Renaissance Beauty (Radio Edit)

Summary

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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

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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Transcript

[A]

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[C]

Hello and welcome to your Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I am 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 is Professor Jill Burke. Welcome, Jill.

[D]

Hello. It's lovely to be here.

[C]

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.

[E]

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

[C]

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

[E]

Yes, it is indeed.

[C]

And I suppose the obvious question do you like history?

[E]

Do I like history? Yeah, right. I mean, we've all got one, right? Depends who you're asking, in what context, Relationship history, personal history. I'm intrigued, I'm interested, I'm curious. I'm open, I'm present.

[D]

Great.

[C]

You're Known for your get ready with me videos. Do you know anything about the Renaissance era and beauty trends?

[E]

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 if anything, I'm probably closer to Renaissance history.

Than I am to current makeup trends.

[C]

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 her face with white lead. I mean, who can forget Margot Robbie's look in the Mary Queen Scott's 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 like technically? Because it overlaps the medieval period in a very confusing way. How would you define it?

[D]

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, a little bit before other places in Europe, so 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.

[E]

So basically the rest of Europe had to catch up.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

Sort of like a fashion trend that starts somewhere.

[D]

Absolutely. That's exactly.

[E]

Yeah. Okay, I'm with you.

[D]

I'm good at that. And it is exactly people like Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, all those people, all the turtles. All the turtles who made like a massive difference and a massive way that people painted and the way the 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.

[E]

I know that one. Yes, I know.

[D]

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, they decided their bodies to look 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 other people's beauty.

[C]

It's a nostalgia vibe.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

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

[D]

Way back to the Roman era. And they're reading and ancient Greece as well. They know more about ancient Rome 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.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So doctors start to be really interested in cosmet and wealthy women start to commission doctors to cure any of their beauty ailments as well. So there's a real abundance of recipes from this period. Oh, my God.

[E]

It's so fascinating, the parallels of like Botox and surgery. You know, like, you can imagine it back then just being like, have you heard of Dr.

[D]

Absolutely, yeah.

[C]

Dr. Fallopio.

[D]

Fallopio, yeah.

[E]

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

[C]

Famous for his tubes. Yes, exactly.

[E]

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

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So Fallopian, who wrote about the first time about the Fallopian tubes, 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.

[C]

The best selling one is Marinello's Ornament of Ladies.

[D]

Ornament of Ladies, yes. This came out in 1562, but beauty recipe books started in the 1520s. So the ornamenti di Donne, the ornament of Women by a Dr. Giovanni Marinello, has about 4,000 recipes.

[C]

Wow.

[D]

Marinello'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 funny, but at the same time, you really recognize these tropes about beauty, about women. So there'll be recipes for things like recipes for. If you want to look forever, 20 or 25. Sure thing.

[E]

Are you serious?

[D]

I am serious, yeah.

[E]

Because it Just I don't know if it's, like, funny or fascinating or worrying that nearly hundreds of years later they're 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.

[D]

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.

[C]

Right, well, we're structuring this episode a bit differently, Tati. We're going to do it like a Get Ready With Me video, but we're going to, you know, which means we need an Italian Renaissance couple. We need a fella and a lady. Do you want to name them for us? Who are our hot Italian couple?

[E]

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

[D]

Very good.

[E]

Botticello and Angelo. Oh, my God.

[C]

You know, let's start their routine there. We start with hygiene.

[E]

Oh, really?

[C]

Yeah. What type of washing do you think they're doing? Do you think they're doing everything how I wash? No, no, no, I'm not gonna ask you that.

[E]

No, because you follow this. Yeah, French. But anyway, you're half French. So anyway, I'm half French, but I.

[C]

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

[E]

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.

[C]

Lovely.

[E]

That's nice for the story.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

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.

[D]

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 Boticella.

[E]

If you don't know Angelo. Angelo's Lynn. We've had a great year.

[D]

But copper basin.

[E]

Excuse me.

[D]

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

[C]

Oh, well done, Tati. Very good.

[D]

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

[E]

You'd do it yourself.

[D]

Goodness me. You wouldn't do it yourself because you didn't have baths at home. You'd also go to the bath.

As much as once a month.

[E]

So people would wash once a month?

[D]

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. They said quite a lot of rubbing your body with towels. So a lot of head health because they were worried that noxious vapors would build up in your head overnight. So in the morning, that's called a hangover. 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'd rub your face, you'd have to blow your nose. You'd brush your teeth, your teeth probably with a little cloth or some wood. And so you do something like that every day. They'd often be scented waters and you'd change your shirt. They're very, very into changing linen and having fresh white linen a couple of.

[C]

Times a day, right? Sometimes, yeah, yeah.

[D]

So people would have like hundreds of shirts.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Even like poorest people would have 16 or 17 undershirts.

[C]

So our couple, Botticella and Angelo. Yeah, lovely. Okay. Are they shaving, are they waxing, or are they using the depilation cream? How do you get rid of body.

[E]

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?

[D]

We are working with complete baldness.

[C]

Oh, really?

[D]

Yes. A practice associated with Islamic bathing cultures. 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, you don't know what's in it yet. Just wait. Yeah, Tati.

[C]

Tati, yeah. Other products are available, of course, hair removal cream.

[E]

I'm physically in pain.

I'm empathizing with these women that I've never met from hundreds of years ago. I mean, Vita's bad enough now, but back then, oh, God, these poor girls.

[C]

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

[E]

Go on.

[D]

Quicklime arsenic. And what you do is you make it into 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 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.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, Quicklime is caustic. Arsenic is a toxin.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Alum is a metal. And they're all going in your secret parts. That's not good.

[E]

No. I thought the next part was going to be put this on get, and then eventually just die. Because 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 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.

[D]

My job is done.

[C]

Radicalized.

[E]

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 hair?

[C]

Is Angelo also whipping it all off?

[D]

There's so little evidence about men.

[E]

Here we go.

[D]

So there's so little evidence about men and grooming. It's really hard to understand whether they removed their hair or not. There's more evidence about women. Right. And I can trace that in the recipes. If you look at the sculpture of the time, like Michelangelo's David, for example, it has very trim, neat looking pubic hair. So there might have been some trimming involved.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

But I'm not sure about actual complete removal.

[C]

All right. Okay.

[D]

I think that's unlikely.

[C]

Let's talk about hair washing. They keeping that clean, Jill?

[D]

Well, this is where the copper basin comes in. 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 lie 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.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

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. Yes.

[C]

We did an episode in the Borgia.

[D]

And the governor in Spoleto actually would get 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.

[E]

Absolutely. I love that. No, but also it is true. 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? To wash afterwards? It takes a couple of hours. Last night I slept with a. 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, it's wash day.

[C]

So some of those hair sort of conditions sound quite nice. Some of them less so. My list includes bear's fat, bat's blood, burnt lizards, burnt moles, crushed hedgehogs, crushed insects.

[E]

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

[C]

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

[D]

So in the Renaissance, it was believed that hair was a sign of your internal m. Mixture of humours, the internal liquids that 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.

[E]

Oh, I was hoping you were gonna say pink.

[C]

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

[E]

Humor is pink bob in Renaissance Italy?

[D]

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.

[E]

Capricious. Okay, I can get on that board.

[C]

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

[D]

Right?

[C]

What are you imagining? Korean style 11 step beauty?

[E]

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, 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?

[D]

Well, of course, you're completely right. No, they dict. 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 and 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.

[C]

Which is back in the afternoon. 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.

[D]

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.

[E]

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

[C]

From the arsenic bleaching of the skin.

[E]

Yeah, sorry. But, you know, that's just. That's just. Just, you know, par course, at this.

[C]

Point, was it 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.

[D]

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

[E]

Let's just take a moment to really think about that.

[D]

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.

[C]

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

[D]

Yeah. So there's a fashion amongst some of the elites, like Isabella d', Este, who was 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. Like an sorcery, like an accessory. Yeah, yeah. 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.

[C]

My God, that's horrible.

[D]

It is horrible.

[C]

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 Queen of Scott, I mean, that's bad, right? That's gonna rot your face.

[D]

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

[C]

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

[D]

Not Margot. I mean, we do adore Margot Robbie, but her portrayal is 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. They knew it was not very good for you in the Renaissance as well. But recently there's been a project in McMaster 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.

[C]

Right.

[D]

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.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

And it's a creamy mineral foundation. Yes. It's not bright. It's not bright white or very opaque. So the idea of what Elizabeth I looked like is from. 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.

[C]

I see.

[D]

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.

[C]

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

[D]

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

[C]

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

[D]

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

[C]

Yeah. Let's talk about cosmetics, and let's try some cosmetics. I think it's time now for 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 poison. We've checked. Jill, what am I wearing on my face? It smells delicious.

[D]

First of all, you have Renaissance rose balm, which is very delicious smelling. It's just quite normal. It's like lip balm with beeswax. And 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, 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.

[C]

I wonder why.

[D]

I wonder why. So it's made of violet oil and rose water, which smells nice, right? 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 Mitch may stay. Yeah.

[C]

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

[E]

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.

[C]

Thank you.

[E]

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

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

So what I'm getting here is that really, actually, women didn't have a lot of time outside of doing their hair and makeup and making the potions.

[D]

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

[E]

Yes.

[C]

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 ashamed? Yeah.

[D]

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 saying 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.

[C]

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

[D]

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

[E]

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

[D]

I mean, you sound just like a Renaissance priest.

[E]

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.

[C]

There we go. Feminism for the win.

[E]

I'm gonna lead the witches.

[D]

So this is 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 face cream. So they put this face ointment into their husband's food or drink and they'd kill them 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. The poisoner sold her it and they kind of swooped out and arrested her.

[C]

Wow. It's amazing, isn't it? The nuance window.

Okay, so I think it's time for us to. 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.

[D]

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 to ing 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 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 inner 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 empathise with people in distant times 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.

[C]

Thank you so much.

[E]

Wonderful.

[C]

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

[E]

It also reminds us, and it's still a conversation we have now on social media, especially about how dismissive 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 of women's history is linked to that 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.

[D]

You're welcome. Thank you.

[C]

And thank you for smearing it on my face anytime.

[E]

Absolutely.

[C]

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 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, 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.

[D]

Thank you.

[C]

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

[E]

Bye.

[C]

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