Obscene makeup, harmful bathing, and other prim facts about the Victorian era

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Victorian era was a time of change, innovation, and some really weird social values. There were all sorts of quirks in Victorian society, especially among the upper class. For example, the upper classes liked to pretend they were royalty. They also came up with all sorts of social rules and were literally obsessed with extremely unusual things. Here are seven fun facts about how strange the Victorian era was.

1. Egyptology was the trend of the era

In the early 1900s, archeology was still in its infancy, and much of this science was centered around Egypt. The Victorians were obsessed with literally everything they brought back from excavated Egyptian tombs. For example, mummies were often unwrapped and displayed. Also Victorians attended hundreds of lectures and exhibitions on this topic.

2. Victorians wore black because of environmental pollution

The famous "London fog" existed then. During the Victorian era, there were no regulations on the pollution of the environment by factories, and fires often broke out in older parts of London. The combination of pollution from coal dust, smoke, and dampness from the Thames created thick, ubiquitous smog that “stuck” to building walls and clothing. Since there was nothing they could do about it, the Victorians wore mostly black clothing to hide the dirt stains.

3. Intimacy: Victorian decency and customs

To begin with, it was considered indecent for a woman to enjoy bed pleasures. Homosexuality among men was a tacitly accepted practice, but it was considered unthinkable to even suggest that homosexuality could exist among women. Most believed women were sexless, so lesbian couples often lived together and no one paid attention to it. Although the Victorians appeared to be prudes in public, they were truly obscene in private. Almost all had thick erotic and pornographic magazines that could rival Fifty Shades of Gray.

Oh, yes, how can you not mention hysteria. If something was wrong with a woman, hysteria was almost always called the cause. Doctors used to treat hysteria by bringing a woman to orgasm. In fact, the first vibrators were invented for this specific purpose (and don't forget that women were still supposedly asexual).

4. Fasting girls

"Fasting girls" have been in trend for a while. They wrote about this in every newspaper - stories about girls who supposedly could survive without food and water. For some reason, it was very fashionable to “eat only air”. These girls pretended not to eat anything, advertised it widely, and then hid their faces. Why is all this … Probably only because people are strange. For example, the popular case was the case of Molly Fancher, who, according to surviving documents, lived for fourteen years without food.

5. Complete exhaustion

Victorian young women had a very unusual and impractical figure in fashion. Tiny waists were all the rage, so women struggled to squeeze their internal organs and shift their ribs, pulling their torso into a very tight corset. Of course, all this was, to put it mildly, bad for blood flow or breathing, and whenever a woman's heart began to beat faster, she often fainted. By the way, it is from here that the "legs" of the idea "grow" that women lose consciousness from arousal.

6. Bathing was still unpopular

Although by this point many doctors advised frequent bathing to maintain health, many still believed in the fairy tale of yesteryear that bathing was harmful. The upper class, who had access to their own bath (and to the servants who heated the water), bathed several times a month, usually in cool bran water. The lower class bathed maybe once a year. One source even claims that girls used to wash their hair with … one broken egg.

7. Makeup was considered obscene

Makeup (mainly lipstick and blush) was worn only by prostitutes, so it was considered unacceptable for a woman from high society to use it. In fact, one judge even admitted that lipstick is like witchcraft in that it can seduce men. Instead, women tended to pinch their cheeks to provide a “natural” glow. Other women enjoyed using cold cream as a foundation, and they also applied tiny bits of blush to their cheeks, but never used a pom.