I know we’re supposed to reject everything we stood for last year and shed our dehydrated, used-up selves of 2023 to emerge sparkling fresh, dewy, and morally superior, but I don’t know , seasonal self-loathing seems so… powerful. If you’re anything like me (I pray you’re not), you feel lethargic, clumsy, and broke. And have you looked outside yet?
Instead of torturing ourselves with “new year, new you” flannel, let’s look with horror and judgment at some “new year, bad old you” photos. Because it could certainly be worse. Historically, “pain is beauty” has been taken literally, giving rise to centuries of wild claims, dangerous hacks, and impossible-to-achieve standards.
Related: Shock of the old: eight sadistic and antisocial board games
Before today’s vampire facials and snail slime moisturizers, there were arsenic “complexion wafers” that promised a “wonderfully clear complexion.” Renaissance women used deadly nightshades to make their eyes appear bigger, and cat poop to remove hair. A Roman remedy for pimples involved grinding the intestines “of a small land crocodile that feeds only on the most fragrant flowers,” which sounds like something you might find for sale on Goop right now.
But have we adopted an inaccurate cliché? The idea that women in the past unknowingly or recklessly used deadly poison to serve their own vanity is “a misogynistic trope that has circulated since classical antiquity,” writes art history professor Jill Burke in her book How to Be a Renaissance Woman. Burke describes a 16th-century poisoning ring in Rome that women used aquatic tofana – a concoction containing ground arsenic and lead, disguised as skin care products – to slowly poison their violent or merely ‘drunk and weak’ husbands (at least 46, although some speculated there were as many as 600).
But even if the goal wasn’t murder, women throughout history may have known exactly what they were doing. Beauty conferred power, status and control in a world where women had very little of any of those. It’s no wonder the strange, dangerous, or external treatment felt worth it. And is it really that different from a leech cleanse or injecting a deadly poison into your forehead? Let’s see.
Roman plucking and manicure tools
The Romans were heavily into hair removal: the men because of sporting achievements and the women because of patriarchy. “No rancidity of the wild goat under your armpits, no legs full of rough hair!” Ovid wrote, which was apparently funny (I suppose you had to be there). He was not alone among Roman writers: ‘They all write about how to keep an eye on body hair and you know, God, no man is going to be interested in you if you have armpit hair. ” said Cameron Moffett of English Heritage. This is amply evidenced at Wroxeter Roman City in Shropshire, where a “strikingly large number of tweezers” were found being used in the bath complex by professional pickers.
Elizabeth I, circa 1588
Did Elizabeth really cover her face in lead? Possible: Lead-based Venetian Ceruse was a contemporary cosmetic, but there is no evidence she used it. Actually, a lot of Renaissance Goo – the really excellent name of a joint research project between Burke and Professor Wilson Poon (soft matter scientist) – wasn’t half bad. The team recreated and tested historic ointments and found them to be pretty good, including a face cream full of sheep fat, vitamin E and antioxidants.
Electric corset, 1890s
As if corsets weren’t bad enough, here comes science to make them worse. Mrs Whiting, who has suffered from constipation all her life, was “miraculously better” thanks to this electric corset. (Was it squeezed into her like a boa constrictor? Yep.) The enticing fine print promises to “assist the breast in its healthy development,” making this sound like something a Kardashian might try to sell you on TikTok. The electric corset came from 52 Oxford Street, London, now a Holland & Barrett. Good luck curing your hysteria and “organic affection” with three-for-two packs of dried apricots.
Dr. Mackenzie’s arsenic soap, 1897
In the 1850s, reports on Austrian arsenic eaters emphasized their flawless skin color, sparking a craze for arsenic-enriched beauty products. These wafers, creams and soaps produced a desirable tuberculous pallor. “After all, the fairest skins belong to those in the earliest stage of consumption,” as Mrs. SD Powers wrote authoritatively in the 1874 beauty bible, The Ugly Girl Papers (chapter titles include Hope for Homely People, Brief Madness and, my favorite, Easier beautiful are then clean). Unfortunately, arsenic wellness products made you pale by destroying your red blood cells, but it’s okay, this one was “guaranteed to be absolutely harmless.”
Hip reducing machine, 1899
The guy with the thousand-yard stare who operates this contraption (apparently a set of mechanized rolling pins; I have my doubts that it would help “keep that boyish shape,” as it claims) is Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, 1905 world light- heavyweight boxing champion. Why? Does he endorse it? He definitely looks like he’d rather punch something.
Edwardian beauty regimen for ladies, 1906
Ah yes, how can we “repair the ravages of the season”, a perennial problem. I doubt that meant holding pigs in blankets in front of the strongest man in the world for ladies of Edwardian society, but their creative beauty treatments provide inspiration for more contemporary malaise. For example, take a “light bath” in a closet (“can reduce the weight accumulated from incessant eating out”), lie in a bath full of magnets (“strengthening and life-giving”), or enjoy an “electric massage” from a strict lady who is disgusted by your life choices? Furthermore, if your nose had gone “out of fashion,” it could be “adapted to any desired pattern” (I hope that strict lady wasn’t involved).
Lip tattooing, 1929
As someone who had my non-existent eyebrows replaced 25 years ago with tattoos, done by what I can only assume was a beauty parlor work experience kid, and still bears the scars, indelibly orange and psychological, I am perfectly placed to get back into time to shout, “No, don’t do it” at this reckless young thing. However, her expression of empty, listless resignation suggests that she knows exactly how badly this will end.
Radium permanent, 1920s
A reader recently alerted me to the wild craze for radioactive wellness products of the early 20th century. Radium bath salts, ma’am? Or maybe the radium toothpaste? I can’t find any information on how radium would make your hair curl, but it could certainly cause it to fall out.
Radium make-up remover, 1937
Tho-Radia’s French range of beauty products were supposed to improve circulation and get rid of wrinkles, but they were also shown to give the unearthly radiant glow you can see here. They were cunningly promoted with ‘expertise’ from a doctor named Alfred Curie, even though he was not related to Pierre and Marie, who apparently were considering legal action against the company. The French authorities, spoilsports that they were, restricted the use of radium in 1937, meaning this version might be radium-free: where would I get my shine?
Salon spa treatment, 1968
Is cucumber even beautifying? One article claims that it is “excellent for rubbing on the skin to keep it soft and white,” contains “naturally occurring organic acids such as glycolic, lactic, and salicylic acids,” and inhibits tyrosinase (apparently a good thing). This woman has essentially been turned into a salmon for a wedding buffet; another unrealistic beauty ideal that we cannot live up to.