Battle Elephants and Flaming Foxes by Caroline Freeman-Cuerden

Author:Caroline Freeman-Cuerden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press

• Lion fat mixed with rose oil to feed the skin and keep the complexion clear. (The Romans liked to make use of everything and we have to wonder if all those lions killed in the amphitheatres came in handy after their death.) (Pliny, XXVIII.25)

• All those shellfish, so integral to dye manufacturing, were useful for the skin too. Reduce the crushed shells to ash, mix this into a paste with honey and apply to the face for seven days in a row. On the eighth day, paste the face with egg white (known to tighten the skin) and your face will be plumped and wrinkle free. Interestingly, 2,000 years after the Romans were selling it, there are beauty companies today that advertise products made from crushed shellfish. Full of calcium carbonate, apparently it detoxifies the skin. (Pliny, XXXII.27)

• For a rosy-coloured complexion, rub some bull’s dung on your cheeks. Or get your hands on some crocodile dung. Crocodile dung is mentioned by a few Roman writers as a beauty product for the skin. Perfect for a Roman who wanted a paler complexion, this dried reptilian dung could be patted onto the skin. Mixed with cypress oil, the same poop was used to get rid of spots and blotches on the face. (Pliny, XXVIII.28)

• The Romans really didn’t seem to appreciate the beauty of freckles. If you wanted to give someone freckles, you had to drown a gecko in wine, whip it out and then whoever drank the lizardy wine would be freckle-faced. If you didn’t want freckles, you needed to mix up some egg yolk with honey and soda, then use the mixture to remove the freckles. Alternatively, the old crocodile dung treatment has the same effect. (Pliny, XXIX.22)

• You could always cover up a spot with a splenium – a soft leather patch that you stuck onto the skin. It might even be cut into a pretty shape, like a crescent moon.

• Oesypum – the grease and dirt from unwashed wool, equivalent to our lanolin and used in skin products today – made a softening face cream. The greasy sweat was gathered from any part of the sheep’s wool, then warmed and cooled in a bronze pot. The fats that floated to the top were collected, strained through linen and then heated in the sun. The result was a white cream that you stored away in a box. (Pliny, XXIX.10)

• The best-made oesypum creams were the ones that did not melt in the hand when rubbed in water and those that still smelled strongly of the grease, which is probably why when the Roman poet Ovid talked about this beauty treatment he also mentioned how much it stank. (Ovid, The Art of Love III.213)

• Ovid also gives a recipe for getting rid of spots which involves getting your hands on some alcyoneum. This ingredient, he tells us, is extracted from birds’ nests. Mix it up with some Attic honey ‘from yellow cones’ to make your concoction into a spreadable paste, and apply to the spot-troubled skin.

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