Nitrate Diva

Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones (1954).

Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).

Mae Clarke in Waterloo Bridge (1931).

Jean Harlow in Dinner at Eight (1933).

Ella Raines in Phantom Lady (1944).

From Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus (1947).

Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1946).

Gloria Grahame in The Big Heat (1953).

Greta Garbo as Ninotchka (1939) indulges in her first lipstick.

Louise Brooks in Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (1926).

Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1946).

Olive Thomas applies her lipstick in The Flapper (1920).

From Kiss and Make-Up (1934).

Dolores del Rio preens in some 1920s candid footage.

From Tex Avery's "Little 'Tinker" (1948).

Kathleen Byron in Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus (1947).

Renée Godfrey in Terror by Night (1946).