You're Dead to Me — "Renaissance Beauty" (Radio Edit)

Podcast: You're Dead to Me (BBC Radio 4)
Host: Greg Jenner
Historian Guest: Professor Jill Burke (University of Edinburgh)
Comedy Guest: Tati MacLeod
Air Date: December 5, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the history of beauty and personal care in Renaissance Italy, exploring the era’s often hazardous beauty rituals, the social and racial politics of appearance, and the enduring pressures surrounding ideals of attractiveness. Drawing both laughs and insights, Greg Jenner guides a "Get Ready With Me"–style journey with expert historian Professor Jill Burke and comedian Tati MacLeod, re-enacting daily routines and challenging preconceptions about historical makeup, hygiene, and gender.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: What Was the Renaissance?

• Timeframe: Broadly defined as 1400–1650 in Italy, spanning late Middle Ages into the early modern period.
  • "[The Renaissance is] related to the rebirth of classical antiquity... so normally would say from about 1400... to about maybe 1650." — Jill Burke (04:00)
• Cultural context: Emphasized rebirth of classical ideals, profoundly affecting art, body image, and concepts of beauty.
  • "People like Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, all the turtles..." — Jill Burke (04:28)

2. Changing Beauty Ideals and Social Pressures

• Visual standards:
  • Women aspired to thick, wavy, golden hair, inspired by classical sculpture. Men idealized dark, full hair.
    • "Men's hair should be dark... women's hair should be thick, wavy and golden." — Jill Burke (14:59)
  • Paintings (e.g., Botticelli’s Birth of Venus) and new medical writings influenced physical ideals and trends.
• Social hierarchies:
  • Pale skin signified elite status, as most women worked outdoors.
    • "...having paler skin was a sign of being elite, an elite woman." — Jill Burke (17:50)
• Racial politics:
  • Elite women sometimes positioned themselves with enslaved black children in portraits to accentuate their paleness.
    • "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..." — Jill Burke (18:07)

3. Daily Hygiene & Grooming — "Get Ready With Me" Renaissance Style

• Bathing:
  • Full-body baths rare, except for the ultra-wealthy. Most used copper basins and daily towel washes.
    • "Some really, really, really wealthy people had running water... but they were above the echelon of Botticella." — Jill Burke (08:39)
  • Regular changing of linen was a status symbol.
    • "...they're very, very into changing linen and having fresh white linen a couple times a day." — Greg Jenner (09:56)
• Body Hair Removal:
  • Complete body hair removal for women was common, using depilatory creams made from quicklime, arsenic, and alum.
    • "You make it into paste and you smear it onto your body... wait until it gets hot and then remove it quickly before the flesh falls off." — Jill Burke (11:13)
  • Minimal evidence that men removed body hair, aside from careful trimming.
    • "...sculpture of the time... has very trim, neat looking pubic hair. So there might have been some trimming involved." — Jill Burke (13:04)
• Hair Care:
  • Washed with scented waters or lye-based soaps, and conditioned with everything from mallow to bear fat, bat’s blood, or crushed insects.
  • Slow drying meant “wash day” became a plausible excuse to miss social events (as exemplified by Lucrezia Borgia).
    • “I can't come to work today, it's wash day.” — Tati MacLeod (14:27)

4. Skincare & Cosmetics: Ingredients and Rituals

• Routine complexity:
  • Multi-step routines involving cleansing, exfoliation (breadcrumbs or bran), treatments (vinegar, nettle), moisterizers, and makeup.
    • "You'd start at night, the night before, you'd cleanse your skin... then you'd have a treatment... then in the morning you'd wash that off and then maybe put some moisturizer on and then makeup." — Jill Burke (16:25)
• Heroically hazardous ingredients:
  • Many products used mercury, arsenic, white lead, snail slime—all with varying degrees of effectiveness and risk.
  • Skin-whitening was particularly prized.
• Foundations & Color:
  • Contrary to modern imagination, white lead produced a translucent rather than opaque effect.

    "It's actually translucent, and it's light scattering... it's a creamy mineral foundation... not bright white or very opaque." — Jill Burke (19:29)

  • Substitutes included marble dust, violet oil, and rose water. Rosy cheeks were tinted with red sandalwood.

5. Trying Renaissance Beauty Products (On Air!)

• Greg’s makeover:
  • Wore rose balm, anti-wrinkle cream with lamb fat and frankincense, marble dust foundation, and red sandalwood blush.
  • Tati quipped about Greg’s transformation:

    "It's giving Met Gala. It's giving the Oscars. It's giving Greg in a whole different light!" — Tati MacLeod (21:52)

6. Societal Backlash and Power Dynamics

• Cosmetics as Deceit:
  • Cosmetics were often condemned as immoral, a “lie” against God, and associated with vanity and deception, especially as the Counter-Reformation arrived.
    • "People are saying that cosmetics are lies, it's deceitful, that women are vain. They're spending all their money on cosmetics..." — Jill Burke (22:39)
• Empowerment & Danger:
  • Infamous poisonings (e.g., Aqua Tofana) exposed both the fears and realities of cosmetics as hidden weapons.
    • "Aqua Tofana murders were very, very notorious in the 17th century where they reckoned hundreds of men... were killed by women using face cream." — Jill Burke (23:50)
• Women’s agency:
  • For many, mastering these routines was less about vanity than necessity in a patriarchal society.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On enduring beauty pressures:

  "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..." — Tati MacLeod (07:10)

• On depilatory pain:

  "I'm physically in pain. I'm empathizing with these women that I've never met from hundreds of years ago. I mean, Veet is bad enough now, but back then, oh, God, these poor girls." — Tati MacLeod (10:58)

• On racial politics of beauty:

  "Can you get me a young black slave child, as black as possible, so that she looks whiter in comparison..." — Jill Burke (18:07)

• On cosmetics as empowerment and oppression:

  "How can the tool of oppression both be the tool of empowerment? Wonderful." — Tati MacLeod (23:38)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:10] — Show introduction and guest welcomes
• [03:16] — “So What Do You Know?” – Setting up the Renaissance period
• [07:31] — “Get Ready With Me”: Naming the sample Renaissance couple: Botticella and Angelo
• [08:39] — Bathing & hygiene rituals
• [10:22] — Body hair removal techniques (and pain!)
• [13:13] — Hair washing, drying, and colored hair trends
• [15:47] — Skin care routines and dangerous ingredients
• [17:38] — Pale skin, social status, and racial politics
• [19:02] — White lead makeup: myths and science
• [20:35] — Live cosmetic trial (Greg’s Renaissance makeover)
• [22:22] — Societal and religious backlash
• [23:50] — Poison and power: the Aqua Tofana murders
• [24:33] — Nuance Window: Professor Jill Burke sums up the larger significance of beauty practices

The Nuance Window: The Deeper Meaning of Beauty Rituals ([24:50])

Professor Jill Burke provides a thoughtful reflection on why beauty history matters and what we learn:

"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 to-ing and fro-ing 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..." (24:50–26:40)

She ends on the importance of recognizing women's ingenuity and the significance of so-called "trivial" history.

Takeaways

• Renaissance beauty was deadly serious—sometimes literally—with routines involving dangerous chemicals but also inventive self-care.
• Ideals of beauty reflected deep social divisions (class, gender, race), and women’s engagement with beauty could be both a form of agency and oppression.
• Makeup and hygiene history, often dismissed as superficial, in fact reveals crucial insights into power, prejudice, and lived experience.
• Many modern anxieties over cosmetic pressure—including moral panics and value judgments—have deep roots.

Guest Credits:

• Professor Jill Burke — Renaissance beauty historian; author of How to Be a Renaissance Woman
• Tati MacLeod — Stand-up comic and social media creator

Recommended Further Episodes:

• History of High-Heeled Shoes
• Hair Care Entrepreneur Madam CJ Walker
• The Borgias