A book which poses a sociological reflection on our appearances, another which analyzes all the political layers of the beauty industry or even a work which rethinks the notion of well-being from the margins by recontextualizing the history of spiritualities outside marketing precepts… If you don’t know that book offer this holiday seasonthese may already be at the top of the list.
The bluest eye by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison's first novel, released in 1970, is also the one that remains the most contemporary and continues to answer the question: how to exist when we do not correspond to beauty standards? By evoking patriarchal violence, racism in a segregated America and dreams of somewhere else, the author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 provides the beginning of an answer.
Fatal Beauty by Mona Chollet
We no longer present one of the reference Books on the beauty industry and its injunctions, which laid the first foundations of a sociological reflection on our appearances. In the meantime, social networks arrived and turned everything upside down, but fatal beauty is the rearview mirror of a constantly changing world.
Who is wellness for by Fariha Roisin (in English)
The beauty and wellness industry is coming together to create new paradigms, while leaving out the same people. In this essay, the author, who has had a painful journey, returns to the need to rethink the notion of well-being from the margins and to recontextualize the history of spiritualities outside of marketing precepts.
Make-Up by Valentine Pétry
What does makeup really mean, behind its supposed vanity and superficiality? This book attempts to provide some answers by analyzing all the political layers of this industry which represents much more than a simple lipstick. The history of makeup bears witness to numerous societal developments.
Aesthetica Allie Rowbottom
Finally translated in France, this novel retraces the journey of Anna, a thirty-year-old who became famous on social networks ten years earlier. Now a saleswoman in a well-known cosmetics store, she is a little bored and wants to do AestheticaTM, a procedure that would allow her to reconnect with a version of her that no longer exists… This very contemporary fiction addresses the torments of the frantic quest for beauty and glory.
Black beauty de Michèle Nicoué-Pashoud
A true encyclopedia, it allows you to know more about black beautyfrom its characteristics to its natural recipes through historical anecdotes. With his appearance of coffee table bookit can be read either in pieces or page after page, and allows you to discover all the secrets for skin and hair.
Eyeliner : A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir (in English)
What do the nomads of Chad, the geishas of Japan, Amy Winehouse and the drag queens of New York have in common? Eyeliner. It's this rich history of this little (or big) black line on the eyes that the author traces from centuries to today. If Gen Z has declared that eyeliner is no longer relevant, this book proves that it is a timeless beauty gesture that is part of popular culture.
