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50 free Makeup trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free Makeup trivia questions with answers. Makeup has a history as old as Egypt and a business as big as any on earth, and this quiz covers both. It ranges from kohl, Greek white lead and the poisonous Venetian ceruse to the first lipstick tube, the invention of Pan-Cake foundation, the lifelong feud between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, and the modern giants: L'Oréal, Revlon, Maybelline, MAC, Sephora, Chanel No. 5, Fenty and Kylie. Easy questions cover things anyone with a makeup bag knows. Harder ones ask what mascara literally means, who patented the swivel lipstick, where Rubinstein sold her first cream, which race Arden's horse won, and why Chanel picked the number five. It suits a beauty-themed party, a salon quiz or a general-knowledge round. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on cosmetics, their history, and the brands and founders, and each question carries its source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word cosmetics comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Order and ornament
Kosmos gave us both cosmetics and cosmos, since both are about arrangement.
Q 02Which two ancient civilisations are cited as the earliest known users of cosmetics?
Egyptians and Sumerians
Sumerians crushed gemstones to decorate their lips and eyes; Egyptians lined their eyes with kohl.
Q 03The Egyptian eye cosmetic kohl was traditionally made with which lead compound?
Galena
Wearers believed the dark rim protected against the evil eye and the glare of the desert sun.
Q 04As early as 10,000 BC, Egyptians and Mesopotamians wore eyeliner partly for what practical reason?
To protect the skin from the desert sun
The winged 'cat eye' returned to fashion after Tutankhamun's tomb was opened in 1922.
Q 05Around 200 BC, what did ancient Greek women apply to lighten their skin?
White lead powder and chalk
Lead-based whiteners persisted for nearly two thousand years, culminating in the deadly Venetian ceruse.
Q 06Venetian ceruse, the prized 16th-century skin whitener, was made from water, vinegar and what?
Lead
The Tudor queen is thought to have used it heavily, and chronic lead poisoning may have contributed to her death.
Q 07Which queen is most associated with the fashion for bright red lips and a stark white face?
Elizabeth I
Cleopatra's lip colour is often said to have come from crushed insects; carmine from cochineal was indeed used for red.
Q 08Which 19th-century monarch publicly declared makeup improper and vulgar, fit only for actors?
Queen Victoria
Famous actresses such as Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry wore it anyway, and by 1910 it was fashionable again.
Q 09Which Parisian house created the first commercial lipstick in the 1880s?
Guerlain
It was wrapped in silk paper and applied with a brush; the metal tube arrived in 1915 and the swivel tube in 1923.
Q 10Who patented the first swivel-up lipstick tube in 1923?
James Bruce Mason Jr.
Maurice Levy's 1915 metal cylinder had already made mass production possible.
Q 11Which chemist created the first long-lasting 'kissproof' lipstick, No-Smear, in the late 1940s?
Hazel Bishop
She formed Hazel Bishop Inc. in 1950; wartime work in science had opened the door for women chemists.
Q 12The word mascara is closely related to the Portuguese word máscara, meaning what?
Mask
A related Catalan word means soot or a black smear.
Q 13In which languages does the name Rimmel still literally mean 'mascara'?
Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, Turkish and Persian
Chemist Eugène Rimmel built the early product on newly invented petroleum jelly.
Q 21In which year did Max Factor emigrate from the Russian Empire, later moving his makeup business to Los Angeles?
1904
He fled rising anti-Jewish persecution and found a market in the young film industry.
Q 22What was Max Factor's Pan-Cake, patented in 1937?
A foundation makeup
It became the standard makeup for Technicolor films and one of the most successful cosmetic launches ever.
Q 23What device did Max Factor build to test his lipstick's resistance to fading?
A kissing machine
He also invented a Beauty Calibrator to measure faces and created signature shades for stars like Jean Harlow.
Q 14Maybelline takes its name from whom?
The founder's sister Mabel
He saw Mabel darkening her lashes with Vaseline and coal dust and named his 1915 eye beautifier after her.
Q 15Which cosmetics giant has owned Maybelline since 1996?
L'Oréal
The brand, founded in Chicago in 1915, moved its headquarters to New York that same year.
Q 16Who in 1957 turned mascara from a hard cake into a lotion-based cream?
Helena Rubinstein
Before that, users rubbed a dampened brush against a cake of soap and black dye.
Q 17The Kraków-born founder who launched Crème Valaze started her cosmetics empire in which country?
Australia
Born in Kraków, she worked as a waitress in a Melbourne tearoom before an admirer funded the cream.
Q 18Which cosmetics rival did the Kraków-born Crème Valaze magnate feud with for her entire life?
Elizabeth Arden
Both built salon empires in 1910s New York, and their rivalry became a play, Lip Service, and a Broadway musical.
Q 19The stable of the founder of the Red Door salons won which race in 1947 with Jet Pilot?
The Kentucky Derby
Born Florence Nightingale Graham in Canada, she named the farm after her spa.
Q 20What was Estée Lauder's first fragrance, launched in 1953 as a bath oil that doubled as perfume?
Youth-Dew
She founded her company in 1946 and was the only woman on Time's 1998 list of the century's 20 most influential business geniuses.
Q 24Which company bought Max Factor from Revlon in 1991 for $1.5 billion?
Procter & Gamble
Coty later bought it, with other beauty brands, from P&G in 2015 for $12 billion.
Q 25Revlon was founded in New York in 1932 with a single product. What was it?
Nail enamel
Chemist Charles Lachman contributed the 'L' in the name; the firm used pigments instead of dyes to create new shades.
Q 26Where does the 'L' in Revlon come from?
Chemist Charles Lachman
Brothers Charles and Joseph Revson founded the firm with Lachman in the depths of the Depression.
Q 27In what year did Revlon file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy?
2022
It emerged in May 2023.
Q 28Which French chemist founded the company that became L'Oréal in 1909 with a hair dye?
Eugène Schueller
L'Oréal is now the world's largest cosmetics company, and Nestlé has held a stake since 1974.
Q 29Which company ranked as the world's largest cosmetics maker in 2024?
L'Oréal
It is headquartered in Clichy near Paris and owns Maybelline, Lancôme and Garnier among others.
Q 30MAC Cosmetics was founded in 1984 in which city?
Toronto
Frank Toskan and Frank Angelo made it for models first; Estée Lauder took 51 percent in 1994 and full control by 1998.