Musings on 18th century beauty

I’m sure you have noticed by now that I have a special interest for 18th century beauty and I’m more and more seriously contemplating on trying more beauty recipes from the time. I was quite delighted recently when I found that Ageless Artifice has several new and interesting items like Spanish white for face makeup and more rouges. Unfortunately I also discovered that the shipping to Sweden now is a whopping $30, which means that the shipping would be more than what I can buy at one time to avoid taxes. So even if I love their products and am very happy that a company like that is around, they are not an option for me anymore. (Shipping inside USA is much lower.) So really, if I want to test old recipes myself, I simply will have to try them out myself.

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The Toilet of Flora from 1779 is chockfull of interesting recipes and I’m also waiting for Abdeker: Or, the Art of Preserving Beauty from 1740. I want to try the real deal as it gives you a must better understanding to how an 18th century makeup looked like when you use the same products as they did. Their colour palette was more limited than ours, but there are also variations that you don’t get if you don’t try it yourself. For example, several white pigments were used and they behave differently on the skin, giving various degree of coverage and therefore also how white the skin looked. Of course, many of the ingredients used then are dangerous, like lead and mercury, so I will use modern safe substitutes and the same goes for ingredients that may be endangered or simply too expensive to try. Not to mention unsavory, like the pressing of a pigeon and smear the fluid in your face. Not going to happen, I will tell you! I will need to do some more research before I can venture into actually doing things. At the moment I’m compiling a list of ingredients from all the recipes I find interesting, then I need to check them out to see if they are safe and if they are, if I can get them. And then I need to find out what I can use as safe substitutes.

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I’d like to try a few different recipes for coloured lip salves. There is one where the red comes from red lead with the option to add leaf gold which would be neat with a proper substitute for the lead, of course. Alkanet, bruised cloves, black grapes and red roses are other reds used, as well as cochineal, red sandalwood and Brazil wood. Then there are hair powders in different colours that I itch to try. The Toilet of Flora provides recipes for white powder where pulverized animal and fish bones provide whiteness, that is, basically Calcium phosphate (E341), which ought to be safe to use as it’s used in food products. There is also grey powder where the grey colour comes from ashes and flaxen powder coloured with yellow ochre.

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I have also found an intriguing recipe for a face pomade that you colour with zinc, chalk and- saffron! That one can’t possibly be stark white, can it? There is also one with hartshorn (similar to baking powder), rice powder, pulverized fish bones and lead white is dissolved into rose water. With the proper substitutes these ought to be doable.

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There is also several perfumes and of course I want to test some of those! There are good synthetic substitutes for musk, civet and ambergris and I think that most of the essences used can be found nowadays too.