by I know we’re supposed to reject everything we stood for last year, shedding our dry, worn-out 2023 selves to emerge shiny, fresh, dewy, and morally superior, but, I don’t know, seasonal self-loathing seems so… vigorous. If you’re like me (I pray you’re not), you feel listless, numb, and broke. Also, have you looked outside?
Instead of tormenting ourselves with “new year, new me” flannels, let’s take a horrified and critical look at some “new year, bad old men” photographs. Because things could definitely be worse. Historically, “pain is beauty” was taken literally, leading to centuries of wild claims, dangerous tricks, and impossible standards.
Related: Shock of the old: eight sadistic and antisocial board games
Before today’s vampire facials and snail-mucus moisturizers, there were arsenic “skin wafers” that promised a “delightfully clear complexion.” Renaissance women used belladonna to make their eyes look bigger and cat poop to remove hair. One Roman remedy for blemishes involved grinding up the intestines “of a small terrestrial crocodile that feeds only on the most fragrant flowers,” which sounds like something you could now find for sale on Goop.
But have we believed in an inaccurate cliché? The idea that, in the past, women ignorantly or recklessly used deadly poisons to serve their own vanity is “a misogynistic trope that has circulated since classical times,” writes art history professor Jill Burke in her book How to be a Renaissance Woman. Burke describes a 16th-century poison ring in Rome, where women used water tofana – a concoction that includes ground arsenic and lead disguised as skin care products – to slowly poison their violent or simply “drunk and irresponsible” husbands (at least 46, although some speculated as many as 600).
But even when the goal wasn’t murder, it’s possible that women throughout history knew exactly what they were doing. Beauty conferred power, status and control in a world where women had very little of those things. No wonder some dangerous or extravagant treatment was worth it. And is it really that different from a leech cleanse or injecting a deadly toxin into your forehead? We’ll see.
Roman tools for hair removal and manicure.
The Romans practiced hair removal a lot: men for sporting reasons and women because of patriarchy. “Nor the stench of the wild goat under your armpits, nor the legs bristling with coarse hair!” wrote Ovid, which was apparently fun (I guess you had to be there). He was not alone among Roman writers: “Everyone writes about how you will have to maintain hair on your upper body and you know, God, no man will be interested in you if you have hair in your armpits. ” according to Cameron Moffett of English Heritage. This is amply demonstrated by the Roman town of Wroxeter in Shropshire, which has found a “surprisingly large number of tweezers” used in its bath complex by professional pluckers.
Elizabeth I, c1588
Did Elizabeth really cover her face with lead? Possibly: lead-based Venetian Ceruse was a contemporary cosmetic but there is no evidence that she used it. Actually, much of Renaissance Goo (the truly excellent name of a collaborative research project between Burke and Professor Wilson Poon (soft matter scientist)) wasn’t so bad. The team recreated and tested historic ointments and found they’re pretty good, including a face cream packed with sheep fat, vitamin E, and antioxidants.
Electric Corset, 1890s
As if corsets weren’t bad enough, here comes science to make them even worse. Mrs Whiting, who has suffered from constipation all her life, was “wonderfully better” thanks to this electric corset. (Was he squeezing her like a boa constrictor? Wow.) The seductive fine print promises that “the chest aids her healthy development,” which makes this sound like something a Kardashian might try to sell you on TikTok. The electric corset came from 52 Oxford Street, London, which is now Holland & Barrett. Good luck curing your hysteria and your “organic ailments” with three-for-two packages of dried apricots.
Dr. Mackenzie’s Arsenic Soap, 1897
In the 1850s, reports of arsenic users in Austria emphasized their flawless complexions, triggering a craze for arsenic beauty products. These cookies, creams and soaps conferred a desirable tuberculous pallor. After all, “the lightest skins belong to people who are in the early stages of consumption,” as Mrs. SD Powers authoritatively wrote in the 1874 beauty bible The Ugly Girl Papers (the chapter titles include Hope for Homely People, Brief Madness and, my favorite, Easier to Be Magnificent than Clean). Unfortunately, wellness products with arsenic make you pale by destroying your red blood cells, but that’s okay, this one was “guaranteed absolutely harmless.”
Hip reduction machine, 1899
The staring guy who operates this device (apparently a set of mechanized rollers; I have my doubts whether it would help “maintain that youthful shape,” as he says) is Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, 1905 world. Boxing champion of light heavyweight Because? Are you supporting it? He definitely looks like he’d rather hit something.
Edwardian Ladies’ Beauty Regime, 1906
Ah yes, how to “repair the ravages of the season,” a perennial problem. I doubt that means placing pigs wrapped in blankets in front of the World’s Strongest Man for the ladies of Edwardian society, but their creative beauty treatments offer inspiration for more contemporary malaise. Why not take a “light bath” in a closet (“can reduce the weight accumulated from incessant dining out”), lie in a bath full of magnets (“strengthening and life-giving”) or enjoy an “electric massage” from A stern lady who seems displeased with your life choices? Furthermore, if her nose had “gone out of fashion,” it could be “modified to fit any desired pattern” (I hope that stern lady wasn’t involved).
Lip tattoo, 1929
As someone who, 25 years ago, replaced my nonexistent eyebrows with tattoos, done by what I can only assume was the kid’s work experience in the beauty salon, and still bears the scars, indelible, psychological oranges, I’m in the perfect position. to scream through time. , “Noooo, don’t do it” to this reckless young woman. However, her expression of empty, apathetic resignation suggests that she knows exactly how badly this will end.
Permanent with radio, 1920s
A reader recently alerted me to the wild early 20th century craze for radioactive wellness products. Radium bath salts, ma’am? Or maybe radium toothpaste? I can’t find any information on how radium was supposed to make your hair curl, but it could definitely make it fall out.
Make-up remover with radium, 1937
French range of beauty products Tho-Radia was supposed to improve circulation and eliminate wrinkles, but it was also shown to confer the otherworldly radiant glow you can see here. They were shrewdly promoted with the “expertise” of a doctor named Alfred Curie, although he was no relation to Pierre and Marie, who apparently considered taking legal action against the company. The French authorities, despite being spoilsports, restricted the use of radium in 1937, meaning this version can be radium-free: where would I get my brilliance?
Spa treatment in salon, 1968
Is cucumber even beautifying? One article claims that it is “excellent for scrubbing the skin to keep it soft and white,” contains “natural organic acids such as glycolic, lactic, and salicylic acids,” and inhibits tyrosinase (apparently a good thing). This woman has essentially become a wedding buffet salmon; Another unrealistic beauty ideal that we cannot achieve.
