Victorian Beauty Ideals An Introduction

The Victorian era marked the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 - 1901. This was a time of refined beauty or sometimes referred to as the 'unpainted ladies' this was mostly due to the industrial revolution and heightened moral sensibility. The perfect ideal for a lady was to be seen as fragile fainting ladies;

"Sylph like fragility... a milk like pallor and a proneness to faint on every and any occasion."

Ella Adelia Fletcher

 this was inventible as eyelets were created in 1820's and corsets could be laced up to rib crushing standards.

Cosmetics were frowned upon and considered indecent, and was only worn by streetwalkers and actresses which was often perceived as the same thing. There was a constant theme that beauty was related to morality

"Physical beauty is... the sign of an internal beauty, which is spiritual and moral beauty, and this is the foundation, the principle, the unity of the beautiful."

Victor Cousin Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, 1854

 

The Victorian beauty ideal was a peaches and cream complexion, cherry ripe lips, a pair of sparkling eyes fringed by lashes and all of these things were expected to be all natural. However even though cosmetics were banned women were known to consume Epson salts, chalk and vinegar to get whiter skin and a slimmer figure, a fine complexion became even more important as it was an indication of youth, health and social standing, this fair skin would distinguish the upper class lady from the weathered working class. The Toilette of Health (1834) recommends a concoction of bitter almonds, oxymurite of quicksilver and sal ammoniac  as a wash to blanch the complexion. Women looked to fruits vegetables and herbs as remedies for bad skin and Parisian ladies went as far as placing raw beef on their faces in the way of a nightime moisturiser and Spanish ladies squeezed the juice of an orange into their eyes to give them sparkle.

 

Women still tried to get around the no cosmetics rule it was said that a little vegetable rogue was acceptable but only when used 'with the most delicate taste and digression, a lady should be sufficiently careful that sufficient is not left upon the face to be noticeable to the eye of a gentleman.' This quote shows that women would wear makeup but it was often virtually invisible, worn on the evening and was usually home made. Some DIY recopies included rubbing a ribbon soaked in brandy on the cheeks for rogue or crushing up elderberries and darkening the eyelashes and eyebrows with them.

 

Another beauty ideal that was highly sought after in the Victorian times was their hair, lack of makeup was often compensated for by extravagant hair care, hair was often brushed 4x a day for 10 minutes each time, and the excess hair that was collected from the brush and used in padding or hair rats. The English Womans's Domestic Magazine said 'Dinner hair ought to be dressed in four rolls either side of finished off behind a Marie Antoinette chignon, frizzed very much.' Frizzing and curling was very popular for hair during these times, it was a standard thing for a woman to have curling tongs, so women would style their hair with these if it did not frizz naturally, the only other option was to wear wigs, hairdressers supplied everything from wigs to false eyebrows and also came from the deceased. For women it was a right of passage to wear their hair up, so long hair was only seen down in the bedroom or boudoir, so seeing the hair of a woman down was seen to be quite sexual.

 

Marsh M (2009). Compacts and Cosmetics - Beauty From the Victorian Times to the Present Day. South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Books. 17 - 35.

Ribeiro A (2011). Facing Beauty - Painted Women and Cosmetic Art. London: Yale University Press. 222 - 247

Gio. (Unknown). Beauty in the Victorian Age. Available: http://beautifulwithbrains.com/2010/08/06/beauty-in-the-victorian-age/. Last accessed 31st Jan 2016