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Bear fat, false rumps and arsenic makeup: 7 of the most bizarre beauty trends from the past

Ideas about beauty change all the time and, over the years, British women have done strange things to achieve a desired look. Here Margarette Lincoln explores some bizarre beauty rituals from the past 400 years, from larding hair with bear fat to eating arsenic

Published: January 17, 2025 at 10:53 AM

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Personal appearance is linked to power, status, and self-identity so women have always tried to look their best. Before makeup and toiletries became mega industries, beauty products were limited, and women resorted to inventions that seem truly weird today…

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Hair looking lacklustre? Try bear fat

For centuries, bear fat was touted to promote hair growth. Cleopatra is said to have been an early fan. Bears have strong, thick coats, so people reasoned that their fat would make tresses luxuriant – and even prevent hair loss.

Britain imported tons of bear fat from France each year. Russian bears were thought to yield the best. The fat was refined, mixed with beef marrow, and then perfumed to make ‘Bear’s Grease’. But the genuine article was in short supply, so was routinely adulterated with pig fat or lard.

To prevent doubt, canny retailers proudly invited customers to view the fat cut from recently slaughtered bears. In the 1790s, Reeves’s Perfumery Warehouse and Ornamental Hair Manufactory, based in Holborn, London advertised that it killed one bear each month for the purpose.

Bear’s Grease was also used in pomade, the waxy substance used to keep hair in place. Persian Rose Pomatum, for instance, claimed to be made from “clarified Bear’s Grease, Buffalo’s Marrow, and Odour of Roses”. Such products attracted hungry pests, as did the powder used to bulk up a hairstyle. One 18th-century woman recalled seeing a mouse peep out of the curls of a lady in front of her at church, “no doubt well fed with so much powder and pomatum”.

Women combated such unwelcome pests in their hair with head-scratchers and carefully placed flea traps (tiny boxes filled with blood and glue).

Britain imported tons of bear fat from France each year. The fat was refined, mixed with beef marrow, and then perfumed to make ‘Bear’s Grease’. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

Does my bum look big (enough)? Try a false rump

In the 1780s, billowy muslin dresses with a sash at the waist were all the rage. Women wore pads around their hips to froth out the expensive white muslin and achieve a soft, rounded silhouette. The effect was meant to look natural but was artfully contrived.

The hip pads were called rumps. False rumps came in different sizes and were usually stuffed with cork fragments and horsehair. Versions could be made at home, but many were sold in rump shops, irreverently termed ‘bum shops’. Some false rumps were shaped like buttocks, split with a gap in the middle, which only invited prurient curiosity about how the effect was achieved.

This preposterous fashion was heavily mocked in the satirical prints of the day, which routinely depicted male shop assistants fawning over female customers, helping them to choose the most flattering rump for their height.

On the plus side, whenever a woman sat down, this newfangled fashion always provided a plush cushion.

Women from the 1780s onwards often wore pads around their hips to achieve a soft, rounded silhouette. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Fancy a pearly smile? Try a teeth transplant

Many people in the past had decayed and missing teeth due to sugar consumption and poor dental hygiene. The term ‘dentist’, borrowed from the French, was first used in London around the mid-18th century – but amazingly there was no register of approved dentists in Britain until 1879.

Sets of false teeth were made of ivory, walrus tusk or even human teeth, retrieved from graves and battlefields. But these dentures were merely cosmetic. People took them out before meals because you couldn’t chew with them. Instead, some used a masticator – an instrument like a pair of pliers – to grind food up before swallowing.

Those who could afford the cost might have opted for ‘transplanted’ teeth. A dentist would pull healthy teeth from a patient in need of money and pop a ‘live’ tooth straight into the mouth of the recipient. Donors were often children because small teeth were easier to fit, and front teeth were preferred because they had a single root and were more likely to ‘take’.

All understood that donors could pass on diseases like syphilis; unlike the human teeth used in dentures, extracted teeth could not be boiled before use. Despite the risk, transplantation remained popular with women on both sides of Atlantic into the 19th century, which shows how desperate they were to have good teeth. But successful transplantation was always a matter of chance.

Longing for smooth skin? Try veal – or a ‘toilet mask’

The secret to a velvety complexion was once believed to have been veal. A 17th-century household manual advised women to boil a piece of veal without skin or fat in a quart of water. Then they had to strain the mixture and add a few spoonsful of wine. When cool, it was used as a face wash.

As late as the 1880s, a society courtesan still insisted that veal was better than any cold cream which, she said, encouraged hairs to grow. For a wrinkle-free complexion, women were encouraged to go to bed with a piece of raw veal on each cheek, strapped in place with linen bandages. The veal was thought to preserve the freshness of the skin.

It was around this time that ‘toilet masks’ – also known as ‘face gloves’– grew in popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. These reusable face masks – which some might considered to be a predecessor to modern sheet masks – were used to moisturise, lubricate and even bleach skin. While they looked rather unsightly, toilet masks had the benefit of being reasonably cheap and long lasting – and wearers could add ointments and creams if they desired. Presumably – given their odd appearance – they were worn on nights when women planned to sleep alone.

Madam Rowley’s mask, patented in 1875, was made of flexible rubber and intended to be worn during sleep three times a week. It marketed itself as being guaranteed to remove all “complexional imperfections”, either through perspiration or because medical ointments could be spread on the inside.

Mme Rowley's Toilet Mask or Face Glove, c1897. (Photo by Corbis via Getty Images)

Can’t find a diet that works? Eat more meat

Need to lose weight? Eat meat four times a day! At first, women were not credited with the self-discipline needed to restrict their food intake and lose weight. Dieting was a male preserve. It indicated manly self-control, respectable ambition, and a patriotic desire to be a useful citizen. The first weight loss diet to catch on in Britain and the United States was William Banting’s diet of 1863. It was heavy on red meat and claret, which were associated with masculinity.

In any case, the ideal Victorian woman was well rounded, with ‘meagre’ women being advised to pour olive oil over each meal. Even so, towards the end of the 19th century, female activists began to adopt Banting’s ‘meat diet’ as they pushed for equality and the right to vote. They hoped that overt control of their bodies would signal their ability to take a more active role in society. But this diet was expensive, and few could afford so much meat.

Yet women were soon expected to be athletic and lean like their male counterparts. By the mid-1920s, the pressure to be extremely slim spawned an inventive range of quack products, including the Vaco Reducing Cup for a protruding abdomen. This suction cup was guaranteed to loosen the congestion of fat and make it vanish. Wealthy women even could buy a portable electric ‘Health Motor’ which vibrated a wide belt around hips or thighs, allegedly sloughing off inches with no need for actual exercise.

Looking for a smoother complexion? Try makeup (at your peril!)

Women had to fight for the right to wear makeup, which had often been associated with deception and sex work.

Tinted lip salves could be made using any red dye. A popular 18th-century guide contained recipes for making lip cream from dyer’s alkanet and white wax, or roses and hog lard, a distinct improvement on 17th-century advice to blend the dye with sweat from behind the ears. Eyebrows could be rubbed with burnt cork.

Yet many cosmetics were dangerous with long use. White makeup was made from lead or bismuth compounds – known to be corrosive; safer alternatives included starch or burnt bones. White lead in particular prompted the typical effects of lead poisoning: abdominal pain, muscle weakness, tingling in the hands and feet, and memory problems. It could damage and blacken the skin, and make hair fall out. Mercury-based red pigments meanwhile resulted in tooth loss and stinking breath.

Such dangers encouraged Victorian women to revert to making lip salves, pastes, and healthy skin washes at home. Before the 20th century, fear of being poisoned remained perhaps the greatest barrier to everyday cosmetic use.

Looking for a youthful glow? Try consumptive chic

Tuberculosis was deadly, but its symptoms were widely admired: pale skin accentuated the veins, and feverish eyes sparkled. In the Victorian era, some white women danced with death by eating arsenic for a youthful pallor. Branded arsenic wafers (pills) and arsenical lotions to remove blemishes were openly marketed. They worked by poisoning the blood so that it carried fewer red blood cells to organs; anaemia then left the skin clear and pale.

Skin damage by these means was so commonplace that specific washes were developed to whiten and heal complexions that had been yellowed and corroded by arsenic and other toxins. From the end of the 18th century, there was a market for creams guaranteed to be poison-free, but that didn’t stop women taking arsenic for the transparent-looking skin they desired.

The body can tolerate a little arsenic. Though, when men died in mysterious circumstances, their wives were sometimes suspected of feeding them large quantities. The crime was hard to prove, but in one notorious case an American woman, Florence Maybrick, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1889 for murdering her husband with arsenic. Only an element of reasonable doubt saved her from being hanged. This scandal epitomises the suspicion and distrust that has long surrounded women’s beauty practices.

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Margarette Lincoln is the author of Perfection: 400 Years of Women’s Quest for Beauty (Yale, 2024). You can find her on Bluesky @margarettel.bsky.social and Instagram or visit her website

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