The Encounter of the Industrial Revolution
When imagining the people today who lived through the Industrial Revolution, it is effortless to picture the people from a Charles Dickens novel. It is uncomplicated to envision towns filled with soot-faced Oliver Twists and David Copperfields. In some respects, this photo is exact. The to start with half of the nineteenth century saw many key technological developments. The invention of the steam engine made manufacturing and transportation much less difficult and dozens of significant factories sprung up within the span of a few many years. New mining procedures were created in purchase to generate the coal required to electricity the new factories. Rural citizens, looking for work, commenced to migrate to significant metropolitan areas this kind of as London and New York. The air was indeed crammed with a Dickensian smog, but the Industrial Revolution also had a profound outcome on pores and skin treatment items and beauty use. As the normal pay rose, an expanding number of standard citizens were being obtaining themselves equipped to manage soaps and make-ups that experienced beforehand been significantly out of get to.
A Ethical Problem
By the conclusion of the eighteenth century, make-up had been considered inappropriate for all but prostitutes and actors. Even though this attitude persisted through a lot of the nineteenth century, gals had been authorized a few cosmetic exceptions. Pale pores and skin was nevertheless considered a mark of higher beginning and although the large direct powders of a century before were being no more time used, they had been replaced by a slim coating of zinc oxide. The zinc oxide presented the gain of a lightened skin tone, but was additional subtle and much more organic searching than the caked on powder that experienced been so common before. Refined eyeshadow manufactured from lampblack was also well-known, despite the fact that lip and cheek rouge remained taboo. Even though quite a few women still combined their individual cosmetics, contemporary producing procedures experienced manufactured it significantly easier to mass create these products and solutions. While the use of made cosmetics was extremely common, nonetheless, it was not deemed proper to purchase or promote elegance solutions. For the reason that of this, most suppliers offered them below the counter. **
In spite of the stigma that continue to surrounded skincare and beauty merchandise, some females did converse out to promote their use. In 1833, Jacobine Weiler revealed a ebook titled, “Cosmetics of the Feminine Sexual intercourse, or The Key Artwork of Perfecting Natural beauty and Overall health and Retaining It into Aged Age” that promoted beauty use as a magnificence assist. Although respectable gals could not be seen obtaining lip or cheek rouge, many recipes were revealed describing solutions for creating lip pomade in the household. Recipes included common substances this kind of as butter, wax and all-natural dies made from currants and the plant alkanna tictoria.***
For all the girls who defended cosmetic use, however, there ended up lots of other people who considered that carrying make-up was the very first stage towards a everyday living of sin. Lots of books committed to the defamation of cosmetics ended up also released. “Godey’s Lady’s Ebook,” for case in point, was posted all around the middle of the century. It advised that as an alternative of making an attempt to deal with blemishes with make-up, ladies must count entirely on “ethical cosmetics,” which bundled sleeping and avoiding sinful pastimes these kinds of as gambling and consuming.
Cleaning the Purely natural Way
As mass generation approaches had been refined, the price tag of numerous cleanliness goods became significantly less high priced and much more readily readily available. When perfumed soaps had been considered a luxurious product 50 percent a century previously, cleaning soap was now commonplace in all but the poorest residences. Because gals could no for a longer time cover at the rear of a thick layer of powder, there was a much more robust emphasis on in a natural way beautiful pores and skin. Severe cleansers have been far more quickly produced as very well, but they had been often ignored in exchange for extra purely natural skincare components. Egg yolks, honey and oatmeal ended up all generally utilised to soften the pores and skin and help diminish blemishes. Lemon juice was occasionally made use of to by natural means bleach the pores and skin a few shades lighter. Whilst by natural means glowing wellness might have been the glimpse of alternative at the starting of the nineteenth century, even so, it would shortly make way for the frail, sickly look of the Victorian Period.
References:
** Study extra about nineteenth century make-up in this article: http://www.localhistories.org/cosmetics.html
*** Study extra about the Industrial defenders of cosmetics below: