Cosmetic Surgery and Beauty Magazine #62

column
Where did that come from? In his regular column Dr Jim Leavesley
examines the history and origins of a medical topic.
The use of cosmetics goes back centuries, to Ancient
Egypt and beyond. For one renowned woman of
history, her use of cosmetics almost killed her. I refer
to Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Her mother, Anne Boleyn, was already pregnant to her
lover, Henry VIII, who had already had an affair with Anne’s
sister, when Anne and Henry married. Elizabeth (and not the
longed-for son) was born in 1533. As it was, Anne Boleyn
was beheaded for infidelity three years later and Elizabeth
was declared illegitimate. Nonetheless, she succeeded to the
throne in 1558.
Before becoming queen, Elizabeth had contracted
smallpox, a serious infectious disease with a significant
death toll at the time. If you survived, it left you scarred and
pockmarked for life. Elizabeth survived and the disease is
now extinct.
Beneath the flawless skin and
rich red hair was a face and body
poisoned by makeup
Not unnaturally, the young monarch wished to be all
glorious, glamorous and a celebrated beauty throughout
the courts of Europe and to this end used many cosmetics
for the rest of her life. She died in 1603 aged 69, and to the
end maintained her ageless glamour by displaying the then
fashionable stark white flawless skin with the aid of heavy
makeup and a red wig.
The hair bit was simple, with the flaming wig easily
sitting on her balding head. As she aged her black teeth,
foul smelling from lack of even rudimentary dental hygiene,
were less easily hidden and their appearance restricted her
indulging in conversation. Her grossly smallpox-pitted skin
and wrinkles around her ageing eyes were skilfully hidden
with layer upon layer of caustic cosmetic applications
comprising white lead and vinegar.
The vinegar was bad enough, but it was the white lead
that was the killer and threatened her life for many years.
Lead is highly toxic, especially if in constant contact with
the skin from which it is easily absorbed, or inhaled in dust
from dry-up creams. It leads to gross anaemia from the
destruction of red blood cells or the interference with their
manufacture in the marrow.
When this ‘beauty treatment’ was removed at night, she
looked (as indeed she was) haggard, drawn and pale, but
it was only her ladies-in-waiting who ever saw the sorry
sight. In the morning it was the job of these trusted few to
reconstruct the regal face to enable the queen to confront
her adoring public. As time went on, the lead compound
was applied more thickly. Vivid red colour was also added
to her lips and cheeks, derived from chemical red mercury
sulphide. Mercury products are even more dangerous than
lead, so every time the tired anaemic Elizabeth closed her
lips, she ingested the toxic substances.
With the advancing years she began to display symptoms
of mercury poisoning such as lack of coordination, memory
loss, irritability, depression, fatigue from the lead-induced
anaemia and peripheral nerve changes from the mercury.
In 1599, Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, broke
protocol and one morning burst into the royal apartment.
He was gobsmacked to see his queen’s wrinkled skin, the
few wispy grey hairs around several bald patches and a
face pale au natural rather than white from lead paste.
There was no gutter press then so there was no front
page display embellished by images from a hidden camera
hidden in Essex’s doublet. But he could hardly be expected
to keep such a coup to himself, resulting in news spreading
quickly. The Earl got his comeuppance, however, when he
was cited for treason and after languishing in the Tower of
London for some time was executed in 1601.
Queen Elizabeth kept going in the knowledge that with
her strength of character and resolve to carry on regardless,
she represented what England was all about. Early in her life
she spoke in public fluently, eloquently and with conviction.
Her speech at Tilbury in 1588, given as the Spanish Armada
approached, has lived on in world literature: ‘I know I have
the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart
of a king, and a king of England, too’.
She may have foreseen how her body was reacting
to the toxic cosmetics. As more teeth fell out, her diction
could not be easily understood and the royal court became
a much quieter and less jolly place.
Eventually, she refused to be undressed and put
to bed, fearing that once she lay down she would
never get up again; the emollients had affected
her reason and brain. To divert attention from her
decaying body, she took to wearing numerous
strings of pearls and other jewellery.
So the magnificent paintings we know of the
feisty lady are really a lie. Beneath the apparently
flawless skin and rich red hair was a face and
body poisoned with makeup worn to
maintain the fiction of a fearless
and youthful queen.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth I
remains one of England’s
most famous and highly
regarded monarchs. csbm
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