Cosmetics in the 1780's

The following advert appeared in the Bath Chronicle in 1783

Isabella Stanhope sat for Gainsborough at Bath early in 1769, shortly after her marriage to Viscount Molyneux. The artist had just been elected to the Royal Academy and this work was exhibited in London shortly after it was painted.

Shortly afterwards, her husband was made the 1st Earl of Sefton. So, as an advertising image, she had everything you might want: beauty, glamour, fame, and status. She was also a founding member of the Ladies Committee that ruled at the fashionable Almack's rooms.

The advert promotes products essential to creating the Georgian image of feminine beauty.

Liquid bloom was a type of rouge designed to give the much sought-after rosy glow to the cheeks.

This would be much enhanced by the bloom's contrast to the whiteness of the face, neck and decolletage created by them with products like the Italian Paste. Almost all such preparations were based on white lead and gradually poisoned their users and damaged their skin such damage, of course, requiring a thicker application to hide the damage.

Lead poisoning can also lead to hair loss hence the preparation for fastening hair.

The depilatory treatments performed much the same role as such creams do today but were particularly important to create the then fashionable high forehead.

Eighteenth-century hair dyes contributed to hair damage and hair loss.