Dangerous Beauty: A (Very) Brief History of Toxic Cosmetics

Note from Joy: Kate is our resident history buff and gleefully dug up this great info on the history of some seriously toxic cosmetics. Sadly, there are still toxins in our cosmetics and many other products we use on a daily basis .

When I'’m not being a nutrition nerd over here at Joyous Health, I'’m usually reading, watching or studying something history-related. Forget clubs and restaurants; museums are my destination of choice for weekend fun. Not so long ago, I spent a Saturday checking out the Fashion Victims exhibit at the Bata Shoe Museum, which focused on the health risks stylish Victorians took in order to keep up with the trends. While I checked out everything foot-squashing shoes to arsenic-dyed ballgowns, I overheard a fellow museum-goer mention that she thought we were all so much better off before we had all these man-made chemicals in our cosmetics and clothing.

It’'s a sentiment I hear a lot, and I get where it comes from. In many cases natural is better than synthetic, but I often find myself reminding our joyous readers that just because something says it’'s natural, doesn’t automatically mean it’'s safe.

"Just because something says it'’s natural, doesn’'t automatically mean it’s safe."

The sad (but fascinating) truth is that we were putting toxic chemicalson our bodies long before we learned to make them in a lab. Let'’s take a look at some of the ugly things our ancestors did to look pretty.

Some of the earliest concrete evidence we have of cosmetic use comes from ancient Egypt, over 6,000 years ago. It’'s also where we get the earliest evidence we have of toxic beauty products. That iconic, kohl-lined “Cleopatra eye”? They got it by mixing soot and animal fat with lead and other minerals.

Before Coco Chanel made the suntan fashionable again, a pale complexion was de rigueur for everyone from ancient Greeks and Romans to upper-crust Elizabethans, and most of them got it by using white lead or arsenic. (By the way, overexposure to lead has been linked to decreased mental function, miscarriage, sperm abnormalities, memory loss, mood disorders and a whole host of other health issues. Arsenic is best known for its use as a rat poison.)

As the Age of Enlightenment dawned, you’'d think we got more enlightened about the stuff we used to make cosmetics. We didn’'t. 18th-century fashion plates went crazy (sometimes literally) for white lead, and to get rid of any particularly troublesome freckles they added some mercury and some lead sulfate for good measure. It got so bad that when the Countess of Coventry died in 1760, her death was officially attributed to the cosmetics she used to play up her famous beauty.

This brings us back to the Victorians. The queen who gave her name to this age declared makeup vulgar and fit only for actresses (considered at the time to be on par with prostitutes in terms of social acceptability). While Queen Victoria'’s objections to makeup may have arisen out of social snobbery or prudishness, by this point, fashionable women sure could use a break from all those toxic substances. Although, as I found out at the museum exhibit, all that arsenic ended up in clothing dyes instead.

So we didn'’t invent toxic, chemically laced cosmetics in the 20th century, we just got more efficient at producing them. We'’ve been putting things we shouldn'’t on our bodies for millennia. If you want to keep things both natural and toxin-free (remember: one doesn’t necessarily preclude the other!) read your labels, research what you don’'t recognize and follow one of our favourite cosmetic rules over here at Joyous Health:

"If you wouldn'’t put it in your food, don’'t put it on your skin."