Palma Vecchio, La Bella

Why Cosmetics?

The use of cosmetics by women was widespread in Renaissance Europe. Many of the practices employed at the time appear to have originated from the painting styles of artists during the period. The Renaissance was a world where physical beauty mattered as much as spiritual.[1] Painters sought to portray the “ideal woman” in their work. For the artists, this meant subjects with creamy skin, dark eyes, the long Classical nose, small red lips, rosy tinted cheeks, and hair with a golden sheen.[2] Just as many people today alter their appearance in an effort to match the Photo-shopped images in popular magazines, women of the Renaissance imitated the paintings that surrounded them.

Skin Lotion Recipe Involving White Pigeons

What did they Use?

Most of the cosmetic remedies within The Secretes of the Reverende Mayster Alexis of Piemount are skin whiteners and reddeners, two of the most common categories at the time. Although the preferred skin tone varied across regions, in general women applied a skin whitener to make their faces uniform and pale before applying a trace red or pink pigment to their cheeks. Face washes intended to soften the skin and remove blemishes also appear frequently in the book, as do blonde hair dyes. Also present in the text are recipes for perfumes and breath-sweeteners that would have mitigated everyday odors of the time along with those connected to the adverse effects of many cosmetics.

Like most cosmetic guides of the period, The Secretes appears to have catered to the wealthy as nearly all the ingredients in its recipes came from Asia, Africa, or the Americas.[1] Remedies for yellowing hair used imports such as lye, rhubarb, sesame oil, cinnamon, cumin, and saffron. Popular sources of red pigments included sandalwood, henna, red Brazil wood, and Mexican cochineal. Many solutions even include shavings of gold or silver. Perfumes contained some local ingredients such as rosewater and powdered woods, but also depended heavily on imported cloves, nutmeg, jasmine, and citrus. The cost of such ingredients, as well as the time and labor required to prepare them, would have placed these remedies squarely outside the realm of affordability for most women.

Several Perfume Formulas

Cosmetic Controversies

The Secretes came onto the European scene at a time when the use of cosmetics was becoming increasingly controversial. Whereas cosmetics had once been seen as tools with which women could attain physical perfection, with the growing influence of Protestantism during the sixteenth century they came under attack as exemplars of lust and vanity.[1]  Numerous texts began circulating that equated cosmetics with falsehood, loose morals, and even witchcraft.[2] Perfumes as well came under scrutiny. Reformers recast scents traditionally associated with religion, such as incense, as emblematic of amorality.[3] This left a complicated duality in the culture of cosmetic use that both celebrated and condemned the lengths to which women went to beautify themselves.

Aside from the moral arguments against cosmetics, arguments against their used also existed on the grounds of health. Cosmetic formulas in the Renaissance contained a host of ingredients, ranging from rather innocuous to dangerously toxic. The recipes contained within The Secretes exhibit the full spectrum of remedies. Relatively harmless solutions of lemon juice, rosemary boiled in wine, and vegetable juices contrast with the damaging white paints derived from ceruse (a mix of lead and vinegar), mercury, and alum. Physicians linked the blackening and rotting of teeth, hair loss, and corrosion of the skin to the use of cosmetic paints.[4] Even more extreme practices included the use of deadly nightshade extract (the plant’s other name belladonna means ‘beautiful woman’) to artificially dilate the pupils and achieve darker, glistening eyes.[5] Long-term use could easily lead to blindness, heart problems, and cognitive impairment. The poisonous nature of many cosmetics synergized with the moralists’ talk of corruption to create a strong campaign against their use.

Queen Elizabeth I - Master of Image

Beauty Endures

Despite the advocacy against the use of cosmetics by Renaissance physicians and clergy, the practice suffered little. The use of cosmetics quickly became expected of women of means, and a visible marker of her place in society.[1] Perfumes as well proliferated, the invisible counterpoint to makeup that alluded to the reach of her authority and influence.[2] In circulation by the 1560s, the remedies in The Secretes are among those that would have come under fire as sinful and unhealthy. The relatively minor subsections on cosmetics in The Secretes, far from being the last of their kind, were merely a forerunner to the extensive cosmetic guidebooks and treatises of the subsequent centuries.[3] Variations of the remedies presented in The Secretes, particularly recipes based on lead, mercury, and fried pigeons, remained staples of the cosmetic culture well into the eighteenth century.