The INSIDER Summary:
• Women have been subject to impossible beauty standards as long as humanity has existed.
• As a result, women have been trying dangerous ways to achieve these beauty standards long before modern society.
• From radium to soot to mercury, here are some of the most cringe-worthy beauty DIYs of history.
Makeup bags weren't always running over and drugstore aisles didn't always stock your favorite pink shade. From the judgmental eye of older society women to literal cosmetics bans, many women were forced to turn into kitchen beauticians and make their own crayons and creams. There were plenty of beauty DIYs women made in the past to get their makeup fixes, but some of them ran a little more creative (or desperate!) than others.
In the Victorian times it was seen as unlady-like to paint one's face, and your name would come up in gossip circles around tea if you got a little too bold with your rouge. In the 1920's makeup was just hitting department stores, and not everyone had the funds (or the chutzpah) to pick up a mascara brush, leading many to keep making their own. While in the '40s the World War led to country-wide rations, using the metal from lipstick tubes and curling irons to create tanks and bombs. All throughout history women had to make do and create their own beauty fixes — below are some of the more interesting beauty DIYs from the past.
1. "Painting" your skin with fireplace soot
During the Victorian times, the only place where red lipstick and rouge were to be found were under the hot, bright lights of a stage and in the velvet contents of an actress' clutch. It was also tucked away into proper ladies' powder rooms, but no one was willing to talk about that. It was the great lie of the 19th century, where "painting" was seen as something only loose women and stage actresses (one in the same) would dabble with. Wives and daughters of polite society would never touch the stuff...though behind the closed doors of their bedrooms, they whipped together pomades and creams like the best of them.
"A woman was either 'painted' or 'natural.' To be painted was more daring, as often cosmetics would be seen in the theater or on prostitutes," Alexis Karl, perfumer and lecturer at Pratt Institute who's done extensive research on Victorian cosmetics, shares in an email with Bustle.
The "natural" take included using home ingredients that turned the woman into a kitchen beautician, enhancing her appearance with things like red flower petals and fireplace soot without looking obviously done-up. From skin powders to mascara, she had a recipe for everything.
2. Whitening your face with starch... Or radium
During a time where foundation wasn't something you could openly ask for at the counter, women had to get a little creative when it came to primping their pallor. And they found the ingredients for their cover-up right there on the shelves of the kitchen pantry.
"There are many wonderful recipes for face powder found in beauty columns of the time. One of my personal favorites is Violet Powder: Orris root (which smells like violet pastilles) along with essential oil of lemon, bergamot and cloves, and a base of wheat starch. Sargent’s model, of the famed Madame X painting, was known to use lavender powder, which in fact cast a remarkable blue tint over her skin!" Karl shares.
So to make the powder you would have to buy the roots at the local market, add a teaspoon of lemon oil, mix a pinch of citrus and cloves, and sift it together through starch. It literally sounds like the makings of a cake!
But while some women would DIY actual face powder, most opted to pale or flush their face with the help of cleansers, not cosmetics. "Their skin care regimen included skin washes made of ammonia and rose water, and they would take radium baths for delicate, pearlescent skin," explains Karl.
But if taking a radio-active bath wasn't enough, Karl points out they also would sip arsenic in water to achieve a certain translucence that gave a deathly, consumptive pallor that was thought to be beautiful and fragile.
Not that they didn't understand that was harmful. "Women knew the dangers of arsenic, as it was used as a rat poison in many a Victorian home, yet women would sip it nonetheless in the name of beauty," Karl confirms. With no compacts for sale, a girl had to do what she had to do.
3. Darkening your eyes with burnt bread... Or mercury
If your husband burnt his toast in the morning, you'd secretly jump for joy because you now had your makings for eyeliner. In order to accent their eyes, Puritan women used ingredients around the kitchen to darken and tint, and one of them was ruined bread. "The Ugly Girl Papers [a Harpers Bazaar column] mentions using the remains of burnt bread on one’s eyes as a delicate eyeliner, or walnut juice to darken eyelashes and eyebrows," Karl shares.
If you were too nervous to visibly tint your lashes, you might settle for growing them longer and thicker with rub-in tonics. But instead of using harmless ingredients like walnuts and ashes, women dabbed mercury onto their fingertips and rubbed. "Mercury was mixed with lard and then applied to thicken lashes, which was then rinsed with warm milk," Karl says. But as you can imagine, that could lead to some number of doctor's appointments.
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