Renaissance Beauty: hair, makeup and skincare in the 16th century

Summary

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You're Dead to Me – Renaissance Beauty: Hair, Makeup and Skincare in the 16th Century

Podcast: You're Dead to Me (BBC Radio 4)
Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Professor Jill Burke (Renaissance historian), Tati MacLeod (comedian)
Date: September 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of "You're Dead to Me" delves into the surprising, sometimes hilarious, and occasionally grisly world of Renaissance beauty in 16th-century Italy. Host Greg Jenner, joined by Professor Jill Burke and comedian Tati MacLeod, explore the era’s ideals of attractiveness, elaborate (and often risky) grooming routines, and what these rituals tell us about class, gender, and society. Laced throughout are sharp comedic observations and hands-on demonstrations of recreated Renaissance beauty recipes.

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Main Themes and Key Discussion Points

Setting the Scene: Renaissance Beauty in Context

• Period Definition:
  • The Renaissance runs roughly from 1400-1650 in Italy, overlapping with the late Medieval and early Modern periods (06:25).
  • Characterized as a "rebirth" (Renaissance means rebirth): a nostalgic return to classical ideals from ancient Rome and Greece (08:26).
• Changing Beauty Standards:
  • The ideal female body shifts from the pear-shaped, wider-hipped medieval form to a more "hourglass" figure, mirroring shapes seen in classical sculptures (07:55).
• Art’s Influence:
  • Paintings like Botticelli’s "Birth of Venus" directly inspired contemporary body ideals (07:23).
  • Exposure to art and printing technology spreads these ideals, prompting people to mold themselves after painted beauty (07:40).

The Science and Secrets of Renaissance Cosmetics

• Early “Get Ready with Me” Culture:
  • Beauty books boom thanks to the printing press, notably Marinello's Ornament of Ladies (1562), a 'Sephora catalogue' of 4,000 recipes for everything from cosmetics to slimming aids (10:23, 10:50).
  • These are marketed as "books of secrets," promising hidden knowledge: "Do you know this one weird tip?" (11:29).
• Medicalization of Beauty:
  • Doctors and scholars become cosmetic authorities, writing recipes, and lecturing on beauty, e.g., Dr. Fallopio (09:48).
  • Anecdotes of women seeking the latest "miracle cures" for beauty, paralleling today’s cosmetic clinics and influencers (09:25).

Renaissance Hygiene: Myths and Methods

• Bathing:
  • Regular full bathing was rare, with wealthy individuals bathing monthly at public bathhouses; daily hygiene relied on vigorous towel rubbing, washing with scented water, and frequent linen changes (15:02–16:31).
  • Bathing was thought dangerous—hot water opened pores, letting disease in (16:35–17:42).
    • Quote: "There's this idea that...if you open your pores in any way, it means that diseases can come into your body." – Professor Jill Burke (16:58).
• Bathhouse Culture:
  • Italian Renaissance bathhouses, inspired by classical and Islamic traditions, were segregated by gender and associated with both cleanliness and clandestine erotic (and criminal) activities (18:15–19:50).

Hair Removal and Beauty Hazards

• Depilation Practices:
  • Complete body hair removal was the goal for elite women, inspired by Islamic practices (20:44).
  • Recipes for hair removal cream included arsenic, quicklime, and alum—dangerous, caustic ingredients.
    • Quote: “Wait until it gets hot and then remove it quickly before the flesh falls off.” – Professor Jill Burke, quoting a historical recipe (21:45).
  • Other outlandish ingredients: cat feces, ant eggs, hedgehogs (23:06).
  • Men’s grooming is less well-documented, but some evidence suggests limited trimming (25:19).
• High Foreheads and Hair Trends:
  • A high, wrinkle-free forehead was the fad; women used cat feces to depilate hairlines, or simply plucked their foreheads (26:13).
  • Memorable moment: “If you look at portraits of women from especially the 15th century, they have a forehead that really just...keeps going and going and going.” – Professor Jill Burke (26:13).

Hair Care and Colouring

• Washing and Drying Hair:
  • Hair was washed with herbal tonics, lye, or ash, often requiring hours or days to dry (27:37–28:04).
  • Anecdote: Lucrezia Borgia famously skipped social events because it was "hair wash day" (28:18).
• Ideal Hair and Dyeing:
  • Women aspired to thick, golden waves (men: dark hair). Those lacking turned to strong sun-bleaching, homebrews, and odd concoctions (30:06–35:12).
  • Notable: Venice's “sun hats” with no crowns let women bleach hair in the sun (34:38).

Skincare and Makeup Rituals

• Night and Day Routines:
  • Night: Cleanse with bran/breadcrumbs, treat with vinegars or nettle, apply “whitener” with arsenic or mercury, or snail slime (36:32–37:08).
  • Morning: Wash off, moisturize, and apply makeup (37:16).
• White Skin as Status:
  • Pale, radiant skin denotes elite status (work outside = tan), and is emphasized with hazardous white lead-based foundation (37:42–40:12).
  • Science bombshell: Recent research reveals white lead creates a light, translucent, light-scattering effect—less “ghoulish clown,” more subtle glow (39:59–40:37).
• Reconstructed Cosmetics Try-On:
  • Greg wears Renaissance “rock rose balm,” anti-wrinkle lamp fat cream, and marble dust foundation (all non-toxic versions). The red sandalwood blush may not wash off! (41:35–42:41).
  • Tati, on blush: “It’s the hero of what’s happening on your face right now. It’s giving Met Gala.” (42:41).

Hairdos, Underwear, and Societal Rules

• Women’s Hairstyles:
  • Hair elaborately worn up; loose hair implied madness or was restricted to brides (43:12–43:31).
  • Popular styles signified court loyalties or mimicked high-status women (43:38).
  • Curls achieved with hot spoons and gum arabic (44:07).
• Men’s Facial Hair:
  • Beard fashions shift: clean-shaven until about 1530, then beards/beard oil catch on; moustaches alone seen as odd (45:02–45:56).
• Undergarments and Body Shape:
  • No knickers for women; commando was normative. Men wore historical underpants (“pants with nifty tie at the side”) (46:20–46:43).
  • Surprising finds: “Breast bags” (proto-bras) unearthed in Austria show early lift-and-separate tech (47:59–48:57).
  • Later, a “mono-bosom” look (one undivided bosom under stiff bodices) becomes trendy (49:04–49:07).
  • Men and women both consciously shaped their silhouettes to current ideals.

Morality, Misogyny, and Makeup as Power

• Religious Backlash:
  • Cosmetics periodically condemned as vain, deceitful, or ungodly, especially during the Counter-Reformation (49:48).
  • Quote: “Cosmetics are lies–they’re deceitful, women are vain, they’re spending all their money on cosmetics...it’s immoral.” – Professor Jill Burke (49:48).
• Poison and Empowerment:
  • Cosmetics (with arsenic and lead) occasionally used for murder—sometimes unintentionally, sometimes for calculated revenge (51:00–52:16).
  • Aqua Tofana scandal: women dispatched abusive husbands with “face cream” in their food (51:07–52:16).
• Fascinating Paradox:
  • Beauty practices both reinforced female oppression and acted as tools of ingenuity and resistance.
  • Quote: “How can the tool of oppression both be the tool of empowerment? Wonderful.” – Tati MacLeod (50:46).

The Bigger Picture: Philosophy and Social History

• Nuance Window (53:10):
  • Professor Burke articulates how beauty practices illuminate historical attitudes to gender, class, race, and the lived experience of overlooked women. Cosmetics “give us a window into...a chance to remember lives that have been frequently disparaged or dismissed” (53:10–55:00).
  • Key takeaway: The history of beauty is no "side quest"—it's central to understanding power, prejudice, ingenuity and aspiration in the past.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On enduring beauty anxieties:
  • "It's...worrying that nearly hundreds of years later, I'm there thinking, 'Yeah, well not a huge amount has changed.'" – Tati MacLeod (11:52)
• On dangerous depilation:
  • “Wait until it gets hot and then remove it quickly before the flesh falls off.” – Professor Jill Burke, quoting 16th-century recipe (21:45)
• On why standards are so hard:
  • "...Beauty ideals have to be hard to achieve. What's the point of beauty ideals that are easy to achieve?" – Professor Jill Burke (37:48)
• On the societal function of makeup:
  • “[Makeup] thwarts attempts to read character through external appearance... large-scale historical shifts play out in our bathroom mirrors.” – Professor Jill Burke (Nuance Window, 53:10)
• On ancient influencer culture:
  • "It's like an actual, historic Sephora!" – Tati MacLeod on Marinello’s recipe books (10:50)
• On washing one's hair as social excuse:
  • “I can't come to work today. It's wash day. My hair’s still wet. I will be sat by the fire for the next seven hours…” – Tati MacLeod (28:29)
• On masculine beauty:
  • "I think Angelo would have a mustache and possibly a beard. I think if he just had a mustache, people might point and laugh at him." – Professor Jill Burke (45:52)
• Parallels to modern gender politics:
  • "Are these the incels of the Renaissance? This is where Andrew Tate got his concept from. He's been reading some Renaissance literature!" – Tati MacLeod (31:48)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 03:13 | Tati's relationship to history & makeup | | 05:29 | Introduction to beauty in the Renaissance | | 10:23 | Marinello's Ornament of Ladies beauty book | | 14:19 | Hygiene routines: washing, bathing, daily practices | | 20:33 | Hair removal: dangerous creams and methods | | 26:13 | The high forehead fashion (cat feces for depilation) | | 27:37 | Hair washing techniques and Lucrezia Borgia anecdote | | 30:06 | Ideal hair types and their meanings | | 34:38 | Hair dyeing, sun-bleaching rituals in Venice | | 36:32 | Skincare routines: recipes, night to morning | | 39:08 | White lead, skin lightening, and Margot Robbie corrections | | 41:35 | Reconstructed makeup applied live | | 43:12 | Hairstyles, the “do,” and social meaning | | 44:07 | Curling hair with hot spoons | | 45:02 | Beard and mustache fashion for men | | 46:20 | Underwear and the “commando” lifestyle | | 47:59 | Proto-bras ("breast bags") & the monobosom | | 49:48 | Moral backlash against cosmetics | | 51:00 | Cosmetics as poison: murders and scandals | | 53:10 | Nuance Window: beauty as historical window | | 55:44 | Reflection on the significance of beauty history |

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Quiz and Wrap-up Highlights

• Quickfire quiz: Tati aces questions on Renaissance beauty, including why baths were dangerous, how hair was removed, and which haircut was banned in Venice (mushroom fringe). (56:07–59:33)
• Fun Prizes: "You've won a year's supply of sheep's tallow face cream and marble mush." – Greg Jenner (59:37)

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Final Reflections

This episode deftly balances comedic banter with rich historical insight, showing how beauty routines—bizarre and deadly as they could be—illuminate broader questions about gender, class, science, race, and self-expression. Whether using quicklime in pursuit of smooth skin or donning the perfect Renaissance blowout, striving for beauty was always deeply entwined with societal forces. Far from trivial, the study of cosmetics and grooming opens a fresh window on the lived experience of the past.

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Transcript

[BBC Announcer]

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[Tati MacLeod]

Outside the UK.

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[Tati MacLeod]

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

[Greg Jenner]

Hello, Greg here. Just a reminder before we get going that episodes of youf're Dead to Me are released on Fridays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. First on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to youo're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history serious. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are plucking our brows and caking our faces with lead as we learn all about the history of beauty in Renaissance Italy. And to help us with our makeover, we have two very special visitors to the youe're Dead to Me salon in History Corner. She's professor of Renaissance, visual and Material Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, where her research focuses on how human bodies were thought about and modified during the Renaissance. You might have read her wonderful book, how to Be a Renaissance the Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity. It's Professor Jill Burke. Welcome, Jill.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Hello. It's lovely to be here.

[Greg Jenner]

And in Comedy Corner, she's a bilingual comedian and social media star based in Paris. Maybe you saw her debut sellout stand up tour Fugue, or have seen one of her many hilarious TikToks and Instagram reels about the differences between French and British culture. It's Tati MacLeod. Welcome to the show, Tati.

[Tati MacLeod]

Thank you very much for having me. Excited to be here.

[Greg Jenner]

Delighted to have you here. First time on the show.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yes, it is indeed. And I came all the way from Paris to be here, so I hope you feel very grateful.

[Greg Jenner]

We are very appreciative. And I suppose the obvious question, do you like history or is this already, like a disaster waiting to happen?

[Tati MacLeod]

I thought you were about to ask me, do I like makeup? And I was so ready to say, yeah, absolutely.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. Do you like makeup?

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah, yeah, I do. I do. Like, this is bang on in terms of themes that I'm interested in. Makeup being the central part to it. Renaissance, a little bit more uncertain. Okay. Do I like history? Yeah, right? I mean, we've all got one, right?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Depends.

[Tati MacLeod]

Who you asking, in what context? Relationship history? Personal history? No, I'm. I'm intrigued, I'm interested, I'm curious. I'm open, I'm present.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Great.

[Greg Jenner]

You're known for your Get Ready with me videos. Do you know anything about the Renaissance era and beauty trends?

[Tati MacLeod]

No. I mean, I don't know today's beauty trends. I feel like if there's something, you know, especially when you're on social media and I'm in my mid-30s, so I'm really not the target audience for TikTok. And I spend a lot of my time just scrolling through, trying to keep up with the never ending new brands, new products, new fandango thing that you should be buying. So I'm not. If anything, I'm probably closer to Renaissance history than I am to current makeup trend. So I feel like maybe I'm gonna really connect with the makeup of back in the day.

[Greg Jenner]

Maybe.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Maybe.

[Tati MacLeod]

Absolutely.

[Greg Jenner]

And do you know when the Renaissance era was? Can you give us a rough time period?

[Tati MacLeod]

So my thing with history, I'm more of a people person. You know, era's very abstract.

[Greg Jenner]

Sure.

[Tati MacLeod]

I think. Let's think in people. So Renaissance, this is how I try to think about it. Okay, so Renaissance. I'm thinking Leonardo da Vinci.

[Greg Jenner]

Lovely.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Very good, Very good.

[Tati MacLeod]

Okay, great. So that's my starting point. Leonardo da Vinci, I'm pret sure was around when Henry VII was around.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Tati MacLeod]

And I know that Henry VIII was around in the 16th century.

[Greg Jenner]

There we go.

[Tati MacLeod]

So that's how I get into. That's. I always start with the person, and then we get into the time frame. Yeah. So 16th century, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Good stuff. So what do you know? That brings us to the first segment of the podcast, the so what do you know? This is where I guess what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. Maybe you've seen famous Titian paintings of lovely Renaissance ladies gazing ardently at themselves in the mirror or putting on their makeup. You might have heard of Queen Elizabeth I painting a face with white lead. I mean, who can forget Margot Robbie's look in the Mary Queen of Scots movie. Barbie would never. But how did women and men really get ready in the Renaissance? What makeup looks were trending? And why was arsenic a vital part of the beauty regime? Let's find out. Professor JILL let's start with the beauty basics. A primer on primer, if you will. When was the Renaissance period? We've already had Tati's excellent summation. But, like, technically, because it overlaps in the medieval period in a very confusing way. How would you define it?

[Professor Jill Burke]

So Tati was completely right.

[Tati MacLeod]

Oh, wow.

[Professor Jill Burke]

In that it's the. The 16th century is part of the Renaissance period. But it is a little bit confusing in that it's related to the rebirth of classical antiquity. The interest in classical antiquity, which in Italy started a little bit before other places in Europe normally would say from about 1400, so 15th century in Italy to about maybe 1650, something like that. So late Middle Ages and part of the early modern period.

[Tati MacLeod]

So basically the rest of Europe had to catch up.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah.

[Tati MacLeod]

Sort of like a fashion trend that starts somewhere.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Absolutely. That's exactly.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah. Okay, I'm with you.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I'm completely. Exactly. People like Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo.

[Greg Jenner]

All those people, all the turtles.

[Professor Jill Burke]

All the turtles who made, like, a massive difference and a massive change to the way that people painted and the way people saw things and had an effect, actually, on the way that people understood beauty. So if you look at, say, maybe you'll be able to think of Botticelli's Birth of Venus, you know, when she's.

[Tati MacLeod]

I know that one. Yes, I know.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And she's naked and she's you know, rising from the waves. That has an idea of female beauty that's different from the Middle Ages. A different shaped body. It's relating to classical sculpture and when people saw these paintings and prints from these paintings, because this is also the era of printing, they dec. Change their bodies to look like more like the paintings. So there's a change not just in art but also in the way that people understood their own bodies and others. Other people's beauty.

[Tati MacLeod]

What were bodies looking like before then?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, the ideal of what bodies were looking like before then was more pear shaped. So there's things that stay. But in the, in the Renaissance you could start to get this kind of fascination with hourglass figures. Quite plump. Yeah. In the, in the Middle Ages when you see things like images of the goddess of beauty, Venus, they'll look much, much bigger hips, much narrower shoulders. So there's a change in. And actually how real women felt they should look.

[Greg Jenner]

And we call it the Renaissance. Well, you speak French tattoo. Renaissance means.

[Tati MacLeod]

Right, I do know. I do. This is another. I've actually done quite well so far. Yeah, you do very well again. Yeah, I mean I can't that well, that bit, you know what that bit means? And this also means birth. So I guess rebirth.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Rebirth, yes, rebirth, absolutely.

[Greg Jenner]

So it's a. It's a harking back, right? It's a nostalgia vibes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Greg Jenner]

And they're going way back to the Roman era.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Way back to the Roman era. And they're reading and ancient Greece as well. They know more about ancient Rome because sculpture and buildings from ancient Rome are all over the place in Europe, but particularly in Italy. And they're also reading more classical texts. So people like Galen, who's one of the most important medical writers in classical times, they're rereading him. And Galen writes about cosmetics as well.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So doctors start to be really interested in cosmetics and wealthy women start to commission doctors to cure any of their beautif ailments as well. So there's a real abundance of recipes from this period.

[Tati MacLeod]

Oh my God. It's so fascinating the parallels of like Botox and surgery. You know, like it's a similar thing. You know, Richard, the woman going to get a particular. You can imagine it back then just being like, have you heard of doctor.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Absolutely.

[Greg Jenner]

Dr. Fallopio?

[Tati MacLeod]

Fallopio, yeah, yeah, I've heard that Anne Boleyn's been speaking.

[Greg Jenner]

Famous for his tubes. Yes, exactly.

[Tati MacLeod]

It's incredible. Amazing work for the royal family.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So Fallopio, who wrote about the first time about The Fallopian tubes was also gave beauty tips, advice, and he lectured on beauty at the University of Padua. And from then, this is a big university where doctors from all over Europe came and so they'd listen to Fallopia and then they'd go and write their own beauty books. So, yeah, there's loads of similarities.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. And this is also the era where they invent the modern mirror as we know it, like Venetian glass, the long sort of full length, the flat mirror. There are beauty books too, right? I mean, Jill, we have to talk about some of the best because you said the printing press was invented in the mid-1400s. So we get to be beauty books. And the best selling one is Maranello's Ornament of Ladies.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Ornament of Ladies, yes. This came out in 1562. But beauty recipe books started in the 1520s in Italy and there's some in France as well. So in 1530s you get French medical recipe books. It's really France and Italy that are leading the field here. And so the Ornamenti della Donne, the ornament of Women by a Dr. Giovanni Marinello, has about 4,000 recipes for cosmetics and for slimming and for all sorts of things.

[Tati MacLeod]

It's like an actual, like historic Sephora, you know, the Shakespeare of people go, yeah, it's like boots back in the day.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Except it would be as if Sephora had people standing there telling you what was wrong with you.

[Tati MacLeod]

I think they do do that.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So they have Marinella's book tells you the ideal look at the beginning of every chapter and then says things like, if you're hairy, you're like a wild beast, you can't blame your husband for leaving you this kind of thing. So it's really terrible, it's. It's funny. But at the same time, really, you really recognize these kind of tropes about beauty, about women always being in the wrong.

[Greg Jenner]

And they're marketed as books of secrets.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Oh, yes, books of secrets.

[Greg Jenner]

There's a sort of like hidden knowledge like this. This is the book of secrets.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It's like, do you know this one weird tip? It's that kind of, isn't it? Yeah, it's one word tip to get rid of belly fat, this kind of thing. So there's this idea that there's secrets in nature, that if only you can discover them, then you're gonna be forever youthful. So there'll be recipes for things like. Recipes for. If you want to look forever 20 or 25.

[Greg Jenner]

Sure.

[Tati MacLeod]

Are you serious?

[Professor Jill Burke]

I am serious, yeah.

[Tati MacLeod]

Because it just. It's. I mean, I don't know if it's, like, funny or fascinating or worrying that nearly hundreds of years later, I'm there thinking, yeah, well, I mean, not a huge amount has changed. Like, that sounds like if you pitch that as a marketing approach to something that you are writing now, you'd be.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Like, yeah, but that's a real facet of Renaissance culture. Because there's a lot in Renaissance culture about pretending to be better than you are.

[Greg Jenner]

Right.

[Professor Jill Burke]

If you think of, like, some of the conduct books at the time, like Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, which is a really famous one. It's all about. Just be the person who the duke wants you to be. Don't let them know. Don't let it. You make a lie pretend all the time. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. And there's also a book by Katerina Sforza.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Oh, yeah. So Katerina Sforza is a really interesting figure. She's the leader of a small Italian state, North Italian state in Immerland. She wrote a book called the Experiments. The Experimenti. And in it, she wrote about 192 cosmetic recipes. Alongside other recipes, there are recipes for medicine, for horse medicine, and for magic spells as well, and for alchemy.

[Greg Jenner]

Amazing. That's what you don't get at boots.

[Tati MacLeod]

No, that's very true.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Not enough horse medicine around.

[Tati MacLeod]

And I love how those three just sit together, dip your face, go and fix your horse, and then ride on to do a magic spell. The trio.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, we're structuring this episode a bit differently, Tati. We're gonna do it like a Get Ready with Me video, but we're gonna, you know, which means we need an Italian Renaissance couple. We need a fella and a lady. Do you wa them for us? Who are our hot Italian couple?

[Tati MacLeod]

Oh, okay. Where they off to? Like the opera? Is that a thing back then?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Does that exist yet?

[Tati MacLeod]

Not quite.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Maybe not yet. Maybe a play.

[Tati MacLeod]

Let's make them quite. Let's put them in the upper echelons of society. So they've got a bit of money. She's wearing something fabulous. I'm guessing silk. Lots of color. Maybe like thick velvet. Like, there's a bodice.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. Maybe some gold thread. Exactly.

[Tati MacLeod]

She looks fit. Yeah, she's amazing. Like, she's slaying. She's slaying.

[Greg Jenner]

Her name is.

[Tati MacLeod]

Her name is Botticella. And then let's call him Angelo.

[Greg Jenner]

Angelo.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Very good.

[Tati MacLeod]

Botticello and Angelo. Oh, my God, you know, Great, great couple.

[Greg Jenner]

And they're off to the theater. I love that. That's great. Okay, let's start their routine there. We start with hygiene, Tati.

[Tati MacLeod]

Oh, really?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. What type of washing do you think they're doing? Do you think they're doing in everything.

[Tati MacLeod]

Shops, how I wash?

[Greg Jenner]

No, no, I'm not gonna ask you that.

[Tati MacLeod]

No, because we proud of this. Yeah. No, you're half French. So anyway, I'm half French, but I.

[Greg Jenner]

Wouldn'T go that far. No. How are you imagining them getting clean everything showers or much more modest?

[Tati MacLeod]

I'm thinking more like a cloth and a big copper basin. Yeah, that's what I imagine more. And probably staff washing their back next to a big fire. Let's place it in spring. That's nice for the story. Yeah, it's spring. We've got some nice dapple natural light coming through. So big copper basing by a fireplace, which probably isn't lit because it's warm enough.

[Professor Jill Burke]

People didn't have baths generally. Some really, really, really wealthy people had running water and had running baths in their house. But they were like, maybe a bit above the echelon of Botticella, if you don't know.

[Tati MacLeod]

Angelo. Angelo.

[Greg Jenner]

It'S had a great year.

[Professor Jill Burke]

But copper bake.

[Tati MacLeod]

Excuse me.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It's good because you would have a copper basin to wash your hair.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, well done, Tati. Very good.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Often on a stand. And you'd have obviously some servants to bring in hot water for you.

[Tati MacLeod]

Don't do it yourself.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Goodness me. You wouldn't do it yourself. But some people, because you didn't have baths at home, you'd also go to the bath house often, and that might be as much as once a month, even in the summer. Luxury. Even in the summer and spring, maybe less in the winter.

[Tati MacLeod]

So people would wash once a month?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, they'd wash in the bathhouse once a month, but they'd wash every day. And washing often involved rubbing your body with towels. This says quite a lot of rubbing your body with towels. So a lot of head health, because they are worried that noxious vapors would build up in your head overnight.

[Greg Jenner]

So in the morning, that's called a hangover.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So in the morning, well, they're all drunk probably quite a lot of the time as well. You'd comb your hair very vigorously. You'd rub your head, you rub your face, you'd have to blow your nose. You'd brush your teeth probably with a little cloth or some wood. And so you do something like that every day. There'd often be scented waters and you'd change Your shirt. The very into changing linen and having.

[Greg Jenner]

Fresh white linen a couple of times a day, right? Sometimes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So people would have, like, hundreds of shirts. Even like the poorest people would have 16 or 17 undershirts.

[Greg Jenner]

I do need to bring up, actually, one thing that's slightly surprising. The medical advice of the time was water was dangerous. Bathing was full immersion was dangerous. There's a famous story, the king of France is going to have a bath and his doctor panics and races to his bedside to sort of say, I need to, like, monitor you during this bath. Why? Why is water considered dangerous?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, there's this idea that the skin of the body is very porous. And so if you open your pores in any way, it means that diseases can come into your body. And so things like malaria, for example, or plague were thought to spread, go into your body through your pores, through your skin. And so being hot and having open pores was. Was a way to catch disease. There's still very much in some cultures now. You know, in Italy, for example, going swimming when it's at all cold, you know, under like 24 degrees or something like that, is still frowned upon. So this. There's still this idea that if you get wet, you allow these bad things to come into your body because, of course, there's no really real understanding of bacteria. No, they do understand quarantine, that you can.

[Greg Jenner]

Quarantine. It's an Italian word, right?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, yeah, it's from. From Venice, yeah. When they make ships that are coming in, stay outside the city for 40 days.

[Greg Jenner]

40 days quarantine.

[Professor Jill Burke]

To stop. To stop the plague, largely, and other things going into the city.

[Greg Jenner]

The Romans, obviously, were huge bathers. They built these incredible thermae, these big bath houses. And of course, we have them in Rome. The Baths of Caracalla, a very famous one you can visit today. The Renaissance Italian fashion for bathing is a sort of harking back to the Roman bathing culture. But was it the same? Was it, you know, was it full nudity? Was it full men and women separated? What are we talking about?

[Professor Jill Burke]

So in Italy, they were very impressed, first of all by Roman ruins of baths and things. And they often had set up spas in the Seine, either using the Roman. What was left of the Roman baths or on the same site, because, you know, there's a lot of thermal springs in places like Tuscany, for example. And they also read really avidly about Roman bathing culture, but they didn't do things like use strigils and things like that to scrape the skin like Romans did.

[Greg Jenner]

So no olive oil scraping?

[Professor Jill Burke]

No, not so much olive oil scraping. They were also really influenced by Islamic bathing practices. Yeah. And that kind of steam bath. They separated men and women very avidly, like they do across the Mediterranean. There sits some continuity with classical Rome and some changes. They also were really suspicious of things going on. Skullduggery in the baths.

[Greg Jenner]

Sexy stuff or criminal stuff?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Both.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, sexy, criminal stuff. The best.

[Tati MacLeod]

When you think about it, nowadays, sauna, it can be spicy. You gotta be careful which one you're walking into. You know, saunas can be a lot of fun.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So it was a very similar story, particularly as these are same sex spaces. And so there was a lot of same sex enjoyment going on in these spaces. A lot of bawdy tales, a lot of nakedness, particularly female nakedness. It was almost impossible to see women naked in Renaissance Italy. Even in marriage, you're meant to keep your undershirt on at all times.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, really?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Oh, yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay.

[Professor Jill Burke]

There's some very interesting Renaissance erotica that ends up with a woman taking her shirt off after many other kinds of activities. And so these are real centers for kind of at least torrid imagination and probably things going on in practice. Bathhouses. A lot of. A lot of stuff, illicit stuff went on.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so there's an erotic element to the bathhouse, but there's a practical element too. Yeah, both getting clean, but you're also getting really dirty. Very good, Tati. Well done. So our couple, was it Botticella and Angelo? Yeah, lovely. Okay, Are they shaving, are they waxing, or are they using the depilation cream? What's. How do you get rid of body.

[Tati MacLeod]

Hair in the 16th century and more specifically Brazilian Hollywood. Just the sides. What are we working with here? What's bossy got going on down there?

[Professor Jill Burke]

We are working with complete nudity. Oh, complete baldness.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, really?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, everything off.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Oh, everything off. This again is a practice associated with Islamic bathing cultures. And certainly in the Middle Ages, crusaders would return with stories of having their all their body hair shaven off in the baths. And this is very strange, but certainly by maybe the 13th century, you start to get recipes in southern Italy for a kind of Viet type cream to remove body hair. Oh, yeah. You don't know what's in it yet. Just wait.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, Tati. Tati. Yeah. Other products are available, of course. Hair removal cream.

[Tati MacLeod]

I'm physically in pain. I'm anticipating. I'm empathizing with these women that I've never met from hundreds of years ago. Lathering Their labia in a prod. I mean, Vita's bad enough now, but back then. Oh, God, these poor girls.

[Greg Jenner]

Do you know what it's made of, Tati?

[Tati MacLeod]

Go on.

[Professor Jill Burke]

There's a recipe that Katerina Sports gives, and this is a very common type of recipe which has quicklime, arsenic and alum in it. And what you do is you. You make it into a paste and you smear it onto your body wherever you want hair removed, as it says in the recipe, and then you leave it for the time it says it takes to say the Lord's Prayer twice. And then you get a maid to throw water on you, so you wash it off. And it does say you should wait until it gets hot and then remove it quickly before the flesh falls off.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. I mean, quicklime is caustic. Arsenic is a toxin. Alum is a metal. And they're all going in your. Your secret parts. That's not good.

[Tati MacLeod]

No. I thought the next part was going to be put this on, get, and then eventually just die. That's a natural next step, isn't it? But it is fascinating, I have to say, because obviously body hair is such a political thing now. What's your choice? And I felt like this is the first time hearing that was even a subject matter before sort of this contemporary age. I thought it was something that was quite a new thing. But to hear that women have been suffering from this for hundreds of years. I'm gonna leave here more feminist and more angry than when I came in.

[Professor Jill Burke]

My job is done.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, radicalized. That's not the only wacky ingredients in Renaissance era. Depilation cream, tatty. Other ingredients included cat feces, ant eggs, hedgehogs.

[Tati MacLeod]

Are they just people just having fun? Is it just like, let's see what we. Let's see what we can stick on their labia before they start complaining. Surely not. And did it even. Did it work?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, unfortunately, I think the quick line probably did.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, it's gonna remove.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It's gonna remove pretty much everything. Arsenic was used as a skin whitening in medicine as well, and it was commonly used to kill, as a kind of insecticide, say, for all sorts of life and things. So that was commonly used in medicine. And quicklime is a very strong alkali, which is what veet is, effectively. So it does melt the hair off. And so, yeah, it would have worked. I don't know. I don't think the cat poo would have worked. I just can't see that working. Or the ant eggs, to be honest.

[Greg Jenner]

Or the hedgehogs or the hedgehogs.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, some of these recipes are really impressive because they work really well. And others you just read them and.

[Greg Jenner]

Think, why it wasn't like an actual full hedgehog where you used the prickles as like a brush, was it? You weren't like, sort of like these poor hedgehogs. You were killing the hedgehog and you were the blood.

[Tati MacLeod]

Right.

[Greg Jenner]

Or squishing it.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Okay. Generally it was. You had to do horrible things to hedgehog.

[Tati MacLeod]

But can I just. Can I just check in then? This body hair removal routine involving arsenic and caustic. Was this something that just the women were experiencing? And were men also taking off their.

[Greg Jenner]

Is Angelo also whipping it all off?

[Professor Jill Burke]

There's so little evidence about mental either.

[Tati MacLeod]

Here we go.

[Greg Jenner]

Has he got arsenic on his. Arsenic? That's what I want to know.

[Tati MacLeod]

Bravo.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So there's so little evidence about men and grooming. It's really hard to understand whether they removed their hair or not. In terms of evidence. There's more evidence about women. Right. And I can trace that in the recipes. Men. I've read that in Holland, men removed all their body hair. I don't know why in Holland, in like 16th and 17th century Holland, they're very tall.

[Greg Jenner]

I don't know. That's all I know about the Dutch.

[Tati MacLeod]

They're very feminist, actually. Dutch. So probably for gender equality.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay.

[Professor Jill Burke]

They were very white as far as I know. In Italy, if you look at the sculpture of the time, like Michelangelo David, for example, has very trim.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Neat looking pubic hair. So there might have been some trimming involved.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay.

[Professor Jill Burke]

But I'm not sure about actual complete removal.

[Greg Jenner]

All right. Okay.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think that's unlikely.

[Greg Jenner]

The cat feces, my favorite. Not necessarily going on the genitals. Oh, no, it's actually going on the forehead. Do you know why, Tati?

[Tati MacLeod]

I honestly can't. A face mask?

[Greg Jenner]

Not. No, it's hair removal again, then.

[Tati MacLeod]

Hair removal. Oh, is it going to be for your eyebrows?

[Greg Jenner]

It's not eyebrows. That's a good shout. It's a very high forehead. Was fashionable.

[Tati MacLeod]

So what? You cover your head. Oh. Oh, sorry. For a second, though, I thought you meant it was to cover a high forehead.

[Greg Jenner]

To give you a high forehead.

[Tati MacLeod]

To give you a high forehead.

[Greg Jenner]

So you want it? Well, I mean, you explained, Jo, you're better than this.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So if you look at portraits of women from especially the 15th century, they have a forehead that really just kind of goes. Recedes.

[Greg Jenner]

Keeps going.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, it just keeps going and going and going. And that's Because a high forehead was associated with beauty, particularly a high forehead without any wrinkles in. It's very. It's a part of your face that you can really see the quality of your skin in. So they were really fashionable. So women used to pluck their forehead. She must have hurt so much. Pluck their forehead. Or they used to use some of these depilatories on their forehead as well as the rest of their bodies.

[Tati MacLeod]

So my fringe would be really. Oh, fashion. This is unthinkable.

[Greg Jenner]

Horrible.

[Tati MacLeod]

Your fringe would drag them.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Fringe would have been legally banned because there was a fashion in the 1480s in Venice for haircuts with the fringe. It was called the mushroom, as you can imagine, for women.

[Tati MacLeod]

I've had one of those.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. And the government banned it because they said it made women look too much like boys.

[Tati MacLeod]

My God, that's fascinating. But then what did women do after a breakup when they needed to change their look?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Tati MacLeod]

Like, what do you do? We need a revamp. What was your equivalent of like, I need to change myself? Panic. Cut yourself a fringe. How did you have a breakdown?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, I mean, they went on to poison their husbands, but we can talk about that later.

[Tati MacLeod]

Okay, that makes absolute sense.

[Greg Jenner]

Let's talk about hair washing. So, you know, once you've removed all the hair from the forehead, you still want to keep some hair on the head. How are they keeping that clean, Jill?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, this is where the copper basin comes in. Okay. So you'll. You'd lean over a copper basin and you'd have your maid bring in some kind of scented water or maybe some kind of shampoo which is made with ashes. So a lye into a soap. Or they use things like mallow, they had conditioners, things to make hair fuller bodied. And all of these, we've made some of these and they do are quite effective. But one of the issues in the period was how to dry your hair.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Because once you've wet your hair, you don't have a hair dryer in the winter. It could take ages. It could take days to wash and dry your hair. And so. And so Lucrezia Borgia, who was, you know, the Pope's daughter.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. We did an episode on the Borgia.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And the Governor and Spoleto. So actually would get. I really hated going to these social events that she had to go to. And she'd say, I'm washing my hair. I've got simply got to wash my hair.

[Tati MacLeod]

Absolutely. I love that. No, but also, look, I mean, nowadays, you know, wash day and which day Do I wash? I've got to go to the gym. If I go to the gym, do I wash before? Do I wash afterwards? It takes a couple of hours. Last night I slept with a hair mask on. I get it. And I actually think that is something we need to bring back. Okay, that is a completely socially acceptable reason to not turn up to an event. I can't come to work today day. It's wash day. My hair is still wet. I will be sat by the fire for the next seven hours just trying to work through this humidity. Fair enough.

[Greg Jenner]

So that's Lucrezia Borgia, the notorious poisoner and hair care guru. Okay, so some of those hair sort of conditions sound quite nice. I mean, some of them had chamomile in them and sage. Quite nice. Right? Some of them less so. My list includes bear's fat, bat's blood, burnt lizards, burnt moles, crushed hedgehogs, crushed insects.

[Tati MacLeod]

So when I hear that list, I do start to understand the association between women and witches, because that sounds like a potion.

[Greg Jenner]

Let's talk about, just quickly, the perfect hair that you would want. Like, Angelo, let's talk about later on, maybe, But Botticella, what hair does she aspire to have?

[Professor Jill Burke]

So, in the Renaissance, it was believed that hair was a sign of your internal mixture of humours. The internal liqu. Made up your body, that determined health, determined personality. And so your hair could be a sign of what you were like inside. And this is true for men and for women. So men's hair should be dark, ideally, and women's hair should be thick, wavy and golden.

[Tati MacLeod]

Oh, I was hoping you were gonna say pink.

[Greg Jenner]

For the record listener, Tati has a lovely pink bob. Oh, you were calling her bob? What's that?

[Tati MacLeod]

Well, humour is pink bob. Renaissance Italy.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, they do talk about dyeing your hair red and they. And Marinella says, I don't know why women want to do this. They're so capricious.

[Tati MacLeod]

Capricious. Okay, I can. I can get on that board.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay.

[Professor Jill Burke]

But the reason why your pink hair would be some confused people is that they divide women into different grades, aids, depending on their appearance.

[Greg Jenner]

This is very Joe Rogan. It's very manosphere, isn't it?

[Professor Jill Burke]

It's very manosphere. So there's a. There was a celebrity doctor called Juan Huate. He was Spanish and his. His book was translated into all different European languages. And he was explaining to men what kind of women they should marry dependent on what they looked like. And so sorry about this. There's a grade one woman has the Lowest levels of coldness and dampness in the humoral terms, and she should be avoided. She's of great intelligence and ability.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, no.

[Professor Jill Burke]

She never cedes an argument, no matter how small it is. And she has dark and curly hair. The best women are grade two in the middle. They're beautiful, soft and gentle, and they laugh easily. They're naturally almost completely free of body hair. The hair they have is golden and wavy. And they are obedient by nature, of course. And they're very fertile as well, so that's the best kind of woman. And grade three women, fat with white and hairless skin, and they're foolish and ditzy and they have platinum blonde hair.

[Tati MacLeod]

Are these the incels of the Renaissance? It's terrifying to realize that actually, in fact, it all makes sense. This is where Andrew Tate got his whole concept from. He's been reading some Renaissance literature, isn't it? Yeah, it's just coming straight back round, isn't it? Okay, so we've got three levels of women.

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[Tati MacLeod]

Curly haired women. Intelligent. Stay away Women with blonde hair. Ditzy. It's just, it's the Marilyn. Audrey Hepburn before Marilyn Audrey Hepburn. Fascinating.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so Jill, if the blonde golden curls are the optimum hair, presumably there are a lot of dodgy dye jobs going on. Women with darker hair going, oh, I've got to look like a Botticelli painting.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Of course, in Venice particularly, they were really famous. Women were really famous for bleaching their hair. They had special straw hats that had a big brim and no middle so that you could take your hair outside it without getting burnt in the sun.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, I see.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And they'd sit on their balcony like.

[Greg Jenner]

A tennis cap, almost like Y.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And they'd sit on their balconies and they'd put a mixture of kind of bleach on their hair. They'd sit all day and wait for it to be bleached. And it was really common to do that in Venice. Both men and women used black hair dye for going grey. So they'd cover up greys.

[Greg Jenner]

Great.

[Professor Jill Burke]

They'd use lead combs and things to make their hair darker again. And that probably worked as well otherwise. They had various recipes for dye, some of which which were less likely to work. So there was one where you had to put sunflower seeds in breast milk that was fed a male child and leave it to soak for 10 days.

[Tati MacLeod]

Breast milk, that's actually, that's what I use.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. And your hair looks lovely.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, it did say it was for a pink.

[Tati MacLeod]

Don't say.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so Angelo and Botticella, they've got washed, they're clean, they've done their hair. Now it's onto the skincare routine.

[Tati MacLeod]

Right.

[Greg Jenner]

What are you imagining? Korean style 11 step beauty.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah. I mean, to be honest, nowadays I can't even keep up with skincare routines. I take makeup off and then I put a cream on. So I'm probably not the right reference. They might even have something more complicated than that. Probably something like a vegetable oil avocado paste on the face. I mean, based on what we've heard so far, maybe some cat poo in there as well. A hedgehog for, like, exfoliation. I feel like I'm really starting to get the hang of this Renaissance skincare look. Life. Yeah. Like something along those lines. Maybe a bit of arsenic. Because if there's no poison, there's no peril. If there's no peril, it's not really skincare routine, is it? It's not skincare routine if you're not going to maybe die from it, is it? Take it away.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, of course, you're completely right. No, they did. So they did have kind of complex routines. So you'd start at night, the night before, you'd cleanse your skin. And that could be something like bran or breadcrumbs mixed with scented water. So that a little bit of exfoliation. N. Then you'd have a treatment. And that would depend on what kind of skin you had. So you might include vinegar was quite popular if you've got greasy skin. Or nettle tonic if you've got red skin, because nettle does actually stop inflammation. Or a whitener. And that would obviously include mercury and arsenic. And also snail slime was also used.

[Greg Jenner]

Which is back in Yasmine. Right. I mean, we used to laugh at them on Horrible Histories. We used to go, ha, ha, ha, snail slime. And now it's like 300 quid for a pot.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So they were ahead of their time. And you'd sleep with that on and then in the morning you'd wash that off and then you'd maybe put some moisturizer on and then makeup.

[Tati MacLeod]

So pretty good, actually, in the skincare routine. Yeah, yeah. Ahead of. Okay. I respect the skincare routine, apart from.

[Greg Jenner]

The arsenic bleaching of the skin.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah.

[Tati MacLeod]

Sorry. But, you know, that's just. That's just, you know, part. Of course, at this point, was it.

[Greg Jenner]

Like Victorian times, where paler skin meant you were richer? You know, pale skin, good. Darker skin means you work in the sun. You must be a peasant.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. Because, of course, beauty ideals have to be hard to achieve. What's the point of beauty ideals that are easy to achieve?

[Tati MacLeod]

Let's just take a moment to really think about that, because that's an important thing you've just said. Yep, that's very true.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And most women Worked outside. You know, most women were working as agricultural workers, like they have done kind of throughout history. And so having paler skin was a sign of being elite, an elite woman.

[Greg Jenner]

But there was also a racialized element, you know, in the 16th century in Italy. We do have an awful lot of. Of African enslaved people in Italy, right?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. So there's been slavery in Italy since classical times. It's continuous, more so than in other places in Europe. And from the mid 15th century, you start to get a lot of slaves from sub Saharan Africa, particularly female slaves who work in the house. And there's a fashion amongst some of the elites, like Isabella d', Este, who is the Marchioness of Mantua. She says to her agent in Venice, can you get me a young black slave child? As black as possible, so that she looks whiter in comparison. So this is a little girl of a.

[Tati MacLeod]

Like an accessory.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Like an accessory, yeah.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And then around 1520, aristocratic women start to be painted in portraits alongside black servants or slaves, really, as a contrast to make their skin look paler.

[Greg Jenner]

My God, that's horrible. It is horrible. Okay, let's move on to something equally horrible. A different kind of horrible. White lead on the face. It's famous from the Elizabeth I portraits. If you've seen the Margot Robbie movie, Mary Queenie Scott, I mean, that's bad, right? That's gonna rot your face.

[Professor Jill Burke]

You know, makeup historians have a problem with Margot Robbie.

[Greg Jenner]

No, surely not Margot's beloved. How dare you?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Not Margot. I mean, we do adore Margot Robbie, but her portrayal as Elizabeth I. Because one of the problems with white lead is that you can't actually use it. Right. So people can't use. Because we know it's poisonous. Poisonous. They knew it was not very good for you in the Renaissance as well. But recently there's been a project in Master University in Canada where they've got a nuclear physics lab, so they can use white lead and they've put it on pig skin to see what it looks like.

[Greg Jenner]

Right.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And actually it's not that kind of thick white paste that you see in the portraits of Elizabeth. It's actually translucent. And it's light scattering, you know, like light scattering foundations that you get today.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And it's a creamy mineral foundation.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It's not bright. It's not bright white or very opaque. So the idea of what Elizabeth I looked like is partly from the portraits, but largely from using titanium dioxide as a replacement for white lead. And it's just not a very good replacement.

[Greg Jenner]

I see.

[Tati MacLeod]

So the actual white lead Based on what we now know, thanks to these poor pigs is actually something a lot lighter and a lot softer than what we've seen.

[Greg Jenner]

And reflective. And reflective, but still very dangerous.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, it still kills you.

[Greg Jenner]

Right? Okay, good.

[Tati MacLeod]

But does it do the job well?

[Professor Jill Burke]

But it does the job well. But, you know, they had replacements for white lead even in the Renaissance. So marble dust, for example, and I brought along a marble dust foundation for you to try.

[Greg Jenner]

Egg white as well was used, wasn't it?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Egg white. They use in a lot of different kinds of makeup and adds a little bit of a sheen to your face.

[Greg Jenner]

And egg white was used on the hair, too, wasn't it?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Sometimes, yeah. I mean, they use eggs in everything. They're readily available, and they're quite inexpensive. So, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, let's talk about cosmetics and let's try some cosmetics because I think it's time now for our us to turn ourselves into guinea pigs a little bit and try some of this stuff. And by the magic of radio, I am now transformed into a Renaissance era beauty. And just to be clear, none of the stuff we are putting on our faces today is poisonous. We've checked. Jill, what am I wearing on my face? It smells delicious.

[Professor Jill Burke]

First of all, you have Renaissance rock rose balm, which is very delicious smelling. It's just quite normal. It's like lip balm with beeswax. And that's. That's actually something that I would use, actually genuinely use today. Then there's some things that you might not use. There's an anti wrinkle cream with lamp. Not at all. And frankincense, and which normally also contains mastic, which is another kind of tree gum. And those have been found to have vitamin E and antioxidants in things like that. So they could actually affect wrinkles. Some of this Renaissance makeup is effective. And then you've got. What is really great about your look is the foundation, which is made of marble dust, because white lead is frowned upon nowadays.

[Greg Jenner]

I wonder why.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I wonder why. So it's made of violet oil and rose water, which smells nice. It smells good. It's made you quite white. But you've also got beautiful rosy cheeks made with red sandalwood, which we're hoping we'll be able to wash off, but which may stay.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. No one told me the sandalwood would be staining the cheeks.

[Tati MacLeod]

I would run with it. It's really. It's the hero of what's happening on your face right now. It's giving Met Gala. It's giving the Oscars it's giving Greg in a whole different light.

[Greg Jenner]

Thank you.

[Tati MacLeod]

If it doesn't wash off, I think you can make this work.

[Greg Jenner]

Let's get back to Angelo and Botticella, our influencers. They're off to the theater. They're doing the getting ready. I just want to ask about hairstyles. Right. So we know that she needs to have golden hair, but how is she working wearing it up, down, in a do, Braided.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Always in a do. There's always a do. You never wear hair completely loose in this period unless you're just about to get married or just married. And then you're allowed to wear it loose down your back. Otherwise that's a sign of. It can be a sign of madness or illness or being really transgressive. So as soon Katie's giggling.

[Tati MacLeod]

Sat here with my pink hair down. She's crazy. Watch out.

[Professor Jill Burke]

But women were really creative with their hairstyles and so. And often used to have the same hairstyle to show that they were kind of part of a gang. So if you look at portraits from the Milanese court in the early 16th century, like portraits by Leonardo da Vinci, they all have this big long plait that goes down their back and a hair net that goes across their forehead.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

That was a fashion associated with Beatrice of Aragon and they all started to wear it. And then as soon as you get to about the 50s tens, it goes nice.

[Greg Jenner]

And how do you curl your hair? I'm naturally curly. I don't have to ask. But like how would a lady curl her hair if it was straight and she wanted the ringlets Hot spoons. Oh.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So if you imagine what tongs are like now, you'd heat spoons up and then you'd curl your hair around it and maybe use gum arabic as a setting lotion.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, okay. Some curl cream.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tati MacLeod]

So what I'm getting here is that really actually women didn't have a lot of time outside of doing their hair and make cup and making the potions. When we ask ourselves, what were the big challenges to women Education? Just generally having careers, I suppose. Curling your hair with spoons, it's probably up there, right? Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

It's quite time intensive, isn't it? Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, that's why you'd have all your servants. I guess I forgot about that.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah, of course. Yeah, servants.

[Greg Jenner]

And what about Angelo? Is he clean shaven? Is he. I mean, is he got a beard like me, short and cropped? Has he got long beard? Gonna Leonardo da Vinci style? Styley.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, it really Depends on. On when Angelo was about. Because there's a big change in fashions for beards between the 15th and 16th centuries. So in Italy, they associate beards with peacetime and they associate them with republican governments. And so in Florence, for example, everyone was clean shaven until the Medici family come back to rule the city as dukes in the. About the 1530s, when everyone has a. Has a nice little beard. And some people really. And there's, there's portraits of beards that are very, very curly and very, very well kept. So people had beard oil, people dyed their beards. But by the time you get into the 16th century, everyone has a beard. So Greg would be just absolutely. In fashion. You.

[Greg Jenner]

Wow, I'm hot to trot. Ready to mingle.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Absolutely.

[Tati MacLeod]

I think Angelo would have a mustache.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Oh.

[Greg Jenner]

Ah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think he. I think Angelo would have a mustache and possibly a beard.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I think if people. He had just a mustache, people might point and laugh at him.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Tati MacLeod]

If you. On historical accuracy. Even though he's my fantasy man. But sure.

[Greg Jenner]

What about shapewear? You know, what about underwear? You know, the clothes you wear under your clothes, the things that are, you know, if they're going for the perfect body. You talked before about the hourglass coming in. How are they achieving that?

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah, Skims, Spanx? What are we working with?

[Professor Jill Burke]

No Spanx at all. In fact, no knickers. No.

[Greg Jenner]

Wow.

[Tati MacLeod]

Hello, commando. So breathe.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Men would wear. There's actually archaeological remains of pants.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, great. Historical pants.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Historical pants that would have a little nifty tie at the side. Okay, but women didn't wear pants at all.

[Greg Jenner]

No.

[Professor Jill Burke]

And actually if they did wear pants that was thought to be a bit raunchy because it was like they were men.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, okay.

[Tati MacLeod]

So. So what you're saying is, is that we've already heard that you could have an entire intercourse with a woman, and the peak of the eroticism was the point at which she takes off her shirt after having had sex with someone. It's the nudity. She could be completely naked. You could see her fanny. And that would be less sexy than if she had a pair of shorts on.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, you know, each to their own.

[Tati MacLeod]

But can I ask a very specific question? If they're not wearing knickers, what do they do when they have their periods?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Well, they don't leave the house. I mean, this is one of the.

[Tati MacLeod]

Sorry.

[Professor Jill Burke]

A lot of this history is about controlling women and their activities.

[Greg Jenner]

We know about menstrual rags, don't we?

[Professor Jill Burke]

We have allegiance to it. They use rags and they use. So there's. Yeah, there's certainly just rolled up rags. There's cotton wool that can be used as well.

[Greg Jenner]

In terms of bras, I mean, women are going commando on the pants front. But what about support for the bosom? Well, that's my Radio 4 voice support for the boso.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So it used to be thought that bras were invented in the 19th century. But then in 2008, there was an archaeological find where they found. There's a false wall in a castle in Austria. Yeah. Lemberg Castle in the Tyrol in Austria. They found lots of linen had been stuffed in there. And they found a bra which. Known as breast bags. And they. Two bags that are designed to lift and set up separate. So you have. You have that. And then in the 16th century.

[Tati MacLeod]

Sorry, I can't just skim over the boob sacks. So lift and separate.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. So if you look at these bras, they're cotton and they've got a big kind of bodice underneath. And then these, I mean, they're separate kind of bag shapes that would pull your bosom, you know, really make it go in two. So it looks like you've got breasts kind of here.

[Greg Jenner]

So really high up.

[Tati MacLeod]

Really high up.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yes.

[Tati MacLeod]

On either side of your chest.

[Professor Jill Burke]

On either side. Near your ears. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

So that's two bosoms on view, but quite high. But there's also the kind of mono.

[Professor Jill Burke]

The mono bosom.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. Not the monobrow. The monoboob.

[Professor Jill Burke]

So, yeah. So later on, again, this is fashions of bodies and fashions of clothing. Later on you get the mono bosom, which is a term from fashion history, honestly, where you get a very. A bodice that's very stiff and made stiffer with cardboard and it kind of squishes your boobs in to make it like look like you just are completely flat, really. And triangular.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. Was there any kind of moral backlash to all of this? We've heard about, you know, some of the kind of fear that women were deceiving men and what are you. But was there any kind of like, haters in the comments section? You know, when we've got our Angelo and Botticello going out, are there people going like, oh, God, this is awful and disgusting and immoral and God would be shamed? Yeah.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Oh, absolutely. I mean, well, all the way through, but particularly as the Counter Reformation in Italy comes into force in the later 16th century and in England, all the way through, people are that cosmetics are lies, it's deceitful that women are vain. They're Spending all their money on cosmetics. Yeah, I know, it's depressing that they're kind of changing the face that God gave them and that it's immoral. So a lot of kind of misogyny, general misogyny is bound up in cosmetics use. Really. The grandeur of cosmetics runs through the 16th century and then it kind of tails off as you get into the 17th century.

[Greg Jenner]

And we also have this fear that women are poisoning their husbands with their. I mean, this is a thing. It happens.

[Professor Jill Burke]

It is actually true. Yeah, it has happened. Yeah.

[Tati MacLeod]

Amazing. So they trick their husbands into marrying them by using makeup and then they use the makeup to kill them.

[Professor Jill Burke]

I mean, you sound just like a Renaissance priest. I'm really.

[Tati MacLeod]

I'm really on board with it. I'm like, how can both the. How can the tool of oppression both be the tool of empowerment? Wonderful.

[Greg Jenner]

There we go. Feminism for the win.

[Tati MacLeod]

I'm gonna lead the witches. I'm so into this era.

[Greg Jenner]

There's a story actually of a 15 year old mov murdering her siblings with her poison. So not just a hubby, but she bumps off her siblings.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Yeah. So this is. She didn't mean to murder her sibling. She found. So women know that this stuff is poisonous. They keep it generally under lock and key. And so she got some face whitener from her mum's box because they wanted to send her to a convent and she didn't want to go. And so she tried to poison the entire family. She put some of this face whitener onto some salad and they all ate it and they're all ill. But her siblings died. And so there's a report of her witness statement and her conviction in the Florentine archives. And then later on. The Aqua Tofana murders were very, very notorious in the 17th century, where they reckoned like hundreds of men of husbands generally were killed by women using. Using face cream. So they put this face ointment into their husband's food or drink and they'd kill themselves slowly over a matter of weeks. And they set up a sting operation to find out this woman they tricked. Yeah, they sent someone along trying to buy some of the poison. And in fact, she was an agent of the Roman police in disguise. And then the person who the poisoner sold her it and they kind of swooped out and arrested her.

[Greg Jenner]

Wow, that's amazing. Isn't it? Just very quickly. You also mentioned men dieting. We know of one particular famous aristocrat who was murdered because he wasn't wearing his under armour. He didn't want to look for fat. Right.

[Professor Jill Burke]

He was a Duke of Milan and he. They advised him to put on his reinforced doublet and he said, no, no, it makes me look too fat. And then he went to mass in church and he was stabbed to death. So, yeah, so really, people did die for beauty.

[Tati MacLeod]

Cost of beauty.

[Greg Jenner]

There we go. The church is right. The vanity is a deadly sin. The nuance window. Okay, so I think it's time for us to get to the nuance window. This is the part of the show where Tati and I sit quietly in front of the mirror and fix our makeup, or I try and remove mine anyway, for two minutes while Professor Jill enters the dressing room to tell us something we need to know about Renaissance beauty. My stopwatch is ready. Take it away, Jill.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Okay, so stories about past cosmetic use can be delightful and they can be funny, but they mask some pretty serious history. How we look isn't governed just by our genes, but is mutable a complex toing and froing between external forces such as food availability, types of work, our environment and the choices we make to look after and adorn our bodies, hair and faces. It's only recently that historians have realised that the history of cosmetic and hygiene practices is no mere amusing side quest, but reveals much about the concerns, assumptions and prejudices of the past. Cosmetic recipes and ideas spread across cultures are shaped by trade, fashion and cologne colonialism. Assumptions about ideal beauty are steeped in preconceptions of gender, race and class prejudices against people typically based on their appearance alone. Cosmetics are often criticised as they thwart attempts to read in a character through external appearance. So large scale historical shifts play out in our bathroom mirrors and affect how we understand our own bodies in relationship to the world. The history of beauty allows us to empathize with people in distant times and and places, recognise their vanities, their frailties, their hopes and their fears. In a patriarchal society like Renaissance Europe, and let's face it, most past societies, women's hope of social progress or financial well being was typically dependent on the goodwill of men. Looking your best was less vanity than necessity. Inventing and applying cosmetics was often associated with poorer women, people who are typically illiterate, so don't turn up in historical sources and if they do, only in court records. Reconstructing cosmetic recipes has given us a rich insight into these women's ingenuity, their cleverness in making ends meet, their understanding of what we now call science and their social networks. Compared to military history, say, or the biographies of great men, the history of beauty gives Us, a window into a multiplicity of experiences and a chance to remember lives that have been frequently disparaged or dismissed.

[Greg Jenner]

Thank you so much.

[Tati MacLeod]

Wonderful.

[Greg Jenner]

Really interesting. Yeah, it is easy, I think, I think, to sort of think makeup, you know, whatever. It's really interesting.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yeah, it really is, because I think it's. It also reminds us, and it's still a conversation we have now on social media, especially about how dismissive can be people can be about makeup, people doing makeup, and there's very much attitude of like, oh, God, you've got nothing better to do with your time. And that actually, how much of women's history is linked to that, indeed, industry, sometimes not even by choice. But how dismissing it like that sort of doesn't allow us to hear those voices and that existence and what they were up to. So thank you for bringing it to the table.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

And thank you for smearing it on my face anytime.

[Tati MacLeod]

Absolutely.

[Greg Jenner]

So, what do you know now? It's time now for the sir. What do you know? Now, this is our quickfire quiz for Tati to see how much she has learned and remembered. I mean, we've talked about an awful lot of stuff. Tati, how are you feeling on the confidence level?

[Tati MacLeod]

I feel confident because I have been listening very closely. I was fascinated. Thank you for it. I leave feeling invigorated, but. And also quite, I guess, angry.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, that's fine.

[Tati MacLeod]

I feel like I want to go and march in to the makeup counter with John Lewis and say, and this is feminism, and what you are doing is God's work for some poor woman who's just trying to sell me a nice lipstick. No, but seriously, your job is vital.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, we've got 10 questions for you. Here we go. Question one. Why were baths considered to be potentially dangerous?

[Tati MacLeod]

My first thought hearing your question was the answer will be cat poo. Let me. Why were baths considered potentially dangerous? Ah, because. Because being too clean meant that stuff could get in your pores.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Tati MacLeod]

That grime is protective.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right. Question 2. What harsh ingredients were common in hair removal creams?

[Tati MacLeod]

I think we've covered. Oh, it was that stuff you use on walls. Right. First of all, arsenic. Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Arsenic.

[Tati MacLeod]

Yep. And the other one is caustic. Caustic. And arsenic.

[Greg Jenner]

Quick lime. Caustic. Very good. You could have had cat feces.

[Tati MacLeod]

Cat feces?

[Professor Jill Burke]

Of course.

[Tati MacLeod]

Hedgehogs. Sorry, the list goes on.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 3. Kind of hair was considered the most beautiful in Renaissance Italy.

[Tati MacLeod]

It was, well, in my opinion, of course, short, dark, pink. Anything that would make you Wild, unruly. But I suppose for men of that period it was those very docile of women, so they would have liked them. Blonde, Blonde, Blonde.

[Greg Jenner]

Platinum blonde and curly and blonde. Very good. Lovely.

[Tati MacLeod]

Like a cherub.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 4. What was the name of Giovanni Marinello's best selling beauty book from 1562?

[Tati MacLeod]

Do you remember?

[Greg Jenner]

Remember the name?

[Tati MacLeod]

What was the name of that book? I don't know. Probably something like. Listen, women, listen, behave. Slap some arsenic on, here's some lead for the face. Crack on lead and cat poo for you.

[Greg Jenner]

I think that was the subtitle. The main title was Ornaments of ladies.

[Tati MacLeod]

Ornaments of. Quite. Yes, of course.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 5. What toxic ingredient was commonly found in foundation lead? It was white lead. As long as we heard it was light scattering, which is quite surprising. Question 6. What hygiene related excuse did Lucrezia Borgia use to get out of social engagements?

[Tati MacLeod]

I'm so sorry, I won't be able to make it. My hair's wet.

[Greg Jenner]

Very good. I'm washing my hair for the next three days. Question 7. What kitchen utensil was used to curl hair?

[Tati MacLeod]

A spoon.

[Greg Jenner]

A hot spoon. Question 8. What was the name of a bra like contraption worn by Renaissance women?

[Tati MacLeod]

The mono bra.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right, you got the mono.

[Tati MacLeod]

Oh, the boob. The boob bag.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right. The breast bag and the mono boob. Very good. Question 9. How did a 15 year old from Siena poison her siblings?

[Tati MacLeod]

She. Yeah, she used her mom's makeup. Yeah, she went and got it out the cupboard. But to be fair, they did want to send her to a convent. And I can relate. I mean, no, I can't, but I could. But you know.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right. Yeah. Mother's face cream in the salad, I think. Question 10. This for 9 out of 10. A very strong score. Which haircut was banned by the Venetian government?

[Tati MacLeod]

Which makeup was banned?

[Greg Jenner]

Sorry, which haircut? Which haircut was banned by.

[Tati MacLeod]

The mushroom fringe.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, very cool.

[Tati MacLeod]

The mushroom hair.

[Greg Jenner]

The old fungi fringe.

[Tati MacLeod]

Thank you. What do I want?

[Greg Jenner]

You have won a year's supply of white lead.

[Tati MacLeod]

You've won a year's supply of sheep's tallow face cream and marble mush.

[Greg Jenner]

Well done. 9 out of 10. Really good. Thank you so much, Tati. Thank you so much. Professor Jill Listener. If you want more on historical beauty standards, check out our episode on the history of high heel shoes. It's an absolute classic from back in the day. And also we did one on hair care entrepreneur Madam CJ Walker. And for more on Renaissance Italy, why not listen to our episode on the Borgias. They were absolutely wild. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with your friends. Subscribe to youo're Dead to me on BBC Sounds to get episodes 28 days earlier than on any other app. And make sure to switch on your notifications so you never miss an episode. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner we had the brilliant Professor Jill Burke from the University of Edinburgh. Thank you, Jill.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

And in Comedy Corner we have the truly Terrific Tati MacLeod. Thank you, Tati.

[Tati MacLeod]

Thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

And to you, lovely listener. Join me next time as we rifle through the bathroom cabinet of another historical subject. But for now, I'm off to go and find enough bats to keep my curly locks looking luscious. Please don't report me to any animal rights groups.

[Tati MacLeod]

Bye.

[Greg Jenner]

Your Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4.

[BBC Announcer]

Hello, Russell Caine here. I used to love British history. Be proud of it. Henry viii, Queen Victoria. Massive fan of stand up comedians, obviously Bill Hicks. Respect Richard Pryor. That has become much more challenging for I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius, the show where we take heroes and villains from history and try to work out were they evil or genius. Do not catch up on BBC Sounds by searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed, but if, like me, you quite enjoy it, have a little search. Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Cain. Go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed.

[Greg Jenner]

Destroyed.

[Professor Jill Burke]

This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry.

[Tati MacLeod]

Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.

[Professor Jill Burke]

Join me, Alex von Tanzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.