The world's first-ever makeup museum is now open in NYC

Beauty gurus: NYC is now home to the first-ever makeup museum, where you can experience the evolution of makeup in society.

Visitors will get a look at Makeup Museum’s debut exhibition “Pink Jungle: 1950s Makeup in America,” which explores beauty entrepreneurs, icons and vintage artifacts of the decade. Items on display include rare elements of makeup history such as Erno Laszlo’s collection of facial products circa 1959, used by Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo, and an installation on the evolution of brand packaging for items such as eyeliner tools, hair dryers, powders and lipstick cases.

“The Makeup Museum is a critical institution for the cultural landscape in New York because makeup has a 10,000 year history. There is so much that the Makeup Museum wants and has to explore,” says Doreen Bloch, executive director and cofounder of the Makeup Museum.

Museum revelers are asked to download the museum’s app, to see the digitally activated displays and interactive elements, while you explore makeup through the ages, from pharaohs in ancient Egypt to modern looks in contemporary drag. The museum experience is entirely touchless. 

One installation in the museum portrays vintage copies of Ebony and Jet (magazines which are marketed to Black women) and the problematic advertisements that promoted the beauty ideal of whiteness inside such as skin-whitening products.

Bloch adds, "In the middle of the trifecta of crises—health, economic, and social—we have seen that beauty, arts and culture still matter immensely to people. We are so excited to officially open the world's foremost cultural institution dedicated to beauty."

The Makeup Museum is currently open with strict safety policies and procedures including timed ticket entry, online tickets, reduced capacity to 16 percent occupancy (thanks to its hourly staggered ticket structure), mandatory temperature checks and masks must be worn at all times.  

Tickets are on sale now here.

The Makeup Museum is located at 94 Gansevoort Street in Meatpacking.

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