Many skincare lovers see beauty and skincare as a calming, pleasurable past time, yet back in the 19th and 20th centuries, beauty sometimes meant pain. With Halloween only a couple of days away, here are some lethal vintage beauty treatments that will spook your manicured toes off!
Most people want to have glowing skin but radioactive skincare is perhaps not the first thing people think of. In the 1930s, radium (a radioactive chemical element) was used in a variety of products: food, beauty, clocks, even condoms. Radium was a desirable ingredient for beauty products because it was rumored to banish wrinkles and make the skin more ‘energised.’ However, it was deadly. Even scientists at the time knew how poisonous it was but profit was put over health. There was a case of the ‘radium girls’ in Edwardian times who painted radium clocks, where they were told to lick the paintbrush (to get a clean finish on the product) thus ingesting the element. Ten years later these women died of cancer, with massive tumors on their jaws.
Some things in this article will make your skin crawl and putting leeches on your face is certainly one of them. Leeches were not only used in medieval times to “cure” sick people but also in later centuries as a face mask. It was believed that the leeches sucking the skin would make the skin tight and youthful. They were even used on the stomach. Even in modern times, they are still used. Model Miranda Kerr kept her leeches as pets after the first time she had the treatment. For hygiene reasons, leeches cannot be reused and so are often killed after the treatment. Miranda reuses hers and uses them regularly.
Sometimes we look at our under-eye bags and our skin and feel like they need to be zapped back to life. But an electric face moulding mask probably isn’t the answer. Invented in the 1930s, the mask acted as a hot iron on your face to eliminate wrinkles and lines on one’s skin. Dr Joseph Brueck’s version of the product was made up of a “battery of heating coils” that warmed up the face and was designed to “melt away wrinkles and unwanted lines.” While this device may sound like something from a horror film, don’t fret yet. These masks came with slits for the eyes and a little tube to breathe through so women could read a beauty magazine that probably made her feel guilty about her lines and wrinkles in the first place.
Everyone that gets eyelash extensions normally describes it as a calming experience, a treatment that can make you fall asleep. Not for Edwardian girls. In 1882, women would have their hair from their head sewn into their eyelids, to create lashes. A fine needle threaded with hair was sewn into the edges of the eyelid. This procedure was so excruciatingly painful that the lower part of the eyelid was rubbed with cocaine to relieve the pain.
If you wanted to dress like one of the creepy toys from Sid’s room in Toy Story, then the beauty calibrator will get you halfway there. Maksymilian Faktorowicz (creator of Max Factor) invented the device in the early 1930s. It was simply placed on the head and had strips put in place by set screws which permitted 325 adjustments. The beauty standard at the time was said to be that the height of the nose and forehead should be the same, and the eyes should be the distance of the width of one’s eye. By measuring the different widths of the face, the device was meant to identify the flaws of the person and thus use the measurements to apply makeup to cover the imperfections. The device didn’t sell well and just as well as it didn’t; it would be terrifying to walk into a salon filled with women wearing them.
While these tales of old beauty treatments are terrifying, it doesn’t mean we are far off in the 21st century ourselves. It will be interesting to find out in five, ten, or even thirty year’s time what today’s beauty treatments will be deemed lethal.
Tasmin Fatodu
Featured image by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash. This image has not been altered. Image license found here.