Having the right hair, nails, makeup and body shape - and even perfect teeth - seem to be modern concerns. However, they were as important to people of the past as they are to us today.

Mankind seems to have always been concerned with beauty. Although the desire to look good has remained constant over the centuries, fashion has changed. Thus, the ways to acquire the perfect image have also changed.

To illustrate the similarities and differences between the beauty standards of yesterday and today, here are some examples of what it meant to be fashionable at various times in the past. You will find that some of these beauty standards were a health threat.

Portrait of Queen Isabella of Portugal, by Rogier Van Der Weyden. Photo: Wikimedia

 

In the Middle Ages , beauty was given by a simple figure, which was obtained in part by wearing his hair on his back and hiding it under a hood or veil, which was in line with the morals of the Church.

An extra beauty was given by the high forehead, but not all women had this naturally. Thus, some medieval ladies artificially raised their hairline.

Although the Church wanted women to have their hair covered, it was not desirable for members of the congregation to knowingly remove it for the sake of fashion.

Priests who saw signs of facial hair removal offered these "lascivious" ladies a sermon on the deadly sin of vanity. Overcoming ecclesiastical disapproval, the simplest and most common method was to pull out unwanted hair.

 

Tweezers made of copper, bronze and silver were standard components of medieval beauty kits. However, if a woman wanted to remove a lot of hair, pulling out proved to be a painful and difficult procedure.

So, just like today, ladies have started using depilatory creams. Some of the hair removal creams were herbal and seemed harmless.

Some women also used parsley juice, ivy glue, squash milk mixed with oil and peanut oil, which were said to stop hair growth. Recommendations for application on the hairline included rubbing on the desired area or tying with a bandage.

Other blends were even harder to digest for modern tastes. The book "Curiosa Arcana", published in 1711 by Dr. Lemury, contained some suggestions for hair removal mixtures.

 

A recipe involved grinding eggshells and boiling them to make a paste. The mixture obtained had to be spread on the hairline. Another mixture recorded by Lemury consisted of cat excrement put in vinegar.

For best results, Lemury recommended the use of hardened cat droppings, which had to be ground until a powder was obtained, which was mixed with vinegar and only then applied.

"Portrait of a Lady" (or "Portrait of a Woman"), made in 1460 by Rogier van der Weyden. Photo: Wikimedia

To get a "simple and open face", the ladies of the Middle Ages and the early modern period removed their eyebrows and even eyelashes.

 

However, by the ninth century, the pendulum of fashion had shifted to the other side. Now the ladies wanted long, thick lashes. Books and magazines began to publish useful tips to help those who wanted to lengthen their lashes.

One suggestion was to cut off the tip of the eyelashes to encourage growth. Others prescribed washing the eyes with water with walnut leaves. Unfortunately, these methods did not provide the thick and seductive lashes that the ladies wanted. So we moved on to more extreme methods.

 

In 1882, a Parisian newspaper reported that some ladies in the French capital were trying to implant genes. The lashes were applied to the eyelid with a needle. Despite the pain and dubious success, the procedure was also reported by the Scottish press in 1899.

Some women have tried to glue their lashes with glue without success. Then, in the early twentieth century, false eyelashes were invented.

On November 2, 1902, Karl Nessler patented the new invention. Instead of being applied individually, the lashes were sewn on a fabric and glued to the eyelid.

Ancient portrait of an "eyebrow" woman from the Mediterranean area. Photo: Wikimedia

Eyebrow patterns varied by time and place. The ladies of ancient Greece preferred united eyebrows, as a culmination of beauty and style.

If they could not grow them naturally, they would stick their eyebrows made of goat hair. In Europe, until the eighteenth century, the appearance without eyebrows was in vogue. But fashion suddenly changed and her eyebrows "turned".

 

The eyebrows were quite conservative in the west, in terms of colors and shapes. However, recently, colorful eyebrows have become popular in a variety of different styles.

But this is not an invention of modern times. Colorful and stylized eyebrows in different ways were a tradition practiced in ancient China.

In China , in the second and third centuries, green and blue eyebrows became fashionable, at least in royal circles. It is said that Emperor Wei asked his consorts to paint his eyebrows blue.

This color, also known as quingdai , was extremely expensive. It seems that there were at least ten styles for the shape of the eyebrows. They ranged from short and blunt to long and elegant.

 

Emperor Wu preferred his ladies' eyebrows to be long and straight, with sharp points like moth tails. This style was called the Immortal Moth style and remained popular as a standard of beauty until the Tang Dynasty.

Bandaging the legs was one of the most horrible fashions. Photo: Getty Images

A Chinese fashion that is unlikely to catch on today was leg bandaging. This practice began somewhere between 618 and 960, during the Tang Dynasty.

It grew in popularity and reached its peak during the Song Dynasty of 960-1927. It is believed that fashion started with a court dancer named Yao Niang.

She bandaged her legs to look small and elegant. Fashion quickly spread among the daughters and wives of aristocrats. Over time, it has included even the middle and lower classes.

 

Ideally, a girl's legs should be tied while the bones were still malleable. This happened between the ages of 5 and 7 years.

The feet were first immersed in warm water to relax them. They were then tied using cotton bandages. Meanwhile, the bandage was pushing the tip of the foot toward the heel.

The result was the shape of a crescent, which always had to be tied for the rest of the woman's life. A woman with bandaged legs could not move normally. She was just taking small, swaying steps.

The slippers worn by the ladies with their legs tied, considered the most beautiful women , were called Lotus slippers. These were pieces of material that had the shape of a lotus flower.

The lotus flower was one of the symbols of beauty for the Chinese. The surviving Lotus slippers show that the average leg size after bandaging was somewhere between 13 and 14 centimeters long.

 

This means that it was slightly larger than the ideal size of 7.6 centimeters. The shoes were beautiful and elegant. But if the bandaged legs were perceived as beautiful when the slippers were worn, without them they were at the opposite pole.

Bandaging the legs had serious health consequences. Uncut nails could grow in the flesh and cause infections. In some cases, the fingers fell out due to blocked blood circulation.

The bandaged legs also caused problems with the hips and spine. However, it was not until 1928 that the Chinese government declared leg bandaging harmful to women. The practice was not outright banned until 1949.

Empress Cixi (1835-1908) with long nails on the ring and little fingers. Each long nail was held in a precious metal sheath. Photo: Flickr

Along with the Egyptians , the Chinese were one of the first cultures to perfect nail art. Chinese nail polish was colored with vegetable paints and flowers.

 

These were mixed with egg whites, honey and gum arabic, which had the role of fixing the color. From about 600 BC gold and silver were the preferred colors.

Until the 15th century under the Ming Dynasty, favorite shades included red and black. This was the color of the imperial house in power and was often decorated with gold dust.

Another advantage of Chinese nail polish was that it protected the nails. The hardening properties of the mixture proved useful because excessively long nails were popular among the upper classes.

This has been the case since the Ming Dynasty. The nails could reach up to 20-25 centimeters by the time the Qing dynasty settled. It ruled from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.

The fashion of excessive nail growth was a symbol of status. It was impossible to have such nails and do manual work. Unfortunately, wearing such long nails meant you couldn't do much.

 

It would no doubt have been dangerous to try to deal with intimate hygiene. So all those with such long nails relied on servants to wash, clothe, and feed them. This is to avoid injuring or breaking a nail.

To get rid of the inconvenience of long nails, the Manchu women of the Qing dynasty began to let a nail or two grow on their hands.

These nails had elegant shapes and from the 19th century they were often protected with nail guards. They were made of gold or silver and adorned with jewelry.

Onaguro, the Japanese practice of teeth blackening

Models regarding the teeth have gone from one extreme to another. A bright white smile is preferred today. However, in the past it was acceptable and even attractive to have black teeth in certain cultures.

 

For those in ancient Rome , a bright smile was great. However, if your teeth weren't white enough, you could whiten them. "Egnatius, because he has snow-white teeth, always smiles," Catullus muttered, referring to an acquaintance in Spain.

"The fact that your teeth are so polished," the poet continued, "shows all the more that you are full of piss." This venomous remark was a reference to the fact that, like many other Romans, Egnatius whitened his teeth with urine. The Romans knew that ammonia in the urine was good for removing stains.

Elsewhere in the world and a few centuries later, Japan had a different view of things. Until the 19th century, the practice of onaguro , the tradition of painting black teeth, was widespread in the Japanese aristocracy.

When they reached adulthood , the upper-class girls blackened their teeth with a mixture called fushiko powder . This mixture was made of ground pistachio, vinegar and iron. The result was a bright black lake that covered the teeth. The Japanese found this very attractive.

Black teeth were also in vogue in Elizabethan England. The increased number of foods available due to trade introduced sugar into Elizabethan society. And how much they liked it!

 

Sugar banquets have become the favorite pastime of the elite. An unfortunate side effect of this passion was tooth decay.

However, because only the very rich could afford sugar, blackened teeth became a way to flaunt your status. Some people with perfectly healthy teeth artificially blackened them to look like they could afford to eat sugar every day.

Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry, by Hugh Douglas Hamilton. Photo: Wikimedia

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, pale skin was highly coveted by prominent European ladies. White leather was a symbol of high status. She was telling the world not to work outdoors. Instead, you could stay in the house and let others do the hard work for you.

 

The fact that you avoided the sun did not always give the skin enough transparency. This is primarily due to the fact that skin tones vary so much.

Thus, if the tone of a lady's skin was not pale enough, she sought a remedy. Some women resorted to leeches to empty their blood and get that "pale and interesting" look.

However, most fashionable ladies resorted to paint, which they spread on their face, neck and décolleté. Thus, they wanted to obtain the desired alabaster luster.

The Ceruse brand was the most common face paint. It provided an alabaster whiteness to the skin and hid any rashes on the skin. This property of hiding was the reason why Queen Elizabeth I used Ceruse.

 

A measles rash from 1562 had left marks on his skin. However, Ceruse was also very toxic. The lead in the mixture grinds the skin and causes rashes on the face. Thus, the ladies used even more to cover it. Excessive use could cost them their lives.

A beauty of British society, Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry, died at just 27 years old because of her love for cosmetics. She did not want to give up this paint, despite her husband's disapproval.

He died on September 30, 1760, of blood poisoning, which was caused by the excessive use of toxic mixtures. Despite the dangers, Ceruse has been used for centuries.

Fortunately, in the 1920s, the spell of pale skin was shattered, at least for a while. Coco Channel brought bronze to fashion.