A01=Eileen G'Sell
aesthetics
Author_Eileen G'Sell
beauty
beauty industry
beauty standards
Category=GTD
Category=JBCC2
Category=QDTN
Category=WJH
cosmetics
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
femininity
Gen Z
gender
gender nonconformity
influencer culture
material culture
pop culture
self-expression
semiotics
sexuality
Product details
- ISBN 9798765135587
- Weight: 200g
- Dimensions: 114 x 166mm
- Publication Date: 16 Apr 2026
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
From Revlon to Glossier, from Marilyn to Gaga, lipstick is as shape-shifting and unwieldy as femininity itself.
Who wears lipstick today – as a matter of routine? And for those who do, is it out of obligation to a strict feminine standard, or some other reason entirely? Lipstick reconsiders the beauty world’s most conspicuous – and contentious – tool of artifice. Tossing expired ideas about femininity like so many tubes of melting wax, Lipstick explores how self-adornment can be a source of play, pleasure, and transformation, as well as how lipstick can knock gender norms off balance.
Eileen G’Sell is Teaching Professor of College Writing at Washington University, St. Louis, USA. She is also the film critic for The Hopkins Review, an award-winning literary and culture magazine published by Johns Hopkins University. Her writing has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Baffler, Jacobin, Los Angeles Review of Books, Belt Magazine, Current Affairs, Film Quarterly, and Hyperallergic, among other publications. In 2023, she received the Rabkin prize in arts journalism.
