There’s nothing surprising about women’s magazines running articles on cosmetics. But, in China in the 1910s, these stories weren’t just beauty tips but also instructions for amateur chemists to make their own products. In fact, historian Eugenia Lean argues, they actually represented an implicit invitation for both women and men to engage in a new world of technology and industrial activity in a fast-changing country.

Lean writes that, at this time, ideas about status were in flux, particularly for men. For centuries, elite young men had focused on literary study and work in the imperial bureaucracy. Careers in trade and industry were less prestigious. Following the 1911 revolution, cheerleaders for modernization and industrialization in the new Republic sought to change that perception, celebrating the study of chemistry and physics, and related technical work, as admirable endeavors.

Enter the women’s magazines. Lean writes that it’s important to know that these publications occupied a different cultural space than their American equivalents. China had a centuries-long tradition of men writing in a female voice to frame arguments about political and social change as emotionally genuine. And, in the early twentieth century, images of the modern Chinese female student or housewife were powerful symbols of new ways of life that seemed relevant to men as well. Women’s magazines were a prime space for discussions of social and technological change.

“Male contributors frequently assumed the moniker of ‘Lady’ [nüshi] so-and-so to enjoin male and female readers to be a part of the ‘women’s world,’” Lean writes.

Female-coded publications were a promising space for discussion of technology and industry in part because the class distinctions around manual work were different for women. In the late imperial period, upper-class women frequently took part in crafting and manufacturing, especially textile-making.

And so, women’s magazines published articles explaining how individual women could make soaps, makeup, and other cosmetic products that would be less expensive and more hygienic than mass-produced versions available at pharmacies. These went well beyond simple recipes, often including discussion of the chemical principles involved, Latin names for botanical ingredients, and chemical formulas.

“These writings emphasized experimentation, sensory know-how, and bodily engagement,” Lean writes.

Lean suggests that it’s likely men who were interested in starting cosmetic manufacturing companies read the articles with interest—and that they were actually written with that audience in mind. For example, one column on soap-making included the assertion that consumers turned to foreign soap because the ones made by Chinese manufacturers were of poor quality. Then, the writer offers a recipe that starts with more than 80 pounds of cow fat—far too much for a household craft project.

“The domestic and, indeed, the feminine itself became metaphors for the productivity of a commercial and scientific culture that thrived, in contrast to the (masculine) political arena,” Lean writes.

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