Beauty in the Eye of the Victorian Beholder

What features were considered beautiful in the Victorian age?

Would our teenage Victorian sleuth, Lucy Turner, have considered herself beautiful by the standards of the day — and if so, what would she have done about it?

Lucy, as we can see from her photos, was small and slender with blonde hair and blue eyes. She probably would have had light colored eyebrows and eyelashes, and possibly even freckles on her nose. Being the youngest daughter of a respectable, upper-middle-class widow, however, she would not have worn make-up.

Victorian women were under pressure to look beautiful, but no respectable female of that age would be caught wearing cosmetics – at least not visible cosmetics. Any woman with noticeable makeup was considered vulgar. However, Victorian women did manage to employ a variety of beauty techniques that – although sometimes harmful to the wearer – were not noticeable to the male eye.

The Victorian ideal for a maiden was a pale complexion, thick dark hair, flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. Was this a result of the Victorian fascination with illness and death?

Lucy would probably not have done much to darken her eyelashes — or at least one hopes she didn’t, since there weren’t any safe cosmetics for that purpose. But she might have made use of some skin preparation to remove any trace of freckles.

As explained in an article in the New York Times, Victorian women sought to improve their complexions with many toxic preparations  including lead and arsenic that also produced the fainting, languor and sickliness of disease. Belladonna made the eyes sparkle, but was a poisonous derivative of deadly nightshade.

One group of Victorians who set their own standards for feminine beauty were the pre-Raphaelites. This group of artists, including Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Edward Burne-Jones, and William Holman-Hunt favored women they called “stunners” – ones who had strong features including Roman noses, low foreheads and thick lips.  The pre-Raphaelite models, in some ways, even blurred the lines between masculine and feminine features, adding to the visual tension of the art.

Sadly for Lucy, she probably wouldn’t have made  a good pre-Raphaelite model because of her small nose, big eyes and delicate features.

On the plus side, there were some Victorian experts who argued that a woman’s most attractive asset was her mind – assuming, no doubt, that she was clever enough not to appear smarter than her male companions ( and there is no historical record that I know of to prove it, but I think that Lucy was clever).

Usually, health and meticulous grooming are the main elements of beauty, and this article explores the Victorian ideal of “cleanliness is next to godliness.”   (Note: Contains nude images depicted in works of art). The article also explores how developments in medical knowledge, such as germ theory, influenced beauty and fashion. Perhaps Lucy will get to investigate a murder that leads her to learn more about health in the Victorian era.

The notion that a woman’s physical beauty is her most important feature is not a new one. The use of cosmetics has been a subject of debate and dissention throughout recorded history. The issue was not resolved during the Victorian age, nor has it been in any time period since. And so it goes.

Those interested in the subject of makeup throughout history can check out Maggie Angeloglu’s wonderful book, A History of Make-Up.

What do you think about the use of cosmetics? Are we much more advanced in our notions of beauty and health than our Victorian forbears?

Leave me a comment and let me know!