Welcome to The Centre Yourself Blog
Centre Yourself provides Skin Care in Michiana, including Elkhart and South Bend, Indiana.
Happy Bastille Day! - Thursday, July 14, 2011
Bastille Day is the French holiday celebrating the storming of the Bastille in 1789, a French prison that housed a small number of political dissidents. Thus began the first French Revolution, the one that would depose King Louis XVI and erect the first of many unstable republics.But this was not the only revolution happening in France at this time. During the late eighteenth century, French society was changing in a way that would transform the world. French society was becoming the first in the world to adopt and promote commercial cosmetics, and through them to transform the role of women in society. And though the French Republics have been notoriously unstable, the impact of French innovation and culture on cosmetics and the role of women has been lasting.
Modern cosmetics were essentially invented in France in the late eighteenth century. In the Medieval and Renaissance periods, people made cosmetics at home from local ingredients, but after 1750 manufactured cosmetics began to be made with purer ingredients, some of them imported from what was known as the "Orient," primarily the Middle East. The Orient was also used as a marketing tool, "Harem women, chosen by the sultan for his pleasure, represented true beauty" in the words of critic Morag Martin, in Selling Beauty: Cosmetics, Commerce, and French Society 1750-1830.
Although women at this point were subject to masculine control, and were encouraged to present themselves for masculine judgment, cosmetics also represented a freedom they had not previously enjoyed. Prior to the advent of commercial cosmetics, only noblewomen could afford to use make up made with fine imported ingredients that gave them richer colors, smoother textures, and an overall more attractive appearance. Commercial cosmetics, though, allowed peasants and shop girls to present themselves on the streets of Paris with the same rouged cheeks, the same powdered skin, the same painted lips that Marie Antoinette herself enjoyed, giving French women greater class mobility and helping to destabilize the last vestiges of feudal society.
Our own line of Centre Yourself Cosmeceuticals can trace their origins to this period, because it was during this time that cosmetics and medicine were most closely allied. Half the beauty manuals published between 1750 and 1818 were written by doctors. Doctors helped women to sort through the multitude of advertised products to determine which ones promoted health as well as beauty.
At the Centre Yourself Medical Rejuvenation Spa, we are happy to take this Bastille Day to celebrate the ongoing legacy of French cosmetics: Freedom, beauty, and health. Liberté, beauté, santé!
To learn more about cosmetics that actually protect and promote the health of your skin, please contact the Centre Yourself Medspa today for a consultation.
Centre Yourself offers the latest skin care products and services, and facial rejuvenation procedures to patients in Michiana, including Elkhart and South Bend, Northwest Indiana, and Southern Michigan.
Elkhart Office
RIVERPOINTE MEDICAL BUILDING500 ARCADE AVE., SUITE 300
ELKHART, IN 46514
PHONE: 574-296-9100
FAX: 574-293-1511
South Bend Office
Medical Pavilion I720 East Cedar Street, Suite 450
South Bend, IN 46617
PHONE: 574-233-9100
The Centre, P.C. offers the latest plastic and reconstructive surgery procedures to patients in Elkhart and South Bend, Indiana, Michiana and the Southern Michigan area. The content provided on this web site should not be taken as medical advice and has been created for informational purposes only about the cosmetic surgery and reconstructive surgery procedures available at the Centre, P.C. For more information about cosmetic surgery and to schedule a consultation, please contact our plastic surgeons.
<< Back