Elizabethan Beauty Secrets

©Nicola Harrison Elizabethan Beauty Secrets ‘Poetry, Music and Imagination. The Wordsmith’s Guide’ 2016

1

Elizabethan Beauty Secrets In the anonymous lyric ‘Brown Is My Love’ we appear to have a song about the prevailing tastes of beauty in the Elizabethan Age. The poet weighs up the difference between ‘brown’ and ‘white’ skin, and we find that one is ‘despis’d’ while the other is much admired in Elizabethan England. Looking at portraits of the time we can see, from the many surviving likenesses of Queen Elizabeth this fashion for a white painted face, golden hair and jewels that brought sparkle to the eyes and skin. Classic Elizabethan beauty was defined by: bright eyes, an alabaster complexion, red lips and golden hair. The poet Robert Greene (1560–92), sums this up in his poem ‘Samela’: Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams, Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory  Of fair Samela;  Her cheeks, like rose and lily yield forth gleams; Her brows bright arches, framed of ebony... 1 For a lady at court, the pursuit of beauty was tireless and dangerous: women literally died for their beauty. To achieve a pale skin, ladies would go to considerable lengths, from bleeding themselves to smothering their faces with all manner of toxic chemicals. Due to poor diet and lack of informed health care, smooth, unblemished pale skin was a rarity and much sought after.


2

Fair skin was a reflection of class and prosperity. Wealthy ladies did not have to go outside and work, and were therefore able to hide themselves away from sunlight and its browning effects on the complexion. In the sixteenth century, white was right and the Elizabethans took this idea of ‘fairness’ much further, taking it to describe overall beauty as well as colour of complexion. In pursuit of this ideal they concocted make-up of white lead, vinegar and subli- mate of mercury. Applied to face, neck and bosom this whitening foundation ate away at the skin, causing open sores and scarring which these ladies then covered up with even thicker layers of the same make-up. They did not remove this lethal concoction at night, either, but simply added new layers of this product to the old. As the skin suppurated, high levels of lead, arsenic and mercury were absorbed even more quickly into the body.  If gentlewomen so much as saw a freckle, they removed it with lead sulphate. This was a compound that shrivelled the skin and turned it grey, leading to ever more frenzied cover-ups. Portrait of Anne Knollys, Lady De La Warr Robert Peake, 1582


3

This lethal beauty cycle led to open sores and pustulation that often ended in death. In addition to these alluring mixtures, Elizabethan ladies used egg white, plastered onto the face in a mask, to hide wrinkles and give their complexions a high shine and the impression of smoothness. Sometimes they even traced on a couple of fake veins to imply ne- ness of skin. Eyes were brightened with belladonna, cheeks and lips were rouged and painted with mercuric sulphide, and little false eyelashes were fashioned out of mouse fur. And so to seventeenth century hair. This was bleached with lye, which caused it to fall out. The resulting loss of volume was plumped up with wigs greased in lard. And that pale, high forehead? This wasn’t natural either, but the result of fierce plucking of the hairline to give the impression of a noble brow. Now perhaps we can understand the sentiment expressed by Shakespeare in this excerpt from his 127th sonnet where he condemns the use of makeup as a falsification of the truth: For since each hand hath put on Nature’s power, Fairing the foul with Art’s false borrow’d face, Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,  But is profan’d, if not lives in disgrace. 1 1 Oxford Book of English Verse, 1919.


4