Lipstick, Illusion, and Desire
Written by Rois Kim
Lipstick, Illusion, and Desire
Comparing Mad Men’s “Mark Your Man” with 1960s Lipstick Ads
When Mad Men aired “The Hobo Code,” it didn’t just tell a story about 1960s advertising—it became one. The episode’s fictional Belle Jolie campaign, “Mark Your Man,” is a mirror held up to an era when women’s identities were painted, sold, and defined through shades of red. Through comparative analysis of this ad and three real lipstick campaigns from 1960s—Cashmere Bouquet’s “Pink A Boo,” Revlon’s “The Worldly Young Innocents,” and Max Factor’s “Make you more desirable”—we can see how the rhetoric of female empowerment was less about the reality than about the illusion of it. In this blog post, I compare written and visual aspects of the advertisments from 1960s and analyze textual context of Mad Men episode to find out how admen targeted female customers in the 1960s, leading to the conclusion that even when women appeared active, they were confined to the passivity within a norm designed by and for men.
Two Different Approaches: Desire vs. Be Desired
In “The Hobo Code,” Peggy Olson gains recognition with her proposed idea for Belle Jolie lipstick: “Mark Your Man.” She was in a secret relationship with Pete Campbell who has a fiancée. Due to this success, Peggy is congratulated showing her professional rise in the male-dominated Sterling Cooper office. Pete, however, reacts dismissively, revealing jealousy towards her.
Meanwhile, Lois Sadler, who works in the switchboard room to connect workers’ phone calls, overhears the call between Salvatore Romano and his mom. She gradually gets to have a crush on Salvatore. However, at the end of the episode, there is a scene where he experiences his own moment of suppressed truth — nearly acting on romantic feelings for a male client but backing away due to social repression.
This is the print ad for Belle Jolie lipstick: “Mark Your Man.”
Image 1. Fictional print ad of Belle Jolie lipstickThe slogan suggests female initiative—the woman is the one who chooses and possesses a man. Visually, the poster fills nearly 70 percent of its space with a glamorous woman’s close-up. Her green dress and eyes contrast sharply with her red lips and the red tagline, while a blurred man in the background bears a lipstick mark on his cheek. This draws the viewer into her gaze and away from the man. The ad appeals to potential female customers by leading them to imagine themselves as the ones in control.
Yet, all the real ads aim for one message: “Men would like this.” In the Mad Men ad, women could desire men, whereas in reality, women buy the products with the hope to be desired.
The Real Ads: Language that Frames Desire
Image 2. Print ad of Cashmere Bouquet lipstickThe real lipstick ads from the 1960s expose how linguistic play sustains the same paradox.
Cashmere Bouquet’s “Pink A Boo” (1965) toys with innocence and seduction. The phrase is from “peek-a-boo,” but its copy clarifies the lipstick is “strictly for grown-ups.” A man’s hand covers part of the woman’s face while her eyes glance toward him—startled yet flirtatious. The pun infantilizes women even as it sexualizes them, positioning attraction as something that happens to them, not by them.
Image 3. Print ad of Revlon lipsticksRevlon’s “The Worldly Young Innocents” takes contradiction even further. Its tagline emphasizes the innocence, promising that these three shades can make a woman “young, fragile, and faintly frosted.” The model wears pajamas and holds a teddy bear—symbols of girlhood—yet her polished hair and makeup broadcast adulthood. The rhetoric invites women to stage themselves as protectable, reinforcing the idea that desirability depends on male approval.
Image 4. Print ad of Max Factor LipsticksMax Factor’s “Colours with a hint of warmth that makes cool lips even more desirable” (1966) does not feature a female model. A man stands at the center of the image, dwarfed by towering lipstick tubes. Though visually minimized, he remains the axis of meaning—the silent judge whose gaze validates female beauty.
Across these ads, the copywriting reveals a consistent rhetorical stance: women act only to elicit male reaction. The action belongs to the product (“makes,” “exposes,” “surprises”), not the women. Language grants movement to lipstick, not to people.
Visual Composition: The Active Image, Passive Meaning
Lipstick ads of the 1960s often appeared bold and woman-focused, but compositionally they served the same hierarchy.
In Mad Men’s Belle Jolie poster, the woman dominates the frame, yet her identity is tethered to the lipstick mark on the man’s face. The visual grammar says: you are powerful when he is marked.
Compare this to Cashmere Bouquet’s photo, where a man’s hand enters the frame from behind the woman. His unseen body suggests omnipresence; she reacts. The viewer’s eye moves from his hand to her startled face, replicating the rhythm of intrusion.
In Revlon’s ad, the model’s teddy bear functions as a prop of purity. The curving fonts and soft lighting echo the tone of bedtime stories. The message is not adulthood but childhood—youth re-packaged as cosmetic performance.
In Max Factor’s design, six lipstick tubes stand upright like monuments around a miniature man. The inversion seems playful but ultimately centers his perspective: he discovers desirability among colors.
Each arrangement performs the same rhetoric: women appear visually central but narratively secondary. The ads frame their beauty as a spectacle rather than subjective.
But Mad Men Ad Seems to Portray Women Power?
The tagline "Mark Your Man" celebrates a fantasy of female control. Women is the one who make their own choices. Women marks their men.
No, it isn’t.
Yet, the show undermines this illusion. In the episode’s story, Peggy cannot “mark” Pete Campbell, and Lois who desires Salvatore cannot claim him either. Their choices collapse within male-dominated systems of romance and work. Mad Men turns advertising’s empowerment rhetoric into a critique—women’s “marking” is symbolic, not structural.
Peggy Olson’s tagline seems to liberate women: she writes the slogan, she owns the idea. But in practice, both Peggy and her fictional consumers remain bound to male validation.
The lipsticks promise action(“mark,” “expose,” “surprise,” “make desirable”), but the agent of that action is never truly the woman. Instead, it is the male gaze interpreting it.
Mad Men ad doesn't escape this logic.
Marking the Limits
We wear make up but we never see ourselves. It is based on the notion that people will see our appearances. However, the story of lipstick advertising in the 1960s—fictional or real—is a bit extreme. It is the story of women’s agency transformed into spectacle. Mad Men’s “Mark Your Man” seems to grant women power, but the show’s broader narrative exposes that power as conditional. The real ads of Cashmere Bouquet, Revlon, and Max Factor never disguised their purpose: to make women more desirable to men.
Still, both versions speak to the same cultural anxiety: in mid-century America, beauty was a language women learned to speak fluently but never owned.
Works Cited
“The Hobo Code.” Mad Men, season 1, episode 8, AMC, 6 September 2007. Philo, https://www.philo.com.
“Pink A Boo.” Magazine advertisement for Cashmere Bouquet lipsticks. The Advertising Archives, 1965, https://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/cdn/advertisingarchives/previews/93/697657d776425ea28f7f7a268aca3d42/17/8c6d6bc2cddba24b51bc169c6c52060e/27687.jpg.
“The Worldy Young Innocents.” Magazine advertisement for Revlon Lipsticks. The Advertising Archives, circa 1960s, https://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/cdn/advertisingarchives/previews/291728/72b4a7829c32f1673c323870e06e84b6/17/af7cbcd53b34a44a90820f5fe837bf78/87518192.jpg.
“Colours with a hint of warmth that makes cool lips even more desirable.” Magazine Advertisement for Max Factor lipsticks. The Advertising Archives, 1966, https://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/cdn/advertisingarchives/previews/110/fcf302e708710bdf3d740257790a9009/17/f7288bd813a7b3abc0e5da1accffbc7f/32980.jpg.