Historical Beauty Practices and Their Implications

Over the past 400 years, women in Britain have engaged in various extraordinary beauty practices, often involving harmful substances. For instance, in Victorian times, some women consumed arsenic wafers to achieve a pallid complexion, while others applied toxic lead-based makeup. These practices reflect a long history of women's resilience and creativity in navigating societal pressures around beauty and social acceptance. The exploration of these historical regimes reveals how beauty standards have profoundly influenced women's lives and the lengths they went to achieve them.