In modern society, make up has become a part of our daily life, and it often plays important role to build up good human relationships. However, beauty aesthetics of human being appears in different aspects depending on when and where. Therefore, make... In modern society, make up has become a part of our daily life, and it often plays important role to build up good human relationships. However, beauty aesthetics of human being appears in different aspects depending on when and where. Therefore, makeup behavior of certain generation and region ends up to show various figures. Complicated elements of certain generation and region has huge affection on maintaining and changing all the sorts of makeup patterns, so when you research about makeup behavior, researching about the sociocultural situation of the certain generation and region needs to be done at the same time. The aim of this research is to investigate and compare the difference between makeup styles of two countries as they evolved after World War II. This was done by analyzing post-World War II cover girls of the magazines, magazine articles about women and cosmetic-related research literatures. A summary of our research results are as followed: In Korea, between the end of World War II and the 1960s, there was little advancement in makeup styles from the traditional manner, despite that some Western makeup culture was already introduced. In the 1970s, makeup began to be an important part of the fashion world. Then, in the 1980s, makeup became increasingly popular to the main stream population. As people started to get economically rich and appreciate their individualism in the 1990s, makeup was used as a tool for self-expression. Finally, in the 2000s, with a society-wide phenomenon to live more natural lifestyle, Korean makeup products, which favored Korean style natural ingredients, emerged as a global trend. In 2010s, Korean original clean and natural makeup style which has both features of transparent makeup style with fair skin and smoky makeup with dark colored eyeshadow was spotlighted. On the other hand, immediately after World War II in Japan, makeup was already being used to express personal identity, but the makeup only used traditional three primary colors. In the 1960s, makeup became popular to main stream consumers thanks to dramatic economic growth and it completely grew out of traditional three primary colors. From the 1970s through the 1980s, the bubble economy led Japanese to be more proud of their own culture, and the cultural trend moved away from Western influence restoring the traditional Japanese sense of beauty. Also, makeup changed to have more individual meaning than social meaning. This transition allowed society to also explore different makeup styles and diversify the meaning of beauty in the 1990s. Makeup style called Ganguro is a good example to see how diverse Japanese makeup was. In the 2000s, economic depression and large earthquake made people anxious and to be more conservative, so looking cute and innocent became a Japanese fashion trend resulting in a makeup technique that focused on the eyes. In 2010s, Japan’s economy got better thanks to Abenomics and this revived the bold makeup style trend such as red lipstick and thick eyebrows. To investigate those different makeup style between Korea and Japan is, so to speak, the result of difference of sense of beauty which reflects social and timely background. Between the end of World War II and the 1960s, rapid westernization, social advance and status improvement of woman, development of communication means, and the wave of globalization helped western values took place of Korean traditional values immediately. Korean societies perceived body images wasn’t exception, especially after 1990s. Society made it harder for people to figure out their identity clearly only through the religion or tradition. Thus, they tried to figure out their definite self-image and identity from their own bodies. All those perceived body images developed in different forms in two countries, and it has something to do with their traditional sense of beauty. Korean sense of beauty finds beauty in frankness and simpleness but not gorgeousness or brilliantness, therefore it refuses anything artificial or fancy and values beauty of nature. That sense of beauty definitely affected Korean makeup culture and Korean always have been preferred to wear more simple and natural makeup, which can’t be described as extravagance or unnatural. On the other hand, Japanese sense of beauty has two kinds, which is beauty of dressing up and beauty of anti-dressing up. Beauty of dressing up values gorgeous decorative features, and in makeup, it appears as beauty of transformation. Beauty of anti-dressing up features extreme excision and simplifying process and shows the climax of artificial beauty. However, there’s difference between Korean beauty of nature that pursues beauty of real nature and Japanese style beauty of nature that get rid of all the decorations and shows the peak of artificial beauty. Modern people regret for destroying environment and natural order, so they started to think that not only their life style should be more nature friendly but also their body should be regarded as a part of nature. This belief and trend let people to revalue Korean style natural makeup as a good way to return to nature. So as a result, makeup styles in Korea were heavily influenced by Western and Japanese cultures for a while following World War II. However, after the 21stcentury, with the rise in international popularity of Korean K-pop wave, Korean makeup styles are setting their own trends and now have a significant impact on Japanese beauty industries.
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