People making questionable decisions with their faces in the name of ridiculous beauty standards is a tale as old as faces. Before we were doing ridiculous things to our eyebrows on purpose, we were making them fall out accidentally with the hottest trend of the Elizabethan era: lead poisoning.
Today’s Moment of Science… Venetian ceruse.
Lighter skin has been a component of beauty ideals in many disparate cultures throughout history. Beyond the deeply racist bullshit, it likely started with classist implications; lighter skin meant your royal tuchus hadn’t been out laboring in the field like those filthy fucking peasants.
Modern skin bleaching methods are safer than their predecessors, but I wouldn’t sell you a crap heap by saying it’s less malodorous than a shit pile. One common treatment is high dose IV glutathione, which has a severe lack of clinical data but a lot of people are willing to charge and pay money for it, so. Any effect of the expensive infusions (up to $400 for one of typically ten sessions for results) is also temporary and will require maintenance infusions. Topical skin lightening treatments like hydroquinone or various peels work, but they can occasionally backfire, sometimes causing hyperpigmentation or burning the skin because fuck you, that’s why.
And once upon a time, good old fashioned, all natural arsenic complexion wafers were consumed for skin lightening long after it was well known to be deadly. Why? Because it fucking worked, but not quite the same way other lighteners did. It destroyed red blood cells, leaving the user looking more ghastly pale than glowing regally. But who had time to worry about side effects when you were looking fab and getting light headed from anemia?
Then there was all the goddamn neurotoxic face bleach of yore. My bandname.
A beauty treatment that’s been kicking around at least since the age of antiquity, lead based lightening creams were causing a ruckus long before they so famously patched up Queen Elizabeth I’s smallpox scars. A few types of lead carbonate fuckery were used in these pasty precursors to foundations, generally in a mixture with water and vinegar. Though it’s alleged that Venetian ceruse used pure white lead for a superior glow to other ceruse products with a lead carbonate mixture, it’s also possible this was simply better marketed face poison from the Italian fashion hub.
To achieve the ‘skin the color of freshly bleached mayo in a snowstorm,’ look, it wasn’t exactly healthy but a single day’s worth of damage was maybe about as dangerous as drinking the water in the middle ages. But there’s still this whole jar of poisonous facial nope and do you want to look like a fucking serf? No, it’s the 1700s, so you want to look like goddamn Casper.
And since this stuff layers on so well, why scrub off yesterday’s ceruse when you can just pack on some more today? It’ll help whiten, brighten, and cover up that the flesh is starting to decay right off. But best of luck covering up the rotting teeth and the receding hairline.
Long term exposure to lead can cause organ damage to the kidneys and liver, fertility problems, and bone damage. A powerful neurotoxin, it can cause memory problems, intellectual impairment, seizures, coma, and even death. When applied in this beauty paste, it caused skin peeling and mottling. This meant scarring, which led to applying more layers upon layers of the very shit that caused this problem. No lathering, no rinsing, just repeating.
It’s not clear how often fatalities occurred from spackling on Venetian ceruse and other toxic cosmetic or bleaching agents. Famous London socialite Maria Coventry died in 1760 at age twenty-seven from prolific use of leaded cosmetics. It was deemed “death by vanity” by the general public. It’s been suggested that Queen Elizabeth I died from lead poisoning, but no cause of death was firmly established for the pale monarch with the unmistakable hairline at the end of her forty-five year reign.
Skin bleaching products are still widely unregulated, and a study in 2017 found unsafe levels of mercury and arsenic in fifteen common skin lightening creams.
This has been your Moment of Science, letting y’all know from personal experience that having a skin color of approximately ‘cellophane’ is nothing to dip your tits in lead for.
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Do Lash-Lure next, Yvette. This is a permanent mascara that falls into the “are you out of your fucking mind?” category. You’ll LOVE it.