Vanity can be fatal

By Ethan Croft

Premature death had many causes before the advent of modern medicine. Make-up was perhaps the most needless one. It was the wealthy women of ancient Rome, so intelligent in other respects, who first applied white lead to their faces in the hope of lightening their complexions. The chalky material did soften the features for a while, but its highly toxic qualities soon caused a more corpse-like pallor. Small wonder that its use dwindled after the fall of Rome.

The European Renaissance is best known for reviving ancient philosophy and art, but Roman cosmetics made a comeback too. By the 16th century pale skin was desirable once again, a symbol of status in contrast to the tan of an outdoor labourer, and make-up had barely changed. Elizabethan women caked themselves in “ceruse”: white lead diluted with pungent vinegar, a mixture that had ghastly side-effects, including baldness and tooth loss.

Even Queen Elizabeth I used ceruse to hide her smallpox scars. Her foundation was known as “spirits of Saturn”, but the poetic name did little to alleviate her toothache. Poisonous cosmetics continued well into the modern age. In the late 19th century American companies sold popular “arsenic wafers”, an edible make-up that promised to clear up freckles and blemishes.

A non-toxic solution was finally found in the 20th century, when the use of greasepaint as foundation widely replaced its poisonous forebears. As the name suggests, the new concoction was heavy, shiny and artificial. By the 1930s the film stars of Hollywood began to complain about the stuff reflecting off bright studio lights and melting on their faces mid-scene.

A Polish make-up artist in Hollywood called Maximilian Faktorowicz noted their complaints. He tried something new, combining oil, wax and water and setting the mixture with powder to dry it. The result was a new foundation with a more natural-looking matte finish, called “Pan-Cake” because its colour and shape resembled the breakfast treat. Faktorowicz sold the new product under a shortened version of his name, “Max Factor”. His company became one of the pioneering startups of the Great Depression and by 1940 millions of Americans wore Max Factor’s “Pan-Cake” foundation. Other companies soon copied Max Factor’s marvellous make-up.

An assortment of different foundations has proliferated since, from tubes of liquid spread on with fingers to powder-creams applied with a brush. It isn’t only the technology that continues to develop. Many companies still only make shades of foundation to suit white skin. That is slowly changing. L’Oréal has established a “multicultural beauty lab” in New Jersey to devise a broader range, and Rihanna, a pop star, launched Fenty Beauty, a cosmetics line that offers foundation in 50 different skin tones. It only took two millennia.■

Images: advertising archives