Think you know 18th Century Beauty? If you think the Georgians wore big white powdered wigs and that people in the past never washed, then think again! Join fashion historian Dr Serena Dyer and she explains why most of the Georgian beauty techniques you've heard about simply aren't true.

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Instagram: @Dressing.History
Twitter: @Serena_Dyer
www.serenadyer.co.uk

Further Reading:

Emma Dabiri, Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture (Harper Collins, 2020).
Carolyn Day, Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion, and Disease (Bloomsbury, 2017).
Maxine Leeds Craig, Ain't I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race (Oxford University Press, 2002).
Morag Martin, Selling Beauty: Cosmetics, Commerce, and French Society, 1750–1830 (Johns Hopkins, 2009).
Aileen Ribeiro, Facing Beauty: Painted Women & Cosmetic Art (Yale, 2011).

Image credits:
1. Wash basin, 18th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001.694.1.
2. Cruikshank, Public Bathing at Bath or Stewing Alive, 1825.
3. Thomas Rowlandson, Summer Amusement at Margate, or a Peep at the Mermaids, 1813, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
4. Paul Sanby A Hairdresser curling a lady’s hair, 1745, British Museum.
5. Gallerie des Modes, private collection.
6. Charles Catton , Hairdressers Curling Woman’s Hair, 1780s.
7. Portrait of a Lady at Her Toilet Table, Dressed in a Peignoir, The Bowes Museum.
8. Madame du Barry (1919).
9. Voltaire (1933)
10. John Smart, unknown, 1785.
11. Henry Walton, Portrait of a Woman, Possibly Miss Nettlethorpe, YCBA.
12. Thomas Gainsborough, Portrait of a Young Woman, Called Miss Sparrow, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.120.224.
13. J Lockington, This is Something New, 1777.
14. La Brillante Toillete de la Déesse du Gout, 1770s France.
15. Matthew Darly, Fruit Stall, 1777.
16. Joachim Pauli , Chiencouchant avec un pouf, 1770s, Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
17. Coiffure à la Belle Poule, Bibliothèque nationale de France
18. After Francis Cotes, Maria Coventry, Countess of Coventry, 1760.
19. Joshua Reynolds, Kitty Fisher, 17634.
20. Charles Jervas, Jonathan Swift, 1710.
21. The Portland Place AR. Driving without a beau to RD’s perfume warehouse PLL MLL, 1782.
22. Thomas Rowlandson, Six Stages of Mending a Face, Dedicated with respect to the Right Honble. Lady Archer, 1792, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 59.533.463.
23. Francois Boucher, Madame de Pompadour at her toilette, 1758 Fogg Museum Harvard

Music: Epidemic Sound