Notes on a vanity

From Marilyn Monroe's makeup to vintage advertisements, makeup artist and collector Erin Parsons believes nothing is too small to be worth preserving.

- KAHINI CALCUTTAWALA

I RECENTLY SUCCUMBED to the Gen Z pimple patch trend, swapping my discreet hydrocolloid stickers for purple hearts. As a longtime cystic acne sufferer, drawing attention to a blemish instead of concealing it felt oddly liberating. I wondered whether the patch-wearing beauties of centuries past had felt the same.

In the 18th century, European aristocracy wore velvet beauty spots to signal everything from flirtation to political allegiance. They stored these in ornate containers. “I have one similar to the piece in François Boucher’s painting of Madame de Pompadour,” says Erin Parsons, makeup artist and archivist, of an 18th-century mother-of-pearl box that she acquired at an auction. It might well be the same piece the French courtesan had in her portrait, given that these were often custom-made.