One thing that most agreed on was that women should be beautiful and married, and landing a husband was still seen as the primary goal for young women.
Nineteenth-century women of a certain class relied on books and publications to teach them the secrets of being beautiful, and therefore of getting (and keeping) a man. Many of these proto-ladymags were co-penned by doctors, while others were written by high-society ladies with helpful hints on everything from personal hygiene to dressing for various occasions.
Bathing:
There is a myth plaguing history that people only bathed once every few years, if at all, until the twentieth century. Doctors of the nineteenth century recommended frequent bathing, and your social class and occupation dictated how often you bathed.
Those who could afford a bath tub would have bathed a few times each month, while the poor were likely to bathe once a year.
Extreme temperatures for bathing were warned against by doctors due to a negative impact on the health and appearance of one’s skin. Tepid water infused with bran was best, followed by a heavy dose of exfoliation with a wash cloth to create bright and smooth skin. Turkish Baths were very popular among the upper classes, and body steams were also encouraged to purge the skin of organic poisons and impurities.
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| Illustration used to teach women how to build a DIY steam box |
Complexion:
In the Victorian era, the only good complexion was a pale complexion. The “superiority” of upper-class white women was an accepted fact of society, directly promoted in beauty books with advice for achieving the lightest, most ladylike skin possible. The higher class you were perceived to be, the better your prospects for a good marriage.
To achieve the fairest skin possible, women tried everything. Lead-based paints were used, but not ALL women covered their faces with poisonous creams. The rich ones ate their poisons--due to the high price (and resulting languor) ingesting arsenic, chalk, slate, or tea grounds was for only the fanciest of women.
Eating poison was heavily warned against by Victorian beauty writers due to the resulting “sickly” appearance: youthful good health was the beauty standard of the day. Instead of using chemicals or poisons to promote healthy skin, women were advised to sit in well ventilated rooms, get seven to eight hours of sleep each night, take some sun (but not enough to burn), and eat a healthy diet, all advice still touted by contemporary health experts.
The Victorians were also fascinated with zits. Blackheads were sometimes known as “fleshworms” because people thought worms were crawling out of their faces when they were extracted. A nightly steam, alternating with pure steam and sulphur, for two to three months was recommended as a cure to rid the face of blackheads and acne.
But above all else, women were commanded to avoid makeup.
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| Young Queen Victoria |
Makeup:
Face paints and other cosmetics were frequently used by performers and prostitutes, so therefore high society viewed these products as deplorable.
No refined lady would be caught dead with the devil’s trickery on her face. This was the line that the beauty guides promoted in theory. In practice, most upper class women wore little makeup. Cold cream was recommended as a priming agent, applied prior to dusting the faintest veil of rouge across the cheeks and finished with a transparent layer of powder to avoid a greasy complexion.
So really, Victorian women weren’t worried about makeup in general; they were worried about wearing the wrong kind of makeup, the kind that would mark them as lower-class.
However, only the young were encouraged to enhance their beauty with cosmetics. According to Lola Montez, author of one beauty guide, “a rouged old woman is a horrible sight, a distortion of nature’s harmony!” Youth was coveted, but makeup was not the way to achieve it. Instead, face masks and other concoctions were advised for women of a certain age to decrease wrinkles and promote a healthy glow.
The root of feminine beauty:
But the most beautiful feature a lady could have? Her mind. Individuality, wit, and the ability to think critically could make up for a poorly constructed face, sallow complexion, or any other physical shortcoming a woman may possess. The previously mentioned Lola Montez was adamant that “a beautiful mind is a necessity for a beautiful face.”
Victorian beauty guides encouraged women to postulate their own ideas on society and politics. Unfortunately, those ideas were not always listened to or respected. A well-educated woman was still considered inferior to men; many men viewed clever women as akin to precocious children.
And few men wanted a wife who was outwardly smarter than he was. Women were meant to ornament men, not outshine them. Many of the Victorian beauty books included chapters on behaving properly in social gatherings, reinforcing the idea that intellect was valued, but so was social grace and etiquette. A lady’s wit was meant to add to conversation, rather than direct it. After all, no matter how clever she was, women were still seen as chiefly ornamental. It would take a few more decades, and the emergence of The New Woman, for this to change.
It’s tempting to look back on the Victorian Era as a remote, alien period of time governed by incomprehensibly sexist, racist, and classist codes of behaviour. But many of the conversations started in this era about a woman’s place in the world, and about the place of beauty in that world, are still happening today.’
Image and quote reference: (No Date) Available at:
http://www.xovain.com/makeup/victorian-era-beauty (Accessed: 16 February 2016).
Book – Face Paint: The Story of Makeup:
“The arrival of the 19th century marked yet another shift in attitudes toward makeup, and rouge in particular. The declaration of England’s Queen Victoria that makeup was vulgar meant that a pale, virtuous look now preferred. The resulting backlash against painted faces meant that women who wanted to create a rosy glow could either resort to pinching their cheeks and biting their lips to encourage a natural flush or be very cautious with their use of cosmetics. While pale, unmade-up skin and luxuriant hair were considered ladylike, obvious rouging was seen as belonging to the realms of the theatre or signifying a woman of what was euphemistically phrased ‘low morals.’ At the same time, by the 1850’s the production of cosmetics had become a national industry with its center in Paris. This marked the beginning of commercially available rouge on a scale that had never been seen before, and by the turn of the century rouge was available to buy in dozens of shades and textures. As Victoria’s reign came to an end, the assoication of her son, the future King Edward VII, with some of the most famous stage actresses of the time, such as Lillie Langtry and Sarah Bernhardt, meant that rouge was treated with less vehemence and scorn. As the writer and satirist Max Berrbohm wrote in his ‘Defence of Cosmetics’:
‘For behold! The Victorian era comes to its end and the day of sancta simplicitas is quite ended. We are ripe for a new epoch of artifice. Are not men rattling the dice-box and ladies dipping their fingers in the rouge-pot? No longer is a lady of fashion blamed if, to escape the outrageous persecution of time, she fly for sanctuary to the toilet-table; and if a damsel, prying in her mirror, be sure with brush and pigment she can trick herself into more charm, we are not angry. Indeed, why should we ever have been?”
Reference: Eldridge, L. (2015) Face paint: The story of makeup. United States: Harry N. Abrams.
Book – Fashions in Makeup: From ancient to modern times:
Page 315/316 – Mid-Century Cosmetics:
“Most books and articles of the period confined themselves to discreet, helpful hints on maintaining natural beauty, with or without artifice. Sarah Josepha Hale, shared with her readers one of her own beauty secrets – the nightly application to her temples of brown paper soaked in cider vinegar. This was worn all night in order to keeo the skin around the eyes smooth and free from wrinkles.
An article on cosmetics in the ‘Penny Magazine’ approaches the subject diffidently, pointing out that although readers may not approve of cosmetics, some information about their manufacture might not be uninstructive. The writer then lists the two most imporant objectives of the skin and neck. The various rouges in use, dishes, Spanish wool, Chinese boxes, are described, but pure carmine, manufactured from cochineal, is recommended as the most desirbale rouge of all.
Elder-flower water and rose-water were the most popular washes of the day; but since they did little or nothing to whiten the skin, white powder was used as well. Pearl powder (made by dissolving seed pearls in acid and precipitating the powder with an alkali) was the most desirable and the most costly. Cheaper pearl powder (prepared from mother-of-pearl or oyster shells) could be obtained, but it had an unnatural sheen. Bismuth powder was considered a good imitation of pearl powder, but unfortunately it turned black on contact with sulphur fumes, causing the wearer considerable distress and embarrassment.
Black for the eyebrows was prepared from lamp-back mixed with a cream or ointment and applied with a camel’s hair brush or pencil, as it was called then. Hence, ladies of the period ‘pencilled’ their brows. And in fact, so did some of the men.”
Book – Face Paint: The Story of Makeup:
“The arrival of the 19th century marked yet another shift in attitudes toward makeup, and rouge in particular. The declaration of England’s Queen Victoria that makeup was vulgar meant that a pale, virtuous look now preferred. The resulting backlash against painted faces meant that women who wanted to create a rosy glow could either resort to pinching their cheeks and biting their lips to encourage a natural flush or be very cautious with their use of cosmetics. While pale, unmade-up skin and luxuriant hair were considered ladylike, obvious rouging was seen as belonging to the realms of the theatre or signifying a woman of what was euphemistically phrased ‘low morals.’ At the same time, by the 1850’s the production of cosmetics had become a national industry with its center in Paris. This marked the beginning of commercially available rouge on a scale that had never been seen before, and by the turn of the century rouge was available to buy in dozens of shades and textures. As Victoria’s reign came to an end, the assoication of her son, the future King Edward VII, with some of the most famous stage actresses of the time, such as Lillie Langtry and Sarah Bernhardt, meant that rouge was treated with less vehemence and scorn. As the writer and satirist Max Berrbohm wrote in his ‘Defence of Cosmetics’:
‘For behold! The Victorian era comes to its end and the day of sancta simplicitas is quite ended. We are ripe for a new epoch of artifice. Are not men rattling the dice-box and ladies dipping their fingers in the rouge-pot? No longer is a lady of fashion blamed if, to escape the outrageous persecution of time, she fly for sanctuary to the toilet-table; and if a damsel, prying in her mirror, be sure with brush and pigment she can trick herself into more charm, we are not angry. Indeed, why should we ever have been?”
Reference: Eldridge, L. (2015) Face paint: The story of makeup. United States: Harry N. Abrams.
Book – Fashions in Makeup: From ancient to modern times:
Page 315/316 – Mid-Century Cosmetics:
“Most books and articles of the period confined themselves to discreet, helpful hints on maintaining natural beauty, with or without artifice. Sarah Josepha Hale, shared with her readers one of her own beauty secrets – the nightly application to her temples of brown paper soaked in cider vinegar. This was worn all night in order to keeo the skin around the eyes smooth and free from wrinkles.
An article on cosmetics in the ‘Penny Magazine’ approaches the subject diffidently, pointing out that although readers may not approve of cosmetics, some information about their manufacture might not be uninstructive. The writer then lists the two most imporant objectives of the skin and neck. The various rouges in use, dishes, Spanish wool, Chinese boxes, are described, but pure carmine, manufactured from cochineal, is recommended as the most desirbale rouge of all.
Elder-flower water and rose-water were the most popular washes of the day; but since they did little or nothing to whiten the skin, white powder was used as well. Pearl powder (made by dissolving seed pearls in acid and precipitating the powder with an alkali) was the most desirable and the most costly. Cheaper pearl powder (prepared from mother-of-pearl or oyster shells) could be obtained, but it had an unnatural sheen. Bismuth powder was considered a good imitation of pearl powder, but unfortunately it turned black on contact with sulphur fumes, causing the wearer considerable distress and embarrassment.
Black for the eyebrows was prepared from lamp-back mixed with a cream or ointment and applied with a camel’s hair brush or pencil, as it was called then. Hence, ladies of the period ‘pencilled’ their brows. And in fact, so did some of the men.”
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| Page 331 |
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| Page 356 |
Reference: Corson, R. (2003) Fashions in makeup: From ancient to modern times. 3rd edn. London: Peter Owen Publishers.
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