What Did White Lead As Makeup Look Like

Eighteenth-century socialites have been depicted as vain, silly women who were poisoned past their white lead makeup. The Countess of Coventry, Maria Gunning — a guild hostess reknowned for her beauty — is said to have refused to terminate wearing foundation containing white atomic number 82, fifty-fifty as she lay dying. Why would women of that era knowingly cull to wear makeup that was killing them? Was beauty worth dying for? Or was the makeup not to blame?

I am a scientist who has been studying lead poisoning for 30 years, with a particular interest in women's exposure to lead. My research shows that women metabolize lead differently from men, women exposed to atomic number 82 as children have elevated blood lead levels 20 years later, and women exposed to lead are at risk of hypertension and early menopause.

The stories about white atomic number 82 makeup poisoning did not make sense to me, and then two years ago, I decided to outset studying these cosmetics.

Dying to be Cute: Exploring the look and toxicity of 18th century makeup.

Historical techniques

My enquiry grouping makes white lead makeup from recipes dating from the 16th to 19th centuries. If you look around the makeup counters of a department shop, you will see words such as "illuminate," "radiance," "glow" and "luminous." You'll likewise see products that promise to reduce shine or mistiness imperfections. These modern products change the way light is reflected from the skin, which is perceived as enhancing dazzler.

We wanted to know if white lead makeup had some of these properties, so we studied the color and level of light reflected by the makeup using an optical spectrometer.

Our well-nigh surprising finding has been that white atomic number 82 makeup can look quite pretty and natural. It does non wait similar the bright white mask that we accept seen depicted on screens and stages — it is more often than not much more subtle and sophisticated.

We test the makeup on ethically sourced pigskin. The pigs we use have a pale complexion that is very shut to the lightest color of human pare, which burns easily and does non tan well. The white lead makeup usually does not change the colour of this skin much at all.

Three petri dishes with bare pigskin, pigskin with titanium-based makeup and pigskin with lead makeup. — A comparison of bare skin with makeup made with white lead and with titanium dioxide replacing the pb carbonate. Modernistic recipes that use a titanium replacement wait whiter and more opaque than the 'softer' yellow-white of lead makeup. (F.E. McNeill), Author provided

Titanium oxide is the modern substitute for white lead. When we used titanium oxide in the makeup recipes, the colour alter was dramatic. There was a shift towards blueish, and the makeup appeared startlingly white. Actors wearing makeup formulations made from old white atomic number 82 recipes with a titanium substitute are wearing the wrong colour.

Colour changes

We tested dissimilar historical makeup recipes to see how the color would be affected. One recipe made no measurable modify to the color, while some other changed yellow tones slightly. Adding a yellow tone to pale peel is perceived as more attractive, due to its connexion to fruit and vegetable consumption. A tertiary makeup mixture reduced redness in the skin, something that today'due south colour-correcting foundation makeup attempts to right.

All the white lead makeups we tested increased the amount of light the skin reflected — referred to as its reflectance. Skin becomes less reflective every bit women historic period, and more than cogitating skin is associated with a youthful complexion.

Specifically, the makeups increased the diffuse reflectance of the pare. Calorie-free reflection occurs in two ways. Get-go, light can reflect, every bit from a mirror. Information technology comes in at an angle and is reflected at that same angle. Nosotros call this specular reflection. Objects with a loftier specular reflection look sleeky or shiny.

Second, light can reflect or scatter off rough surfaces in several directions. This is diffuse reflection. Objects with high diffuse reflection expect blurred or slightly out-of-focus. The increased diffuse reflectance from the white pb makeup gives the skin a "softer" appearance, blurring blemishes — another effect produced by mod cosmetics.

The recipes nosotros re-create in our lab create a soft-focus look that blurs wrinkles and blemishes, or the await of a youthful, dewy complexion.

an array of liquid and powder foundations and blushes — Mod makeup promotes fifty-fifty pare tone and a glow, achieved by altering the skin's reflectance. (Shutterstock)

The ugly toll of dazzler

All the same, prettiness does come with an ugly side: the celebration of white skin. While the overall measured colour shifts on pale skin are small, spectral changes exercise make the skin look lighter. These were products that would have enhanced the whiteness of skin.

Historians, anthropologists and sociologists take long studied skin whitening and the reasons people may choose to do this. Our science shows how white lead makeup could achieve this in a subtle way, like an before version of "no-makeup" makeup.

We have as well been testing whether some makeup formulations allow lead to be absorbed through the skin. White pb cannot be absorbed easily through peel, it is only toxic if eaten or inhaled. Yet, if the makeup formulations changed the course of the lead, or softened the outer layer of the pare, some lead could diffuse through. This would make those makeup formulations more than poisonous.

Our research is showing some evidence of differences in skin absorbance, significant some recipes were more toxic than others. Information technology is possible that some recipes could have been used with little problem. Other recipes, which made immature women deathly ill, were probably so poisonous considering the lead was captivated through the skin.

So far, our research suggests that most white lead makeup recipes probably didn't impale 18th century socialites by being absorbed through the skin. But some recipes were more toxic than others.

The nearly toxic mixture we accept observed so far is the very elementary formulation said to have been used by England's Queen Elizabeth I: a mixture of white pb and vinegar. This mixture passed lead through the skin in much higher quantities than other recipes. This raises the question of whether it is worth revisiting whether some of Elizabeth I'due south health problems were due to, or exacerbated by, lead poisoning.