‘The House of Beauty’ Review: A Revitalizing Revision of a Capitalist Crisis

The cover of Arabelle Sicardi’s “The House of Beauty” seems to ooze glittery blood from a neatly packaged, beautifully presented cosmetics bottle, providing a fitting visual for the careful advertising which covers up the relentless damage that the beauty industry is responsible for. Nonetheless, despite its sobering topic, “The House of Beauty” offers comfort and inspiration for readers between its harrowing yet necessary anecdotes and statistics.

In the collection of essays, Sicardi dives deep into a motley variety of issues plaguing the beauty industry, from Coco Chanel’s rarely mentioned Nazi associations to Sicardi’s own experience with lice and a subsequent haircut to the harrowing nail salon industry. “The House of Beauty” overflows with historical knowledge, allowing readers to trace such contemporary experiences to racism, white supremacy, and exploitation. Rather than taking an accusatory or hostile tone, however, it seems Sicardi is learning alongside their readers, making for an informative and interesting read.

“The House of Beauty” offers eight different approaches to the beauty industry, the first of which plunges readers into the dark side of makeup production. The aptly named essay “Choose Your Own Disaster” takes the form of a “choose your own adventure” book. However, rather than adventure, Sicardi has readers choose between the horrors enabling beauty products — written in second person, you can assume the perspective of a child mining the popular ingredient mica, someone’s first lipstick, or even a hitman whose contract takes out a lawyer fighting against an environmentally harmful company. The informative prose is both exciting and horrifying as readers are faced with challenging scenarios.

But beyond tracing the insidious nature of the beauty industry, “The House of Beauty” is geared towards action: “In Case of Emergency” links the ongoing climate crisis to the beauty industry, “How Beauty Survives a Plague” discusses the COVID-19 pandemic and the lives of incarcerated members of society, and “Near Death is the Father of Beauty” details modern technological efforts to expand beauty beyond the surface of the skin — describing phenomena like bodyhacking, the effort to improve one’s lifestyle through products like nutrition supplements or wearable technology without infringing directly on one’s cellular processes, in contrast to biohacking. These essays teach readers what to look out for in the ever-expanding beauty industry to keep both their safety and that of the planet in mind.

Because Sicardi begins grimly, these three chapters are necessary to ensure readers are not paralyzed by the fear of what has happened, but rather inspired by the hope of a different future. The tone becomes significantly more informal towards the end of the book, weaving through a mesh of personal anecdotes, popular news stories, and more narratives to illustrate the power of the individual.

Overall, “The House of Beauty” is both accessible and instructive. This is epitomized by an essay called “The Heart Chest,” which provides practical information for those inspired to take action on social issues, listing organizations dedicated to climate justice, gender-affirming care, and wellness in marginalized communities, among others. Furthermore, the “Notes” section towards the end of the book carefully outlines the sources which Sicardi referenced while writing, using keywords and phrases rather than footnotes to give readers additional research points and avoid disrupting the casual, personable tone the author takes.

Still, the seventh essay, “Near Death is the Father of Beauty,” offers another anecdote of Sicardi’s that feels somewhat disconnected from the rest of the collection: a reflection on their father’s self-inflicted injury, which landed him in a neck brace. Although a powerful introduction to unequal access for disabled people, such as those who use wheelchairs or prosthetic limbs, Sicardi does little to connect these instances to the broader theme of beauty and continuous self-improvement. The chapter is eye-opening and thought-provokingly well written; however, it leaves readers yearning for a fuller understanding of just how this inequality comes into play.

“The House of Beauty” is wrought with hardship from start to finish, exploring themes that can be difficult to address, from exploitation to climate change. Still, the book’s approach to change is educative and unhurried, mirroring one’s quiet morning routine before venturing out to a protest.

—Staff writer Madelyn E. McKenzie can be reached at madelyn.mckenzie@thecrimson.com.