Standards of beauty might change from generation to generation. But Victorian beauty routines read like something out of a chemistry textbook—specifically the part near the back where they list all the stuff that'll kill you.
Harper's Bazaar ran a column called "The Ugly Girl Papers: Or, Hints for the Toilet" (via Atlas Obscura). It offered practical beauty advice, but today we'd recognize it as being insanely dangerous. White skin was all the rage, and women achieved that by washing their faces with ammonia, then covering them with lead-based paint. And don't think you could get away with going bare-faced at night, either, because in order to keep that fresh-faced look, the column suggested rubbing some opium on before bed. For those who were really committed, Sears & Roebuck sold a product called Dr. Campbell's Safe Arsenic Complexion Wafers. Yes, it was arsenic, and yes, women were instructed to eat them.
If you were unlucky enough to have thin eyebrows and eyelashes, a nightly smear of mercury could help with that. And speaking of eyes, watery eyes were all the rage, too...for some reason. To achieve that look, women could use lemon juice, perfume, or belladonna as eyedrops. The latter did, of course, cause blindness, but people have been suffering for beauty for ages.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunB9kmlwbWhfq7akwM6roJqmXZq%2FonnMnqqsnZRiwrF5x6Kqraeirnw%3D