With top-secret make-up compartments, arsenic baths, and burned off freckles,
being beautiful in the Victorian era was anything but easy and breezy.
Today on Nutty History we’re examining beauty standards in Victorian England. The feminine
ideal of the famously modest period was to look like a wilting, delicate flower. To pull off this
dead rose look, Victorian women used a variety of methods which ranged from peculiar to poisonous.
Don’t try these at home, folks. But before we sharpen our eye pencils, please subscribe
to our channel and let us know what odd occurrences you’d like to hear about next.
You might think that with a beloved female ruler, women of the time would be free to
discuss their beauty practices and openly wear make-up. Not so much. Queen Victoria,
and Victorian society as a whole, deemed make-up the scandalous paint of actresses and prostitutes.
A good and moral woman should avoid make-up altogether and just look naturally beautiful
according to society’s very strict guidelines. Victorian women found themselves stuck between
a rock and a hard place. They were expected to be beautiful by looking a very specific way,
but were judged or critiqued for wearing make-up to help them look that way. Hmm, sounds familiar.
Many Victorian women still used make-up, but they kept their habit hidden as a shameful secret.
This led some to avoid purchasing products, opting for bizarre and even lethal home
concoctions instead. Others would hide make-up in prescription bottles or secret compartments
within their medicine chests. Who knew Estée Lauder could be so James Bond?
In a final step of their top secret make-up mission, many Victorian women applied it subtly,
hoping to appear as if they weren’t wearing any at all.
Since the sentiment of the time favored natural beauty over make-up,
women were encouraged to become beautiful through their attitude and lifestyle instead.
Daily habits were thought to give women the desired look of the era. For instance, engaging
in a walk or physical activity for rosy cheeks, waking up early for brighter lips, or eating a
light diet to discourage pimples. Negative traits like jealousy or laziness were thought to cause
poor appearance, as well as troublesome activities like playing cards or reading novels. The horror!
Besides behavioral changes, Victorians had a laundry list of other bizarre tactics to make
oneself more beautiful, sans make-up. To prevent aging, women would sleep with slices of raw beef
or other animal fats laid over their face. While probably unsanitary and definitely disgusting,
this wasn’t the worst of it. Arsenic was recommended to increase beauty and lighten the
complexion, leading women to regularly snack on arsenic wafers and even bathe in the poison. While
the ill effects of some chemicals used during the time weren’t yet understood, Victorians knew that
arsenic was toxic. Um, am I missing something here? Ingesting small amounts of arsenic over
time might not kill you immediately, but they CAN cause a dependency, and a host of health problems
like nervous system, and kidney damage. Well, that’s one way to get that half-dead appearance!
Today, the medical community has to constantly warn people of the dangers of sun damage. But
women in the Victorian era had no desire for bronzers and spray tans.
The goal instead was to maintain a ghostly pale complexion - the sicklier you looked,
the better. This pale skin was a sign of wealth and nobility, as these women could languish on
their fainting couches all day instead of working in the sun. Tuberculosis, a common disease of the
time, also gave some suffering women a deathlike pallor that was actually considered attractive.
Some achieved this coveted corpse look by simply staying indoors and using parasols
to block the sun whilst out and about. For those with a more dedicated beauty regime,
face creams and powders were meant to whiten the face both temporarily, and more permanently.
These often contained dangerous substances like lead, and the crowd favorite, arsenic,
so for some the daily skincare routine was literally rubbing poison on their
face. In an effort to make the skin appear more translucent, many women also drew on themselves
with blue pencil to create the illusion of veins. So gross! But why do you want to look all veiny?
Any markings or freckles were unsightly to the Victorian eye. One option was to try to cover
them up using the lead-based foundation. But for a more long-lasting and make-up free approach,
Victorian beauty guides recommended bleaching the skin, or in stubborn cases,
covering the area in lemon juice or carbolic acid and burning off your freckles in the sun. Ouch.
We’re no experts, but that cannot be good for you.
Victorian women were expected to have long, curled hair, which was seen as seductive.
However, they had to keep their hair up, or partially up, in complicated ‘dos,
as a woman was only supposed to let her hair down in the presence of her husband.
Victorian women didn’t really wash their hair...or at least that’s not what we’d call it. They
did use ammonia and onion juice as a means of maintenance, and to keep those tresses shiny.
The accumulated grease probably also helped. The use of ammonia, and their general fondness for
ingesting poisons, caused hair loss and scalp conditions for many Victorian women who were
actually seeking the opposite outcome. To remedy thinning hair or bald patches,
women used loose hair from their combs to create hair “rats” which they would use as a sort of make
shift toupee. Added hair pieces also contributed to the overall grandeur of their updos. The
desired look was a waist the size of your head - so best to make the head as big as possible!
That’s not to say that Victorian women didn’t also try to achieve impossibly small waist sizes. While
fashions changed throughout the era, corsets were a popular clothing item of the time to help women
achieve that sought-after hourglass figure. Since women are in fact humans, and not hourglasses,
these undergarments were often restrictive and uncomfortable. Tight-lacing corsets, which made
simple tasks like breathing a difficulty, grew in popularity toward the end of the 19th century.
Some Victorian women even began tight-lace training their daughters, putting them in
increasingly stricter ties to get their body to shrink into the mold. While the waist was
pulled inward, breast padding and bustles were used to make other areas appear more voluminous.
Outside of the rigorous fashion requirements,
women’s bodies were subject to intense societal expectations. During the early-mid Victorian era,
a woman was expected to be pleasantly plump, without being overweight or too thin.
Being overweight was increasingly shamed in the latter part of the period. To lose weight,
women would often resort to dangerous methods like cocaine, tapeworms, and...you guessed it, arsenic.
As far as facial features went, dark, bright eyes, red lips,
and rosy cheeks were considered beautiful. Of course, once again, all of those were difficult
to achieve without a Sephora nearby, but Victorian women certainly got creative.
To darken their eyes, Victorian women often rubbed soot on their eyelashes as mascara and mixed coal
or burnt toast with milk as eyeliner. That’s taking the smoky eye to a whole new level.
If those techniques sound hardcore, it’s nothing compared to the women who squeezed
lemon juice or perfume into their eyes to make them watery. Some even used Belladonna eye drops,
made from what else but a deadly nightshade. Belladonna can literally make you go blind,
but what’s a little permanent blindness in exchange for a dewy and shiny eye?
For rosier cheeks, many women used beet juice for it’s natural coloring. And in
the pre-Kylie lip kit world, ground up beetles were a premium lipstain choice.
It might sound gross, but at least that one wasn’t life threatening.
Are you wondering what lengths Victorian men had to go through to be considered attractive?
Shorter hair was in style for men throughout most of the era,
and facial hair was seen as a sign of masculinity. Yup, that’s it, there’s nothing else.
Beauty may be a pain, but we think poisoning yourself might be crossing the line.
Let us know in the comments if you’d be sitting pretty during the Victorian era
or opt out to be an ugly novel-reading beast. We know which one we’d choose!