7 Terrifying Beauty Practices in History

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

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Wikimedia Commons

 

Chemical peels that burn layers of skin from your face. Appetite suppressants that cause heart failure. Surgery to beautify a woman’s most intimate parts. Noses de-bumped with a scalpel and breasts slit and stuffed with fillings currently considered least dangerous.

 

When reflecting on the quackery of the good old days, we are smug as we recall the values of yesteryear as infantile and ill informed. However, when it comes to women desiring beauty at any cost - values haven’t changed much.

 

Here are seven primitive beauty practices that are almost as scary as modern ones.

1. Corsets

You know what really turns men off? Internal organs in healthy alignment. Throughout the 19th century  whales were hunted so that women could use whalebone corsets to wrench their spleen into a more attractive position! In fairness, a corset was a viable support garment and not all women tightened them to the point of injury.

2. Arsenic Eating

In the 19th century and before, people ate arsenic to “produce a blooming complexion, a brilliant eye, and an appearance of embonpoint (sexy stoutness).” There were rules - you could only take it while the moon increased, only a single grain at first (until you built a resistance), and if you stopped, you died. But there was a downside! It also caused goiters, because arsenic blocks iodine in the thyroid, causing swelling. Blooming, brilliant, embonpoint goiters. And sometimes death.

3. Tapeworms

In this case women not only did something dangerous to be thin but also quite gross. Tapeworm eggs, taken in pill form, would hatch and attach in the intestine of the plump host. There they would eat the nutrients  otherwise processed by the host’s digestive system. This made the host malnourished as the tapeworms grew. Some species of tapeworm can grow up to 100 feet. There were deworming treatments to remove them - equally gross. 

4. Foot binding

Many historians think the Cinderella story originated in China. In other cultures, it seems odd that a woman could have feet of such a unique size that they would distinguish her from other women in the village. If in China during the last millennium, that point made sense. A tradition that likely started in the late 10th century was foot binding that turned feet into “golden lotuses.”

Lotuses with folds so deep they could not be cleaned. Men were unaware as the women kept their feet covered in the presence of all men including their husbands. Lotuses began when mothers folded under the little toes of their toddler daughters, tying them  in place as tightly as possible. It was extremely painful. The practice permanently deformed and crippled the women but that was the point. Her wobbly walk and doll-feet told the world she was too wealthy and cherished to labor. The practice was not completely discontinued until the communist revolution in 1949, when labor became a virtue. See a photo of it here, but remember it is gruesome.

5. Tho-Radia Radioactive Cosmetics

The best thing about the 1930s French cosmetic line Flo-radia was not that manufacturers added thorium chloride and radium bromide for extra pep! It was that one of the names on the box was “Curie.” Dr. Alfred Curie was of  absolutely no relation to the genius scientist, Marie Curie, who pioneered the research of and died from radioactive particles. Flo-radia provided women with every possible beauty miracle imaginable because it, “Stimulates cellular vitality, activates circulation, firms skin, eliminates fats, stops enlarged pores forming, stops and cures boils, pimples, redness, pigmentation, protects from the elements, stops ageing and gets rid of wrinkles, conserves the freshness and brightness of the complexion.” All that vitality and freshness was useful until someone’s jaw fell off.

6. Deadly nightshade

Deadly Nightshade, also called Belladonna or “Beautiful Woman” saw women squeeze drops of Deadly Nightshade into their eyes which caused the eye to dilate giving the impression of big innocent pupils that were also sexy. The blindness that was a reported result of extended use was well worth the risk of dying alone, impoverished and unloved.

7. Lead face powder

The 1700s were rough on the complexion, even if you failed to factor in the miasmic filth in which even the richest of people lived. There were untold species of pox diseases a person had to avoid or likely survived to make it to adulthood. Pox left scars and the best way to cover them and other imperfections was to apply lead face powder. It was inexpensive, easily made and coated well with a silky finish. Alas, the brain began to swell, paralysis crept in, and much of the body's system started violently shutting down. A lovely, pale corpse remained.