What Women Used For Makeup In 1600
Elizabethan Brand-up 101
by Drea Leed
1 of Shakespeare's most popular sonnets pokes fun at the common metaphors used to describe the ideal beauty:
- "My mistress' eyes are zippo like the sun
Coral is far more fair so her lips fair
If snowfall be white, why then, her breast is dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I take seen roses damasked, crimson and white,
But no such roses run across I in her cheeks..."
Even without corroboration from other period sources, 1 can begin to take hold of a glimpse of the ideal Elizabethan female: bright optics, snow-white skin, cerise cheeks and lips, and fair hair. A fair approximation of this ideal tin be constitute in Lettice Knollys, Countess of Leicester and cousin to Queen Elizabeth herself, who was widely regarded equally one of the most beautiful women at court. To the right is a portrait of Lettice, emphasizing the features that the court so admired. Showtime and foremost was her exceedingly stake skin--a prerequisite for a ladylike beauty. The manneristic portraits of the tardily 16th century all portrayed their female person (and male) subjects with alabaster complexions, lacking even the rosy glow that became popular during the next century.
Pale peel was a sign of nobility, wealth, and (for women) delicacy, and was sought after by many. In a fourth dimension when skin problems and the pox were commonplace, sunscreen unheard of, and skin creams and ointments out of achieve for all but the well-off, smooth, unblemished and pale skin was a rarity.
This stake skin could be accomplished past a number of means, the nearly popular being ceruse, a mixture of white lead and vinegar that was favored past the dignity and by those who could afford it. This white foundation was practical to the neck and bosom as well. The start record of this skin-whitener was institute in 1519 in Horman'due south "Vulgaria puerorum", and by the time of Elizabeth's reign was well-established as an essential item for the fashionable adult female. Naturally, spreading lead upon one's skin acquired a diverseness of peel bug; some authors of the time warned confronting it, describing how information technology made the skin "grey and shrivelled", and suggesting other popular mixtures such a paste of alum and tin ash, sulpher, and a multifariousness of foundations made using boiled egg white, talc, and other white materials as a base. Egg white, uncooked, could also be used to "glaze" the complexion, creating a smooth trounce and helping to hide wrinkles.
Once an platonic whiteness was accomplished-sometimes consummate with false veins traced onto the skin-coloring was applied. Facepaint, generally referred to in period every bit fucus, came in a diverseness of reds and was used mainly upon the cheeks and lips. Madder, cochineal, and ochre-based compounds were all used equally blush and lip-color, only vermilion (mercuric sulfide) was the virtually pop choice of the stylish court lady. Apparently this colour could exist laid on quite thick; One Elizabethan satirist commented that an creative person needed no box of paints to piece of work, but simply a fashionably painted lady standing nearby to utilize for pigments.
Of grade, such heavy and oftentimes poisonous brand-up acquired serious skin damage. Remedies for spots, blemishes, acne and freckles ranged from the awarding of lemon-juice or rosewater to dubious concoctions of mercury, alum, dearest and eggshells. Indeed, washing one'southward face up with mercury was a common period "facial skin" used to brand a woman's skin soft and fresh. Donkey's milk was another substance favored by the nobility, and mentioned every bit an ingredient in baths and washes.
Lettice'south features also guess the 16th century standard of beauty--a pocket-sized, rosy mouth, a straight and narrow nose, and wide-fix vivid eyes under narrow biconvex brows were the theoretical "ideal" of the time . Women would employ drops of belladona in their eyes to achieve that bright sparkle, and outline them with kohl (powdered antimony) to enhance their size or brand them appear more wide set. Plucked eyebrows were de rigeur for a court lady, equally was a loftier brow. A loftier hairline had been for centuries a sign of the aristocracy--Women would pluck their forehead hair dorsum an inch, or even more than, to create a fashionably high forehead.
Blonde or crimson-golden hair such as Lettice'due south were besides eagerly sought after. Dozens of recipies for bleaching hair existed, some of them quite noxious; urine was one substance used. If a woman couldn't accomplish the color she wanted, she could vesture false pilus instead-a very mutual practice in Elizabethan times. Some women went bald and wore wigs rather than struggle with their ain locks. It is no accident that Queen Elizabeth possessed almost all of the traits discussed above-golden-red pilus, gray, wide-set optics, very pale skin and narrow brows--she was a guiding force in late 16th century English style, moreso than near whatsoever monarch before or since. Women strove to imitate her curly red pilus and coloring.
One of the most surprising--and appalling--aspects of 16th century brand-upwards was the poisonous nature of many of the cosmetics. If an authenticity-aptitude re-enactor was truly interested in recreating a "period" make-up job, she could be taking her life into her own easily. In addition, the breathy artificiality of menses makeup would await ludicrous to modern eyes. Virtually Elizabethan re-enactors interested in adding flow make-up to their ensemble settle for a modernistic "interpretation" of the menstruation look-a pale foundation with a light dusting of white powder for the face up, black or gray eyeliner to have the place of kohl, and matte blood-red lipstick of an ochre or brick color. A lite awarding of blush, placed in an oval forth the cheekbone rather than underneath, is plenty unless one is playing a courtesan; if you choose, y'all may either pluck or draw in loftier, arched eyebrows to complete the wait. Achieving the high plucked brow requires serious stage makeup or serious hurting.
Of course, all this is for the court lady. The lower and middle classes didn't have the fourth dimension or resource to devote to serious makeup; immature merchant'southward wives were somewhat notorious for their fancy dress and fashionable makeup, just otherwise you needn't bother.
As for the hair, tightly curling the forepart portion and arranging it into rolls on either side of the caput is a very Elizabethan practice. False hair was usually used as well, and is sometimes easier to manage than i's ain locks.
Period Commentary on Make-up
"Shee reads over her face every morning, and sometime blots out pale, and writes red. Shee thinks she is faire, though many times her opinion goes alone...she is hid abroad all simply her face, and that is hangd nigh with toyes and devices, like the signe of a taverne, to describe strangers. ""How base is her shape, which must borrow complexion from the shop? How tin can she weepe for her sinnes...when her teares will brand furrowes in her face?"
"I would wish to know...which ladie had her owne face to lie with her a-nights, & which not; who put off her teeth with their apparel in court, who their haire, who their complexion; and in which boxe they put information technology."
"Do you know Md Plaster-face? by this curd, he is the most exquisite in forging of veins, spright'ning of optics, dyeing of hair, sleeking of skins, blushing of cheeks, surphling of breasts, blanching and bleaching of teeth, that ever made an old lady gracious past torchlight".
"[Women] whyte theyr face, necke and pappis with cerusse."
"The Ceruse or white lead which women use to better their complexion, is made of lead and vinegar; which mixture is naturally a nifty drier; and is used by chirurgions to drie up moiste sores. So that those women who utilize it nigh their faces, doe quickly become withered and grayness headed, considering this dowth so mightely drie upwardly the naturall moysture of their mankind."
"The ceruse or white Lead, wherewith women use to paint themselves was, without doubt, brought in utilize by the divell, the capitall enemie of nature, therwith to transforme humane creatures, of fair, making them ugly, enormious and abominable....a man might easily cut off a curd or cheese-cake from either of their cheeks."
"...when vermillion hath laid and so deepe a colour on an impudent skinne,...it cannot blush with sense of her own shame."
"Of scaling or Plume-alume. This alume is a kind of stone, which seemeth every bit if information technology were made of tow; and is so hot and drie past nature, that if you make the weeke of a candle therewith, it is thought it will burne continually without going out: With this some utilize to rubbe the skinne off their face, to brand it seeme red, by reason of the inflammation it procureth, but questionless information technology hath defined inconveniences, and therfore to be avoided...Rocke alume doth besides injure the face up, in so much as it is a very pearcing and drying minerall, and is used in stiff h2o for the dissolving of mettals...one droppe thereof being put upon the skinne, burneth, shriveleth, and parcheth it, with divers other inconveniences, as loosing the teeth, etc."
"You should accept rub'd your face up with whites of egges, you rascall; till your browes had shone like our sooty brothers here, as sleeke as a hornbook; or ha' steept your lips in wine, till you lot made 'hem so plump, that Juno might have beene jealous of 'hem."
"Some I have heard of, that have beene so fine,
to wash and bathe themselves in milke or wine,
else with whites of egges, their faces garnish,
which makes the looke like visors, or new varnish.
Good bread, and oatmeale hath bin spilt like trash,
My Lady Polecat'south dainty hands to wash."
"[Sabina] ordinarily bathed herself in the milke of five hundred Asses, to preserve her dazzler."
" This arte [of adornment] consisteth of a twoofold method; either by mode of a preparation and abstertion, of some natural or adventitious imperfections of the skinne, which is done with fomentations, waters, ointments, plaisters, and other matters, which I meane not to prescribe; or by a more grosse illiture and laying on of material colours."
Elizabethan Beauty Reciepts
Warning: several of the recipies mentioned beneath are harmful to the pare & wellness; some are poisonous. They are listed here for research purposes but. Experiment at your ain risk!"For the Freckles which one getteth past the heat of the Sunday: Have a little Allom beaten small, temper amonst it a well brayed white of an egg, put information technology on a milde burn down, stirring information technology always nigh that information technology wax not hard, and when information technology casteth upwards the scum, and then it is enough, wherewith anoint the Freckles the infinite of three dayes: if you will defend your self that you lot become no Freckles on the face, then anoint your face with the whites of eggs."
"Ginimony as well burnt, and pulverized, to be mingled with the juice of Lymmons, sublimate Mercury, and two spoonefuls of the flowers of Brimstone, a virtually excellent receite to cure the flushing in the face."
"[against spots], the Whites of two eggs mixed well with rose-h2o, plantain juice, and dock juice. Followed past the awarding of the following: 8 ounces of vinegar and rose-h2o, one ounce of brimstone, one quarter of an ounce of alum--boiled softly until one-3rd has evaporated."
Recipes taken from Ruscelli:
- Recipe for Ceruse (white foundation): "take talcum and burned tin, heat them together in a glassmaker's furnace for iii or 4 days, and mix the resulting ashes with light-green figs or distilled viniger."
- Milton Carrol, The Elizabethan Adult female
Recipe for fucus (red facepaint): "Mix Cochineal with the white of hard-boiled egs, the milk of green figs, plume alum, and glue arabic."
Recipe for fucus: "steep brasil well in water for two days and and then mix it with two ounces of fish gum that hath itself been steeped in white vino for five or vi days."
"To brand a redde colour for the confront. Take red sandall finely stamped, and potent Vinegar twice distilled, and then put into information technology equally much sandal as yous wil, and allow it boile faire and softely, and put to information technology too a little stone alume stamped, and you shal have a very perfect blood-red."
"Accept twelve ounces of Nutmegs, mace, ginger, grains, cloves, of each half an ounce, rubarb ane ounce, bevercod, spikenard, of each half an ounce, oyl of Bay 2 ounces, leave the spices unbeaten, pour to it iv quarts of wine, cover information technology close, and permit it stand up and then the space of four weeks, subsequently pour away the wine, pownd all the spices to pap, and put it again to the forsaid wine, let information technology stand well stopped three dayes, stir information technology well about: then distill it in hot water without seething, and preserve it well...this h2o doth accept abroad all spots of the face and of the body."
"To make the hair yellow equally golde. Take the rine or scrapings of Rubarbe, and stiepe information technology in white wine, or in cleere lie; and afterwards y'all accept washed your caput with it, you shall weatte your hairs with a Spoonge or some other cloth, and allow them drie by the fire, or in the sunne; after this weatte them and drie them againe."
For chapped hands: "Melt iii ounces of fresh butter and iii ounces of suet of hart, and, and cutting iv or 5 apples into it; add siz ounces of white wine and eddy until the apples are soft; add half a dram each of cinnamon, camphor, cloves, and nutmegs, two ounces of rose-water, and boil again until the rose-h2o is evaporated; finally, strain through a cloth."
What Women Used For Makeup In 1600,
Source: http://www.elizabethancostume.net/makeup.html
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