I never thought that beauty advertisers were particularly well-meaning or wholesome, but the depths to which these companies manipulate consumers utterly shocked me. This should be read by anyone wanting to be more informed about the current level of advertisments and consumerism.

Many thanks to Rowman & Littlefield and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I was provided an advanced copy of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

In college I studied how women's attitudes and beliefs about themselves are influenced by different things, and the subject is extremely nuanced and multifaceted, and can include different sociological, psychological, and even religious influences.

This book is an amazing examination of consumerism and the beauty industry's part in this. it helps to show how media and society are used to identify women's insecurities in order to manipulate them and perpetuate a cycle of weakness and feeling inferior through providing a solution that can only undermine their strength.

Definitely a must-read if you are interested in learning how to help step outside of the cycle that can make you feel so trapped.

Made Up by Martha Laham is a non-fiction book written to educate the reader on how we are conditioned for specific beauty standards and various trends that have influenced us throughout the years. I realized through this book how uneducated I was on how pervasive these negative inputs influence our beliefs about our beauty and the beauty of those around us. I think what was most eye-opening was the fact that this conditioning as influenced women for hundreds or even thousands of years, just the packaging has changed. I highly recommend this for those wanting to learn more about how our beauty standards are created. I believe this is especially important for young girls and women but men can also benefit!

Many thanks to the publisher Rowman & Littlefield and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for this advanced review copy. I learned so much by reading this book. I knew that the cosmetics industry was using their own techniques to get the consumer buy their products but I had no idea how deep this would go.
I loved how the author split the book in different sections, talking about the history of cosmetics, the ingredients, how advertising works and even the beauty ideal through time. There were a lot of pictures included to enhance the reading experience.
I will now check twice before buying a product once on the ingredients and also on dubious claims certain brands are using to make them seem more appealing. I want every girlfriend of mine to read this book so they can be informed about this important topic.

Thank you to Net Galley and Rowman and Littlefield for an advance of this title in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. Made Up is a timely book and strikes close to home with the times. I grew up not even realizing that the advertising and the companies bank (quite literally) on our feelings of not being good enough. There is so little regulation in the US, and many don't realize that a few conglomerates own most of the brands. What are we willing to do just to feel like we've as good as photoshopped models? Can we give a different message to the next generation that they don't have to be so extreme? I'm hoping so, and this book is a good start.

Made Up takes aim at companies whose advertising techniques create feelings of inferiority in their targets...unless they use the hawked product. Are they causing more harm than good? Should there be regulations? Some of us who have reached ripper years realized a long time ago that sex sells and boy do advertisers bombard us with photoshopped celebrity images that promise we can improve our self worth and social lives if we look younger, smell nicer, have whiter teeth, less curves, more curves, etc....ad nauseam! The author points out that this is not a recent thing. Women in particular have been encouraged in printed materials to enhance since the early eighteenth century. Potions and powders aside, there is also the push that if you don’t like the way your nose, lips, cheek bones, breasts, or other body parts are naturally, you should have some work done...Botox, silicone injections, full face lift. There used to be a website that showcased awful plastic surgery outcomes that this reader would peruse on occasion that was enough to make me a firm believer in the late actress Bette Davis’s pronouncement when asked why she never had a face lift. “They’re my wrinkles and I earned every one of them!” I voluntarily reviewed an advance copy of this well written and highly informative book from NetGalley. Highly recommend.