Beauty That Kills: Was Renaissance Makeup Deadly?

Beauty ideals during the Renaissance were determined by various factors relating to status and wealth, and women often went to extreme lengths to portray themselves as part of an elite social class. Learning recipes from published books, women would plaster their skin and hair with various remedies to achieve the ideal pale skin, smooth hair, and red cheeks. Some Renaissance makeup was harmless and even beneficial, while other types were made from toxic ingredients including lead and arsenic that could lead to health issues or, in the most extreme cases, death.

Standards of beauty during the Renaissance were set in place by class structure. Women in higher classes led lives of leisure; they spent their days visiting each other, embroidering, and pursuing leisure activities outside. Their hands were callous free, they did not toil outside in the sun, and kept their faces shaded and pale. They had the money to afford better quality and more food, including an abundance of meat making their bodies softer and rounder. This ideal can be seen captured in portraits created during the Renaissance.

Women wanted curvier bodies, something also thought of to be good for childbearing. Some fashion trends at the time also worked to pad areas to add to the volume. Pale faces and hands with rosy cheeks were desired, and while these effects came somewhat naturally, there were many concoctions made to enhance their effect.

Beauty books were printed and circulated during the Renaissance that talked about the ideals of beauty, and how to achieve the “it” look. Recipes were included in these books for tonics and creams that would get rid of color on the face, from sunburns or sun exposure. They also gave lessons on how to make women’s hair long and smooth. 

Which Beauty Trends Were Discouraged?

Mary Magdalene makes herself up in a mirror as her scolding sister looks on in Caravaggio’s Martha and Mary Magdalene, ca. 1498. Source: Detroit Institute of Arts

Religion dominated the culture of Western Europe. Many activities or items were banned or frowned upon that were deemed “immoral.” This included cosmetics. The natural look was preferred in the Middle Ages until the pale look became all the rage during the Renaissance. 

Although cosmetics were used to achieve perfect skin, that did not to extend to all the types of cosmetics used today. Lip color was still preferred in more neutral colors, although darker reds not seen in the Middle Ages were gaining some popularity. The overall look was still supposed to be “natural” beauty. Heavy makeup was reserved for women of so-called “lesser morals.” This included actresses when women began to grace the stage of England in 1660, opera singers, and prostitutes.

Queen Elizabeth I was well known for wearing makeup, as seen in many of her portraits. According to Cosmetics in Shakespearean and Renaissance Drama, “A by-product of the Queen’s open use of facial cosmetics is the social legitimizing of cosmetics for other women,” (35). This continued later into the Victorian Age, where makeup was seen as dishonest and associated with those of supposed questionable morals and beliefs. Subsequently there was a backslide in high class women wearing the makeup seen in the Renaissance.

While many Renaissance beauty trends used ingredients like lead or arsenic, many recipes existed that contained natural ingredients. One recipe cited by The Conversation talks about how to “take rosemary flowers and boil them with white wine and with this wash the face very well, and also drink it, it will make your face very beautiful, and the breath good.” Rosemary can help with boosting the immune system and has anti-inflammatory properties that could certainly improve the skin and blood circulation. Lip color could be improved by mixing berries with various fats. Pinching the cheeks could give them a bright healthy color, a healthier alternative if someone didn’t use some of the more potent ingredients.

Which Dangerous Cosmetics Were Used?

Many dangerous substances were used in makeup during the Renaissance. Several powders and creams for the face were laced with toxins, including lead, mercury, arsenic, and deadly nightshade. 

We all might be familiar with the harmful effects of regular lead exposure today. However, women during the Renaissance liberally applied creams laced with lead to their faces and bodies. Side effects included abdominal pain, headaches, hair loss, memory problems, infertility, anemia, seizures, coma, and eventually death.

Mercury in facial whitening creams also caused negative effects to the wearer’s appearance and cognitive abilities as it slowly poisoned them. (There is a reason the term “mad as a hatter” is a saying; hat makers used mercury in the process of creating their products, with many getting sick and going “mad”). In Thomas Jeamson’s Artificial Embellishments (1665), he observed how mercury lined products could cause a “wrinkle-furrowed visage, stinking breath, loose and rotten teeth.”

Arsenic was used as a topical insecticide as well as appearing in skin-whitening creams. Poisoning from this deadly compound could lead to hair loss, kidney damage, bodily growths and pigment loss in the skin. It worked in making the wearer pale by killing off red blood cells, which could prove fatal.

Deadly nightshade—or atropa belladonna, is a toxic plant in the same family of the far safer tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant. If ingested, it can cause delirium and hallucinations and death. Like many other toxic substances besides cosmetics, it also has a long history of usage in medicine. The plant was used in the Renaissance to “brighten” the eyes; its juice was used as an eyedrop that dilated the pupils to give a doll-like, seductive appearance.