffocating with guilt, she knows that she has to confront her past.

Then the podcast goes viral and the fragile trust between them is broken.Ĭaught between who she was and who she longs to be, Frances's dreams come crashing down. He unlocks the door to Real Frances and for the first time she experiences true friendship, unafraid to be herself. Not friends, not a guilty secret-not even the person she is on the inside.īut when Frances meets Aled, the shy genius behind her favorite podcast, she discovers a new freedom. Drawing on a wealth of archival sources, historian Kathy Peiss uncovers a vivid history in which women, far from being pawns and victims, used makeup to declare. What if everything you set yourself up to be was wrong?įrances has always been a study machine with one goal: elite university.

The second novel by the phenomenally talented Alice Oseman, the author of the million-copy bestselling Heartstopper books-now a major Netflix series.

Hope in a jar by kathy peiss