The History of Chola Makeup, According to a Cosmetic Historian

Do you ever stop and ask yourself the origin of a makeup trend, especially one that’s been so deeply hailed in mainstream beauty? Well, it’s our job to get you answers. Since we’re coming off the heels of Latinx Heritage Month and deep in the midst of Halloween season, we decided to explore the origins of one “costume makeup trend” we see year after year — Chola beauty. Most of us might already know that the Chola aesthetic we see today stems from Mexican-American culture, but we wanted to dig deeper.

We spoke with Gabriela Hernandez, Bésame Cosmetics founder, cosmetic historian and author of Classic Beauty: The History of Makeup. She gave us a beauty history lesson in all things Chola-inspired, and shouted out some other contributions by the Latinx community that have found a place in our regular beauty routines.

What are your thoughts on Chola-inspired makeup becoming a trend, especially surrounding Halloween? When does it become cultural appropriation?

I'm not Mexican. I'm from Argentina, so I’m coming from the place of a historian speaking to the trends. The Chola trend that you're seeing came from World War II when Mexican girls were emulating the styles that were popular at that time. But they wanted to also kind of separate themselves from that by being more subversive about it, so they took the style of the period and adapted it. They wanted to be more on the fringe of what society considered acceptable. 

The red lips were something that everybody was wearing at the time but they took it to a different place with the contrasting liner. The same with the brows — brows had been thin and long in the ‘30s (then they got a little bit more natural looking in the ‘40s) but they also obviously went very extreme making them very long and very thin. Chicana women did their own spin on pompadours and the zoot suits men were wearing, too.

The fact that people copy historical looks by dressing like the ‘20s or the ‘30s doing flapper looks — it feels similar, whether it's accurate or not. That's not really that important because most styles that are used as a costume become more of a caricature of what the style is. It's an exaggeration for the purpose of being a costume or something recognized easily by other people.

When you see these flapper costumes with little feathers in their hair and the fringy dress — that's a caricature of the style. That's not necessarily what people wore but that's what people recognize as the 1920s, so when you see it you go, ‘oh, that's a flapper.’ I think that’s what’s become of Chola makeup and fashion. But if you're dressing like that and you're not actually in that group that might be offensive because culturally, that was supposed to be indicative of their own group — being Latin and not part of the ‘American standard of beauty.’

Are there any other Latinx beauty trends you’ve noticed go mainstream recently?

I think we're looking outside our borders for other ideas and other types of beauty that might be interesting instead of just sticking to what we know. The world is more connected now, so it's easier to see what people are doing in other places than it was several years ago because now you have access to Instagram and Facebook. I think we feel maybe more connected as a society — even though there are obviously differences between people and political separation — I think culturally speaking, when you're looking at beauty, people are more open to seeing what others are doing in other places. 

That's why you see people wearing their hair curly or natural, because in Latin America people do wear natural textures. Dewy, more moisturized skin is definitely something you see in African and Caribbean countries where people don't use as much foundation because climates are more humid. It's very hard to wear that kind of heavy makeup, so most of the time people don't wear it at all. Their skin looks naturally dewy. That look is being emulated now in mainstream beauty, but it stemmed from island beauty.