“Tattoo Your Lips” Ads for Tattoo Brand Cosmetics, 1930s

Tattoo Lipstick Ad, detail, from Woman’s Home Companion, March 1937.

“The New Tattoo gives lips exciting South Sea redness that’s transparent, pasteless, highly indelible . . . yet makes them moist, lustrous, smooth, soft . . . endlessly yielding. . . . How his heart will pound at the touch of lips so smooth, so caressingly soft!”

When I tried to find out more about the Tattoo makeup brand, I discovered that these Tattoo ads which appeared in black and white in Woman’s Home Companion appeared in full color in other magazines, such as Vogue. It was called “the New Tattoo” in the ad dated 1930, but here is an ad with only four colors, so it may be even earlier.

Tattoo lipstick ad, Woman’s Home Companion, March 1937.

To see this ad in color, click here.

This ad for Tattoo brand lipstick stresses that the color is “highly indelible” — although not, fortunately, as indelible as a tattoo. It’s a lip “stain,” available in five colors:  coral, exotic, natural, pastel, and Hawaiian. (Don’t you wonder what “exotic” and “Hawaiian” meant? Presumably one of them was darker than coral red.) There’s a lot to like in this ad:  shoes that would be impossible to walk in on a beach; the cutout below the bow on the reclining woman’s swimsuit (I bought a suit like that in 1978); the man’s tank-top swimsuit (men had begun to bare their chests by 1937; I’ve even seen a man’s transitional swimsuit with a top that zipped off!)

Men’s bathing suits in an illustration by Cordrey, Woman’s Home Companion, April 1937.

The Tattoo lipstick case had a topless, grass-skirted dancer on it:

Tattoo lipstick tube from ad, 1937.

I didn’t find a history of Tattoo makeup online, but the earliest dated color advertisement I found was from 1930. (Click here) It included a coupon for a trial sample in your choice of color. The latest dated color image online was from 1949 (Click here.) Both were posted on flikr by totallymystified.

Tattoo lipstick ad, Woman’s Home Companion, April, 1937.

“The New Tattoo gives lips a strangely intoxicating redness; a sweetly tempting moistness and luster that only South Sea colors have…. There’s a magical ingredient blended into the New Tattoo that give lips a thrilling new kind of softness . . . an endlessly yielding softess!”

Pacific Tourism Grew in the 1930s

Tourism to Hawaii, via luxurious cruise ships, increased in the 1930s. The “white ships” of the Matson Line sailed from San Francisco to Hawaii and the South Seas. Quite a few movies with a tropical setting were made in the thirties, including Mutiny on the Bounty (1935),  The Hurricane (1937) and Her Jungle Love (1938) — both starring queen-of-the-sarong Dorothy Lamour, Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938), and Honolulu (1939). Bing Crosby and his movie Waikiki Wedding (1937) popularized the song “Sweet Leilani,” written in 1934.

Tattoo lipstick ad, Woman’s Home Companion, February 1937.

I can’t help noticing (Grrrr….)  that the “South Seas Enchantress” in these ads is always subordinated to the one with fair skin, even though a “healthy” tan was very fashionable in the 1930s.

“Don’t worry darling, you’ll look quite respectable in a day or two.” Sept. 1936; from The Way to Wear’em.

Perhaps a tan made darker lipstick more generally acceptable and less artificial looking.

Tattoo Waterproof Mascara

Ad for Tattoo Mascara, Woman’s Home Companion, April 1936.

“Needs no water to apply.” By the 1940s, Maybelline also sold mascara in a tube . . .

Maybelline products from an ad in Vogue, August 1943.

. . .but, well into the 1950s, mascara was more familiar in that red plastic tray —  as solid-form mascara which you moistened with the included brush. You were supposed to use water, but many women used spit. (Ugh!)

Maybelline Mascara ad, from Delineator, 1924.

By 1929 Maybelline sold both this familiar “matchbox” of mascara, and a waterproof liquid mascara in a bottle; both came in brown or black.

Mabelline waterproof liquid mascara with round brush, 1929.

Tattoo’s waterproof mascara came in a tube in the 1930s:

Tattoo waterproof mascara in a tube. Women’s Home Companion, April 1936. It cost 50 cents, but you could get a 30-day sample for a dime.

Tattoo mascara in a tube came in three colors: black, brown, and blue (!)

Read More About the Development of Lipsticks:

My search for “Tattoo” ads led me to a really excellent Australian site: Cosmetics and skin.com

For their well written and beautifully illustrated article on lipsticks, click here.

Readers of Moby Dick may be interested to learn that spermaceti was a major ingredient in 1930s lipsticks….

Actual lip tattooing in 1933

The modernmechanix blog found this article from 1933, headlined “Lip Tattooing Is the Latest Fad” in Hollywood, and commented, “I hope she doesn’t change her mind.”  A reminder to anyone thinking about getting “permanent makeup:” your face will change as you age, your eyebrows won’t stay in the same place, and fashions in makeup will change, too. Imagine if Lucille Ball had had her lipstick permanently tattooed all over her upper lip in 1950; she’d have been stuck with it for the next 39 years!

Embroidered Wool Jackets, 1950

Embroidered “Mexican” jacket, McCall Pattern 1399. McCall Needlework Catalogue, May 1950.

Someone in my family had a gold-colored embroidered jacket, very much like this one. I remember finding it, sadly moth eaten, while cleaning out an old wardrobe.

I hadn’t appreciated the enormous craze for these jackets until I looked up “embroidered Mexican jacket” online. Plenty of them survived and are available from vintage dealers. In fact, I found a few in the first vintage store I checked — Decades of Fashion, in San Francisco — and took a quick photo or two. This one was made in Mexico, probably brought home as a vacation souvenir.

The very helpful clerk reminded me that, during World War II, the United States made an effort to form stronger alliances with our neighbors to the north and south, including trade agreements.

In the 1940s, while the war made it too dangerous to travel to Europe and the Pacific (and with cruise ships turned into military transports,) Americans seeking vacations in exotic locations had an incentive to explore closer to home. Many tourists seeking warmer weather in “Sunny Mexico” discovered a world of brighter colors, brilliant flowers, beautiful embroidery, gaiety, and chunky, handmade Mexican Silver jewelry from Taxco.

Unsigned, chunky Mexican bracelet, probably 1940s -1950s. Courtesy of RememberedSummers.

It’s surprising that McCall Patterns would offer several patterns for stay-at-homes who wanted to duplicate the look of souvenir jackets from Mexico, but these patterns for embroidered wool coats — usually unlined — were available for women, teens, and children in 1950.

Embroidered Coat Pattern for Women, McCall #1399

McCall pattern #1399, May Needlework Catalogue, 1950.

McCall “Mexican” coat pattern #1399, May 1950.

These coats were usually unlined and could be made from wool fabric or wool felt, so, except for the wool embroidery, they were easy to make. At least one person made one, and it turned up online (click here.)

Pattern #1399 description from McCall Catalogue, Dec. 1950.

The felt versions that I have seen had edges trimmed with blanket stitch, for definition, but the wool flannel versions had 1/4″ hems turned under and secured with cross-stitch in one or two colors. The red coat I photographed has the same stitching shown in this pattern:

A narrrow hem stitched in two colors.

The embroidery motifs from McCall include colorful vendors at markets, donkeys and their owners, palm trees, and other stereotyped images, but — happily — not a sombrero-wearing man taking a nap against a seguaro cactus. That was a popular image for 1950s salt & pepper shakers, as I recall; tourists who had never lived in a hot country interpreted the sensible habit of resting during the hottest part of the day — a break in a workday that began before dawn and lasted until dark — as “laziness.” [One more image to file under “painful cultural misunderstandings!”]

McCall Pattern 1327, “Mexican” Embroidered Jacket for Girls 6 to 14

Pattern for Girls 6 to 14 years, McCall # 1327, 1950.

I  like the burro loaded with flowers on the back .

McCall Embroidered Jacket Pattern for Boys and Girls Aged 2 to 6

McCall pattern #1464, McCall Needlework Catalogue, 1950.

Travel-Wise Embroidered Coat Pattern: McCall #1565

“Far away places with strange-sounding names,

“Far away over the sea,

“Those far away places with strange-sounding names,

“Are calling, calling to me….” — song by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer, 1948

That song was on the Hit Parade for months in the late 1940s. It was sung by Bing Crosby (and others) in 1948 and became a hit; then it was recorded by Perry Como (and others) in 1949 and became a hit again!

One reflection of this travel-lust was McCall’s pattern #1565, from 1950.

McCall “world traveler” pattern #1565, from 1950.

It could be embroidered in cotton with the names of places you visited — or wanted to — or simplified, with just appliqued images of a plane and a ship on the pockets, and compass points on the sleeves. The “nice swingy” back could be covered with images of the Eiffel Tower, a Dutch windmill, etc.

1950s Embroidered Jackets: Who Wore Them?

“Wear it on a cruise or on campus,” says the pattern catalog. However, I suspect that these jackets were most often made as gifts, rather than by the woman who was going to wear them.

I can’t help wondering if the survival of so many embroidered Mexican jackets is due to an experience many travelers have had: The brilliant colors and “peasant” styles that feel liberating in their natural setting often seem loud or “costume-y” when you get them home to your normal, urban or small-town environment.

This “world traveler” jacket — without the place names — looks chic and playful on the model. Would the version with the place names really help you to look sophisticated while sailing on the Queen Elizabeth? Or in Paris?

 

Even this conservative version of the embroidered jacket, with a floral pattern reminiscent of the 1920s, probably did not get very much wear:

Woman in embroidered wool jacket, circa 1950 -52. She has not changed her 1930s hairstyle. Courtesy of RememberedSummers.