18th century beauty and 1860's gown

I'm working on my lecture on 18th century beauty. Gustafs Skål is holding their 18th century lecture weekend this week, and it will be the third time I'm holding my lecture. I look forward to it, as this will be the first time I will be able to do the make-up with period beauty aids. Well, as much as is possible- regardless how period lead white is, I'm not going to use it. :-) It will be very interesting to see how these products work. I have a feeling that they will behave rather different than modern make-up I also hope to be able to try out coloured hair powder. I'm not just talking about the beauty part, but also about hygien and beauty ideals- it is, after all, a three-hour lecture, but I'm thinking of writing a post about doing the make-up. Would there be an interest of an 18th century make-over, using period beauty aids?

I've recently managed to budget in a prescription to Your Wardrobe Unlock'd. Lots of interesting stuff and I've started to make an overbust corset with the help of the pattern drafting tutorial. That one, alone, make up for the money spent. Somewhat to my annoyance, I find that there have been a costume competition this year for making a late 1860 gown. I've been toying with the thought of making one for a while, and it would have been fun to have been part of a group sewing. I really hope there will be another competition next year. There were only three entries this year, but I still hope there will be another one. Still, there are a number of useful articles about making a gown from that period, so I think I will try to make my great-grandmother Laura's gown. So my next move will be to figure out the material. It looks to me like it's checkered and, obviously, in a light-coloured fabric. I wonder it it's silk or cotton? What do you think? She would certainly have been able to afford silk, but the fabric isn't very shiny. It is, on the other hand, a rather faded photograph. And I need to do a little research on what colours that was popular.