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In Consumed: Bare Escentuals: How a cosmetics company replaced romance with the glow of rationality.

For a glimpse of what cosmetics marketing used to look like, flip through the recent book “Hello Gorgeous!” a collection of beauty-product advertising images from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. “Glamour for You!” squeals one such ad for something called Stadium Girl Cake Makeup, featuring an apple-cheeked young woman and a promise to make the user’s complexion “more romantic than ever.” Elsewhere, a presumably satisfied cosmetics customer in a bridal gown is literally hauled off by a handsome man.

Whether you see such images as being shot through with optimism or just naïvete, it seems a long way from the sort of pitch used by Bare Escentuals, a cosmetics brand whose revenues for 2006 topped $300 million — more than double the figure from 2004.

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