Beauty Standards: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Makeup Advertisements by Maybelline and CoverGirl

It could be argued that makeup are products that are almost exclusively targeting women, and the advertising of makeup could create an image of how women should look. This study investigates how two cosmetic brands, Maybelline and CoverGirl, are advertising makeup in social media and what this conveys about gender and beauty. The study is approached from Fairclough’s (1995) three dimensional model while considering strategies of advertising and gender discourse. Through a textual analysis, it was found that although the brands want to transmit an emotion of confidence to women, the advertisements still display and communicate gender in stereotypical ways