We’ve all heard about the toxic use of lead in cosmetics in history: it whitened the skin, which aristocrats from Ancient Roman times well into the 1800s thought was a good look. Of course, it also poisoned the users. The Early Modern employment of “Venetian Ceruse” was particularly popular, and was a combination of lead, water, and vinegar — prolonged exposure actually acidified the skin it was supposed to beautify, as well as causing hair loss and a host of other internal damage.
Here you see Queen Elizabeth I in a portrait from 1575 when she was 42. The queen’s desire to use such poisonous cosmetics was perhaps motivated by the fact that she had contracted and survived smallpox, a disease well known to cause permanent facial disfigurement.
Another ingredient that European aristocrats used in their endeavor to hide their smallpox scars is less known to the modern reader, and that is human fat. An 18th-century recipe “identifies a mixture of turpentine, human fat, and beeswax as an ‘unguent’ to fill the facial pits left by smallpox.”
Source(s): The “Darnely Portrait” of Queen Elizabeth from Wikipedia. Ben Johnson, “Elizabeth I: a Life in Portraits,” @historicuk.com. P. 48, _Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: the history of corpse medicine from the Middle Ages to the Falun Gong_ Richard Sugg, 3rd edition.
