PAINT IT ON

Anybody else resort to self-tanner for sleek legs with summer skirts? I’m owning it!
It may be vain to want to cover my gardening bruises and training-wheels scar, but it’s a lot healthier and safer than the sun. And it’s the modern version of a World War II invention, so I like to think of myself as following in Rosie the Riveter’s (bare) footsteps!
From about the 1920s to the mid-1960s, silk, and later nylon, stockings were an integral, and quite honestly, iconic, part of any woman’s outfit. They deserve a post or two on another day – watch this space!
During World War II, though, silk and nylon were needed for the war effort, so stockings became vanishingly rare and expensive. Women wore the ones they had until they shredded. And then?
Enter leg makeup!
Or, as the bottle in the Smithsonian puts it, “Leg Silque Liquid Stockings.” Makeup, often liquid, but possibly cream or stick, too, in a color and finish that faked the look of silk stockings. Pictures show women painting it on with brushes or dabbing it on with an applicator. Either way, it has a little bit of texture to give the illusion of a stocking. Women heightened the illusion by painting on seams (this was back when stockings had them!) with eyeliner.
Some ladies even got very creative and painted on a heavier texture for the stocking tops.
As those of us who self-tan our legs know, none of this was a party.
Liquid makeup would be insanely messy to apply, whether by brush or sponge, and really the cream or stick wasn’t much of an upgrade. Even with modern makeup technology, liquid formulas don’t dry quickly, and the heavier ones often smudge on contact. And if there’s anyone who doesn’t work for Cirque de Soleil who can get an even coat on their own upper back thigh, I want to meet 'em!
Plenty of reason, then, for a trip to the Leg Makeup Bar.
To encourage women to use leg paint, shoe and department stores put up little salons where helpful female employees would apply it for you, complete with perfectly straight seams. It wasn’t cheap, but it was affordable enough that many women would happily plonk down the money to avoid the mess.
One thing that’s not at all clear from my research is how the stuff STAYED on. Modern long wear foundation formulas can stand up to a fair degree of wear, but body makeup has always been a pretty messy proposition, which I can verify as a college summer theatre veteran. An educated guess would be some kind of improvised sealant, like a thin layer of hairspray. If there’s a reader out there who knows – or who has a Grandma Rosie to ask, please enlighten me!
Women didn’t put all this hard work and ingenuity into fake stockings just to look good. They did it to show their support for the war effort and the boys (and, as the conflict went on, girls) overseas. This was message beauty: giving the soldiers something to fight for – and telling the Axis powers that not only were we going to win, we were going to look absolutely terrific doing it.
Not a bad message even today!

Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!