Elizabethan cosmetics and hair products

Elizabethan cosmetics and hair products

In the Elizabethan era it was only the ‘rich’ who were able to have their own cosmetics and show there beauty. Queen Elizabeth was the big inspiration in this era which was to be very pale, have light hair, thin eyebrows and a strong red lipstick every woman in Britain wanted to look like Queen Elizabeth.

There was a clear indication to who was rich and who were poor as the poor worked outside in their fields looking after their crops and animals they would catch a tan which was against the rich look those days as Queen Elizabeth made herself look as pale as she could, also natural hair colour as most lower class people had dark hair and the upper class had light hair which would be coloured.

The make-up products they applied in that era was different to what we apply this era, all our make-up today have gone through tests to make them human/skin friendly where these make-up they used could potentially be poison and damaging to the skin.

To create the white/pale face as we would call a ‘foundation base’ they used the mixture of white lead and vinegar which was poisons to the skin.

Compared to today we have professional hairdressers that apply our hair colouring today or we have box dye with every colour under the book. The only colour Elizabethans were interested was light hair yellow was the most popular colour for them to create this they used a mixture off saffron, cumin seed, celandine and oil

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‘Queen Elizabeth had a wide variety of wigs and hair pieces believed to number over eighty, these were often referred to as periwigs’

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-make-up.htm

Mascara, eye shadows, eye liner we use these products which are used on the eyes to create shading and colour. The Elizabethans used something called Kohl which was used to darken the eyelashes.

We have many of products that colour, shape and texturize the lips. In the Elizabethan times they used crush beetles called Cochineal, once the beetles were crushed they would create a very strong red colour this was used for lipstick and to colour the cheeks for blusher.

Elizabethan make-up is very different to the make-up we have today we are lucky to have our make-up tested to made sure it was safe for our body, a lot of woman’s face were damaged and had a lot of hair lose with the products they were using as they were un safe.