Interesting What People Do to Be "Beautiful"

I always thought that women these days went overboard to be "pretty"… A brief read about beauty across history proves me wrong..

- In ancient Egypt, Rome, and Persia, women applied the heavy metal antimony to make their inner lids sparkle.

- Upper-class Elizabethan women plucked or shaved their frontal hairs, as a high forehead was considered beautiful.

- Elizabethan women covered their skin with ceruse (lead-based) makeup, which caused loss of sensation of their extremities and disfiguring scarring (!) along with other very serious health consequences. Chronic users, such as Queen Elizabeth I, acquired a misshapen appearance. Upset over her grisly visage, the Queen banished all mirrors from her castle. Her servants sometimes painted a red dot on her nose, an inside joke mocking her clown-like appearance.

- In the court of Louis XVI, noblewomen drew blue veins onto their necks and shoulders to emphasize their exalted status ("bluebloods").

- In the 16th and 17th centuries, the wealthy used belladonna eyedrops to dilate their pupils. (Same as the eyedrops used by eye-doctors these days. You know, the ones that make everything around you blurry for a few hours..). Users acquired an "attractive" doe-like appearance, risking serious eye damage as a price for their "beauty".

- During the 18th century, vermilion rouge, concocted of sulphur and mercury, achieved popularity. Users lost teeth, suffered gingivitis, and had to deal with the unpleasant smell of sulphur. (remember sulphur from chemistry labs? the one that smelled like someone peed on an old egg?.. how could people kiss?... ewwww)

And to this day, some people still have an "interesting" approach to beauty..

- Famed opera singer Maria Callas deliberately infected herself with tapeworms to produce a malabsorption syndrome to maintain her lithe figure. (I once read that this is what all those Far-Eastern diet pills are all about.. dunno though!)

- In the United Kingdom, women can buy "Wonderbum" panty hose, made of DuPont lycra to mimic a "perfectly peachy, pert bottom." (That's what they're advertising!)

- Quite a large number of men have had cosmetic surgery to lengthen or widen their penises, as well as calf and pectoral implants to upsize their musculature.

- In 1938, a product called Kormelu, a depilatory, was widely sold in the United States. It was found to cause severe disfigurement. Turns out, it contained rat poison. (This product is one of the reasons that nowadays FDA are partly responsible for the safety of cosmetics.. You don't want cat pee in your lipstick, do you??)

- 89% of the 10,500 ingredients used in personal care products have not been evaluated for safety by the CIR nor the FDA. Many products contain ingredients linked to cancer, pregnancy problems, and other important health issues. Still, this doesn’t seem to stop anyone!

- One company is currently seeking FDA approval to market a new drug dubbed Melanotan II, which augments tanning and promotes sexual arousal (at least in male rats). (This, of course, makes a lot of sense..)

- A bizarre phenomenon akin to tattooing is anal bleaching, once practiced only by sex workers and porn stars, is being performed on a small but increasing number of other women for about $75, despite the risk of eczema. (Now that's.. … NO comment!!)

Any comment??! :)