10 Dumb and Deadly Things Victorian Women Did To Be Prettier
Makeup was for prostitutes, so “good girls” got creative.
In Victorian England, makeup was for prostitutes and it was all Queen Victoria’s fault. Before she came along with her plain old face, painted white faces and red lips were all the fashion.
Then Victoria came along and announced that makeup is vulgar and not for respectable women. Only prostitutes and women who sell their bodies wear makeup, she said.
So, if you didn’t want men thinking your price was anything other than a wedding band, makeup was out. Plus, even if there were no men around, you just knew some frenemy was going to make a snide remark about looking like a “painted lady.”
That was the polite way of saying you look like a damn prostitute.
So, what was a good girl to do?
Get creative, of course.
Natural beauties have always had “a little” help. And it’s not like capitalism didn’t exist. Lots of companies were only too happy to help mother nature or a plain jane with their non-makeup beauty products.
Whew. Money to the rescue. lol.
Good thing, too, because everyone knew the prettiest girls got first pick of the best and wealthiest bachelors. Don’t look so shocked. It’s not like men wanted their women working back then.
Many of the “natural” beauty products were dumb and deadly.
But, meh. What’s a little risk to marry well?
Here’s some of the dumbest ones…
1. They bleached their skin with arsenic or ammonia
White skin was very, very important. Rich men didn’t want to marry some poor working woman and take on her family’s debts. Thanks, but no thanks.
So what’s the surest way to look like a wealthy lady from a rich family? White skin. Farm girls and laborers didn’t have white skin, see? So they wanted skin so white it’s almost translucent.
If you had the money, you could buy arsenic that would just “shame” that old white powder. Why powder your face when you can bleach it? And if those weren’t affordable, you could just sleep with lettuce leaves on your face and then wash with ammonia every morning. Because, beauty!
2. Rub a dub dub, arsenic & Sulphur in the tub
Today we worry about tan lines. Victorian women worried about bleach lines. It would never do to have a lovely white face and body that didn’t match. Thank goodness for Lola Montez!
Lola was a famous Victorian era actress who wrote a beauty book that was very popular. She said when she was in Bohemia, it was common for women to bathe in the arsenic springs. It was very dangerous, she said, but oh my the women had the loveliest translucent white skin.
Most women couldn’t afford to go to the Bohemian arsenic springs, but the druggist certainly did have arsenic rat poison. Into the tub it went, along with a bar of pure Sulphur soap. “As effective as the Sulphur springs!”
3. And arsenic lotion, too. For good measure!
Get out of the bathtub, honey. It’s not safe to soak in arsenic too long. That stuff kills rats, you know. Just a quick soak, and then follow up with arsenic lotion. It will keep bleaching your skin all day and restore that youthful pallor and lovely complexion. I guess they didn’t realize that the skin actually soaks up what they put on it? What’s a little poison in trade for luminescent skin?
4. Camphor mouthwash and charcoal toothpaste
The best toothpaste was powdered charcoal. Guaranteed to give you the most sparkling white teeth. And if you can’t afford powered charcoal, it’s okay. You can just burn your toast and then scrape the black bits onto a toothbruth.
Not even kidding. You can’t make that stuff up. It’s straight out of the Personal Beauty Guide that was all the rage. Plus, one teaspoon of ammonia in a glass of water would prevent cavities. Ammonia. lol. Can you believe that?
And if you did have cavities, heaven forbid? Then you make a mouthwash of brandy, myrrh and spirits of camphor. Nevermind that swallowing spirits of camphor could lead to death. Just spit, honey.
5. They risked baldness and hair fires for curls
Woe the poor woman who didn’t have natural curls, for they were the mark of a true lady. Curling tongs to the rescue! But alas, using them was an art. And if you didn’t get the art just right, you’d best hope you have a wig in the closet.
No electricity or temperature control, of course. So, you’d take those tongs and plunge them into the coals or a fire to heat them up. Then you had to let them cool just a little. That was the art part.
If the tongs were too cold, your hair wouldn’t curl. If they were too hot, your hair would burn right off. Hair growth remedies to the rescue!
6. They used mercury and lead eye powder
You mustn’t confuse eye powder with eye shadow. No, no, no. Fine Victorian ladies didn’t wear eye shadow. Incidentally, the colored stuff was called “eye paint” and only prostitutes and other fallen women wore it.
But a little “all natural” eye powder above the eye to define the brow and make their eyes stand out, that was fine. It was made out of natural ingredients, like lead, mercury and crushed cochineal beetles. Gross!
7. And put deadly nightshade in their eyes…
In the Victorian era, dilated pupils were considered beautiful, so women used eye drops made with deadly nightshade from the belladonna plant because it dilated pupils instantly. When it wore off, no worries. More drops!
It’s called deadly because it is. Know how deadly? If you eat 2 berries or one leaf, it’s fatal. But no worries, they weren’t eating it, silly. Just dropping it in their eyes. Also? If they used it too often, they could go blind.
Oh. And one other thing. Even in small doses, it caused “digestive distress.” Can you even imagine having the trots with dilated pupils? But hey, it wasn’t forever. Just until someone put a ring on your finger.
8. They ate tapeworms. No. Not even kidding.
Diet pills have always been a thing. Thank goodness today they’re mostly just laxatives because in the Victorian era, diet pills were tapeworm eggs in a tablet. Are you grossed out yet? Gag.
Apparently, they’d swallow the pill and the little suckers would hatch inside the stomach and eat all the calories you send their way. They can grow several feet long, so cake and pastry and wine were no problem. Yay, no calories!
Gross, but you’d be able to squeeze that corset much tighter. Ooh la la. When you were the right size, you’d take another pill to kill them. I am not going to explain what happens after that. Not. You figure it out.
9. They crushed their noses with nose shapers
You could even buy a device to reshape your nose. Just strap it on your face before you go to bed every night. You’re not sleeping with anyone anyway, right? So what does it matter what you look like?! And maybe if you wear it for enough nights, it will turn that evil stepsister shnoz into a perky little Cinderella nose so that you are sleeping with someone. Oh the joy of a mail order catalog!
4. Or this a weird contraption to get dimples
We all know the fairest damsels have adorable and identical little dimples that flash so sweetly when she giggles, right? Well, those charming dimples were now available to order. Just sleep with it on your face the night before the ball and maybe keep it on all day before, too. And voila — you, too, can have adorable little damsel dimples.
Dying to be beautiful…
To us, it seems strange to use arsenic in cosmetics, but in the Victorian era, it was everywhere. It was in wallpaper, toys, laundry detergent, medicine, clothing, headdresses, and even socks. Even fabric dyes were made with arsenic. So using it in cosmetics wasn’t really all that strange.
Arsenic poisoning was really hard to detect, especially if it happened slowly. The symptoms mimicked a lot of the common illnesses of the era. Gastrointestinal issues, diarrhea, dehydration.
It just looked like the poor woman was growing sicker, or maybe suffering from general “ill health” or maybe cholera.
But in reality? It wasn’t ill health or cholera.
Women were literally dying to be beautiful.
“The mirror is the worst judge of true beauty”
― Sophia Nam