Overview
When we talk of “The Fashionable” we mean the influential and the rich. But Bath was the great leveller of society. Here would be found footmen and serving girls, milliners and gamblers all trying to vie with the wealthy and more exotic patrons living in the Parades and Crescents. Some idea of the extent of make-up may be gained from the following list of items stolen from a dressing table:
- 7 cakes superfine Spanish wool
- 2 pairs brand new plumpers
- 4 black lead combs
- 3 pairs fashionable eyebrows
- 2 sets ivory teeth (little worse for wearing)
- Collection of recipes to make pastes for hands
- Pomatums
- Lipsalves
- White pots
- Beautifying creams
- Water of Talc, and Frogspawn Water
- Decoctions for cleaning the complexion
With all this equipment it can be understood why it was normal for a full scale toilette to take six hours to complete and to be a social occasion with chat about love affairs, duels and all the latest scandals.
Less time was spent on personal hygiene. The general rule for society was “Wash the hands often, the feet rarely and the head never”. The head included the face and hair. To relieve the inevitable irritation from head lice a narrow pronged stick of ivory was used. At night a net of gold or silver might be used to keep mice out of the elaborate coiffure.
A manual of etiquette dated 1782 advises wiping the face every morning with a linen cloth and warns it is not good to wash it in water as this makes it too sensitive to cold and sunburn. Washstands commonly stood in a room and held a small bowl, a jug and a chamber-pot (the “necessary”). Bathrooms were a status symbol and were a fantastic show of silken drapes with an old wooden barrel used not at all. St. George’s Hospital in London reported it had a bath in the basement but, almost with pride, that it was never used.
The face was the thing. As all were considered old at thirty, it meant hard struggles to maintain the illusion of youth. One of the dangers was loss of teeth and the subsequent gaps that allowed the cheeks to become sunken. The solution was to use plumpers, wads of rounded cork stuffed into the mouth. Teeth were infrequently cleaned. Perhaps this was just as well as one preparation was made of powdered coral, pumice and gum. Once in two or three months it was considered beneficial to use a tooth whitener of lemon juice mixed with burnt alum and salt, rubbed onto the teeth. If wished, a mouthwash could be used, an infusion of wine, bramble leaves, cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, gum lacquer, burnt alum and honey infused in hot ashes.
When teeth became decayed it was possible to have them drilled, with a hand operated drill and a slow process, and filled with tin, lead or gold. False teeth were of porcelain or solid ivory set in wood or animal bones. The best sets of teeth, however, were those made from teeth extracted from the bodies found on the battlefields of Europe.
With the teeth in position, the face could be painted. First, a layer of white lead powder mixed to a stiff paste with egg white was coated over head and neck. Rouge made from lead paste and carmine was applied in large patches onto the cheeks with Spanish wool. Lips were tinted with coloured soft plaster of Paris. Eyes were accentuated with the use of lamp black or burnt ivory shavings.
Eyebrows could be blacked with lead combs or by washing them in a mixture of green vitriol and gum Arabic, but neither of these was considered as good as artificial eyebrows made from mouse skins, cut to shape and affixed with a glue that caused them to slip sometimes in the overheated ballrooms.
As eight out of ten suffered from smallpox, the scars needed to be covered with patches. These were made from silk, taffeta or Spanish leather. Black was mostly used but red was a popular second choice.
With the face prepared, the hair could be made ready. As it would stay up four weeks or more it was first combed through and cleansed with bran or ivory powder, then arranged over false hair pieces and set in place with household lard or bear grease (macassir oil). Then it was dusted with white flour and decorated with flowers and other ornaments.
For the most fastidious of persons who might wish to cleanse the body, a linen cloth might be wrung in Hungary Water and applied monthly if considered really necessary. This was a mixture of oils of rosemary, verbena, Portugal linette and peppermint in triple rosewater and triple orange flower water, added to 90 percent alcohol.
There were very many recipes for aiding and improving the complexion. An example of a strange mixture of good sense and stupidity is the following late eighteenth century mixture absolutely guaranteed to preserve the complexion. Collect a good many white flowers, cucumber water, lemon juice plus seven or eight white pigeons, plucked, beheaded, minced fine and digested in a still for ten days before using on the face.
A point to note is that gentlemen also used make-up in the same manner as ladies. Ladies customarily removed make-up with mercury water at monthly intervals, presumably men cleaned off daily in order to shave with their cut throat razors. Those younger men who followed exaggerated modes of fashion were known as “Macaronis” and gave much amusement to their more normally decorated brothers.
A reminder for all of us tempted to resort to artificial aids to beauty is this law passed in 1770 and never repealed:
An Act to protect men from being beguiled into marriage by false adornments. All women, of whatever rank, age, profession or degree, whether virgins, maids or widows, that shall, from and after such Act, impose upon, seduce or betray matrimony, any of His Majesty’s subjects, by the scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes and bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the law in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanours and that the marriage upon conviction shall stand null and void.