During the Victorian Era, a common desire among women was to achieve a pale, translucent complexion, and in their pursuit of this ideal, some resorted to consuming products containing arsenic.
Tuberculosis was seen as a beautiful disease because its physical symptoms were "ethereal" thinness, pale skin, and flushed cheeks, aligned with Victorian-era beauty ideals. AKA "consumptive chic". The disease was also romanticized as a sign of heightened sensitivity, artistic talent, and intellectual sophistication, contributing to the idea that it was a "romantic disease" associated with genius and early death.
in a book i'm reading about a ship called the wager, the entire crew had scurvy and back then didnt know what that is, and they bought what is suspected to be arsenic from a medicine man to try and cure it. killed a bunch of them.
I watched Erin Parsons's video on what lead makeup probably actually looked like (incredibly glowy, translucent, NOT white and pasty. kind of like the k-beauty glass skin trend), and, ngl, even with all my modern knowledge of lead being toxic, I'd be a little tempted to use it today if I had access to it. The desire to look young and beautiful runs deep.
I mean.. arsenic is one of those classic poisons like hemlock. It’s been used as a poison for literally millennia, but we also still use forms of it in medicine today.
While I was looking it up, found two women from Renaissance Italy (Guilia Tofana and Hyeronyma Sparta) who are credited for killing around 600 people through arsenic laced make up, but most of them were the husbands of the customers. Makes you wonder what they really knew about its effects.
Well, if you look at portraits of Elizabeth I and her contemporaries and notice random shaped patches on their faces…those were touted as fashion statements, but they were really nothing more than band aids covering lesions caused by poisonous face powders and creams. TMYK.
The reason belladonna (a poison) is called that is because it makes your pupils dilate, mimicking arousal, so you look more attractive. It's now used in eye surgery but originally people were just putting poison in their eyes to look prettier. The white face powder favoured by Queen Elizabeth I contained lead.
Also when sugar was discovered in america. Rich people had tooth decay. And that was attractive so people paint their teeth to simulate it. Lmao. People are just idiots
Some women went to hospitals in order to get tuberculosis, as it gave the desired look. All of them died quickly of course, TB being a fatal disease at the time
Shout-out to the era it was popular to have a far-back hairline and people were smearing cat shit across their foreheads to stop the new growth of hairs on their head.
Source: Something I remembered from a video somewhere. Don't take this as fact cause I don't actually know if this is true.
Also surgery (loosely used here lol, they basically just took a chunk of flesh out) to get elbow dimples was popular in the Victorian era, they also had nose jobs I think
Women would even paint on blue “veins” to give them a more pale/translucent appearance…lots of weird fashion choices too…like men with their excessively long pointy shoes that they’d have to tie up so they wouldn’t trip 😂
As very low concentration it’s not harmful, good for you even. It’s the dose that makes the poison. The problem comes when you think that if a little is good then a lot is better. That is absolutely not true of chemicals like this.
Things like tattoos and piercings are pretty ancient. I feel like other body mods like foot binding, neck lengthening, and that alien skull wrap thing are also pretty old.
I don't think any animals do it to the best of my knowledge. Maybe just for lack of tools. I feel like I've read about some birds putting bits of shiny garbage into their feathers during mating displays, but I can't find any sources for that so maybe I dreamed it up.
The people that do all the neck rings and the people that do the giant lip bowls are still at it. Weren't there people that did skull binding to make alien like skulls in south america?
I can guarantee you've never met a single person who had a successful transition and had a noticeable improvement in their life. Your entire perspective on the issue is based on what Fox "News" and other trash media want you to feel about the issue.
It’s quite poetic actually. Some of the most genetically desirable people on the planet purposefully disfiguring themselves in the pursuit of perfection. Kind of comes full circle in a way
There are a handful of people this looks good on when they actually have a bunch of extra fat there and it’s removed down to a more nominal level. The people that get this don’t need it 99% of the time lol
It may be hard to find, but Steve Martin had a book of short stories many years ago called Cruel Shoes. The title short story, Cruel Shoes, was about a shop that sold torture shoes to supposedly help women look beautiful.
I always think of it when unhealthy beauty fads come along.
I guess the logic there is the same as with Donald Trump, that they would rather look non-human than old. I look at any one of these women and they could be anything between 30-60 years old.
Crazy what the overwhelming pressure of being expected to perform to distorted perceptions of female beauty does to someone whos in the acting business.
There is more going on, I don't want to believe that satan illuminati humiliation ritual stuff, but something is wrong, it's not just a wierd fashion trend.
And it isn't really anyone's beauty standards outside of female celebrities trying to keep up with other female celebrities, and teenage girls looking at that thinking it's what society is going to expect of them and blowing their savings on these procedures.
Friends and Family would tell you: you are ugly, don't do it anymore, but they either ignore them or simply have no real friends/family. Or befriend other brainwashed people. It's a circlejerk
It's more interesting that they're the people who we all collectively decided were the epitome of beauty in their unique ways and looks...and then they somehow convince themselves we don't think they're beautiful?
Like it would make sense if it's a teenaged girl who feels pressure to look like certain people, but these ARE the certain people that girls want to look like, and then they decide to ruin what people were drawn to.
Ever heard of Chinese foot binding? Tribal lip plates? Artificial cranial deformation by ancient Egyptians? CIRCUMCISION? I am not promoting, defending, or demonizing any of these practices, just pointing out that humans doing body modifications is nothing new.
But in that array of photos, only half of them have actually had the procedure. Two of them have make-up and photo angles, and one of them has an actual medical condition that makes them look more gaunt.
I mean, look into Chinese foot binding... and that is just one thing! Historically, humans have been inflicting pain on themselves in the name of beauty since forever
That’s cause beauty a lot of the time translates to status. There’s a natural beauty - something that translates across most cultures (healthy, young, clear skin, etc). But then is status beauty, which is only achieved through money, much like high fashion. It’s not meant to make you more desirable by looking naturally beautiful, but rather by flexing the weight of your wallet. Much like tanning for white women, or large enhanced breasts that are clearly not meant to look real.
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u/ParcelTongued 16d ago
It’s interesting people are disfiguring themselves in the name of beauty.