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While our modern beauty regimens certainly don’t lack weird ingredients, by tradition our good looks have often been achieved at the cost of good taste and health. What deadly and disgusting things have people used to stay young and pretty? Here are a few of the truly disturbing used throughout history.
1. Bathing in Crocodile Excrement
For some reason, the ancient Greeks thought crocodile excrement had restorative and beautifying properties. It was mixed into natural mud holes or baths full of warmed mud, and Grecian lovelies hung about in it until they felt restored and beautiful (I’m guessing that took quite a while.) We don’t know how they collected it (or why they decided it was a good idea in the first place) but it was all the rage in the wealthy and youth-seeking circles. Thankfully, bathing with water was also in vogue and there are no official reports of reptile-poo poisoning.
2. Sticking Bird Droppings Up Your Nose
In the early days of the geisha, Japanese women used a whitening paste on their faces made mostly of rice flour and bird droppings. It was applied over the entire face, including the ears, inside the nostrils, on the eyelids and lips.
3. Dyeing Hair With Cow’s Blood
Hair dye has long been a staple of modern women, but ancient Iranian women also enjoyed a good dye-job. They compounded a nasty mix of henna, tadpoles, and the blood of black cows, which they applied liberally to darken and condition their hair. It was thought that the blood gave the cows their dark coloring and would do the same for human hair. Although henna is used as a natural dye to this day, the inclusion of tadpoles still confounds me.
4. Wearing Wigs That Caused Nosebleeds
The women of England have been famous throughout history for their elaborate and strange beauty routines. In the era of Queen Elizabeth, when red hair was in fashion, women used a powder made of sulfur and safflower petals to color their hair and wigs. The blend caused headaches, nausea, and frequent nosebleeds.
5. Wearing Poisonous Eye Makeup
When it comes to heavy metal poisoning, no one trumps the ancient Egyptians. Men and women painted their eyes almost daily with a mixture called mesdemet, made from a dark gray lead, among other things. Also, a green paint called udju was used, made from a copper ore. Although neither product could be considered healthy, the eyepaint that Egyptians wore is credited with repelling insects and preventing infections due to the high antimicrobial activity of copper ore.
6. Liberally Applying Arsenic Powder
In a medieval version of today’s CoverGirl compact, European women used a powder (pressed into cakes or small jars) to whiten their skin. The fashionable pallor was created by using white lead ore and arsenic, among other unhealthy-but-white ingredients.
7. Gargling With (Portuguese) Urine
Dental care was a little lax throughout most of history, but Romans in the time of Jupiter appreciated white teeth nearly as much as we do today. To improve the color of their teeth and freshen their breath, Romans imported Portuguese urine (believed to be stronger than their own) to rinse their mouths. While obviously unpleasant, urine contains several compounds like ammonia and urea that actually kill germs and help fight the gum disease gingivitis.
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Quiz: Discontinued Ben & Jerry’s Flavor or Band I Found on MySpace?
Those Portuguese had a good gig.
1. Drink heavily
2. Urinate
3. Profit!
Sign me up. (For what it’s worth, Norwegian-american urine is the shizzle. The bidding will begin at $10/pint)
posted by EV on 11-12-2008 at 3:28 pm
I really get a kick out of Romans sending out for Portuguese urine.
posted by Michael on 11-12-2008 at 3:29 pm
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew! Gargeling with PEE! I think I’d rather have rotten teeth, thank you.
posted by Steven on 11-12-2008 at 3:59 pm
Funny. There’s a spa in Santa Fe, NM that does facial masks with nightingale poop. It being 21st century and all, they “clean” it before they coat your face with it. I linked to it through my name. The spa rocks though and I would recommend the place to anyone in a heartbeat. Maybe they’re really onto something.
posted by Christina on 11-12-2008 at 4:31 pm
Seems like I read that geisha also used a lead-based face paint that eventually turned skin yellow, and (if memory serves) caused hair and teeth to fall out. The bad part is how they covered most of their upper body with it, not just around the face but on the chest and down the back as well.
posted by kennedy on 11-12-2008 at 4:47 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if, hundreds of years from now, people looked back and discussed how some of the beauty practices we do currently are “historic and seriously unhealthy” too!!
posted by CK on 11-12-2008 at 6:19 pm
Re: CK’s Post…..botox and “juvederm” come to mind, along with lipo, implants, and oh you get the point….I think most of us know, even now, how unhealthy they are!!
posted by Sandie on 11-12-2008 at 10:37 pm
Ha! Love the Portuguese Urine technique. But yeah, Christina, I HAVE heard of nightingale poop face products!
Also, mercury was used in a TON of cosmetic products over the years. In fact, I’m pretty sure that even recently, a couple of companies had to remove traces of mercury from their products!
posted by Giana on 11-12-2008 at 11:08 pm
here’s another one for the list, the use of bella donna eye drops to make one’s eyes ’sparkle’…. prolonged use could cause blurred vision, inability to focus, increased heartrate and blindness
posted by abbott on 11-13-2008 at 11:33 am
another one for the list is using bella donna eye drops to make ones eyes sparkle, prolonged usage caused blurred vision, increased heartrate, inability to focus and blindness
posted by abbott on 11-13-2008 at 11:41 am
I’m pretty sure I could have happily lived my whole life without knowing that urine can prevent the gum disease gingivitis. Ew, ew, ew.
Really interesting article though!
posted by Orange on 11-13-2008 at 11:49 am
Thank God that we do not have to do these nasty things today to make us look presentable or to fit in. I’m sure that in other countries, they still have their beauty secrets and rituals that are not so clean and sanitary to us in the U.S, but at least I do not have to participate.
In the U.S. we do have some interesting beauty routines also, especially for hair removal. At one point, body hair was manly for men but nowadays, women are not so attracted to men with lots of body hair. And women with hairy armpits, usually raise an eyebrow. Shaving and waxing is such a pain to do, especially when you have to do it 5 times a week. I think overall, laser removal is the way to go. It has saved me time and money, because I don’t have to buy any more shavers or wax and waxing strips and it is less painful too.
posted by Tiffany on 11-13-2008 at 5:59 pm
Thank God that we do not have to do these nasty things today to make us look presentable or to fit in. I’m sure that in other countries, they still have their beauty secrets and rituals that are not so clean and sanitary to us in the U.S, but at least I do not have to participate.
In the U.S. we do have some interesting beauty routines also, especially for hair removal. At one point, body hair was manly for men but nowadays, women are not so attracted to men with lots of body hair. And women with hairy armpits, usually raise an eyebrow. Shaving and waxing is such a pain to do, especially when you have to do it 5 times a week. I think overall, laser removal is the way to go. It has saved me time and money, because I don’t have to buy any more shavers or wax and waxing strips and it is less painful too.
posted by Tiffany on 11-13-2008 at 6:00 pm
Ewwww. Gross. Interesting though!
posted by h20 fan on 11-13-2008 at 6:02 pm
rice flour and bird droppings !!! I’m pass…
posted by JT on 11-14-2008 at 12:54 pm
It didn’t last long, but for a time, capsules containing the scolex (head segment) of tapeworms were sold as weight lose pills. They were banned once it became apparent that pretty much everyone who took them eventually starved to death from the parasite.
posted by Skink on 11-29-2008 at 11:16 pm
The ‘tapeworm diet’ has never been confirmed or authenticated as an actual product. IF something was marketed as such, it is highly unlikely that such a product was sold as advertised.
A tapeworm can grow to over 50 feet and live for 20 years or more. Larva are burrowing worms, meaning that ingestion of eggs or larva would result in serious health issues caused by the young eating their way out of the intestinal tract into other areas of the body.
posted by J. Tithonus Pednaud on 12-31-2008 at 12:59 pm