Silva Rerum Fair sex have always wanted to me even fairer. They did not hesitate to reach for cosmetic beauty products. Side effects did not matter, as long as the immediate efficiency was provided. No wonder that our great grandmothers beauty techniques were criticised by preachers. It is somewhat surprising that they were unanimously joined by old Polish writers, as they were the imprortant target group of such treatments.
Only few writers tried to ingratiate the readers. One of them, of a meaningful nickname Radopatrzk Gładkotwarski z Lekarzowic (a medic happily looking at a beauty – such is the meaning of archaic 'gładki' – twarz), who rhymed a few recipes for brightening the complexion in a brochure Barwiczka for the beauty of woman's face. At the times when paleness was of the highest value, all freckless were all beauties' real nightmare. As not everyone could afford imported products like dragan gum of donkey milk ('so send one to buy the beauty product/ camphore, dragant/ or donkey milk[...]/to brighten up a black man from his tan/ so his temples become white' – So ironic was Wespazjan Kochowski about women's treatment). Beauty products made from locally available ingredients enjoyed great popularity. The basic ingredients for Barwiczka (skin dye) were soaked barley, vetch, eggs dried and milled combined with powdered deer horn and 'root of fragrant narcissus':
Not to forget, and at no pain
Take an old egg and grind like grain
Add a few drops of mead not sour
And take the pear trees lovely flower
Half ounce well weighted of all these
Mix with goat's milk and cottage cheese
And not forget to put it on your face
And you'll face any light with shining grace
Similar recipes can be foung in contemporary paramedical treaties, like popular Books of Seven Secrets by Alexy Pedemontano translated by Marcin Siennik in 1568. Among many recipes from the chapter about eliminating numerous defects, especially tan, duskiness, freckles, spots and blackheads, making the face bright and rosy-cheeked, the following recipe can be found: 'For easy brightening effect take bile of hare, moorhen, chicken, eel, unleavened honey, all of this as much as you can, mix together and pour into a copper vessel, so it can mix together. Apply to your face, but keep away from eyes, to keep your eyesight unspoilt' Usually more simple but also more drastic recipes were chosen. In a Poem about tricks and habits of women, a mother gives advice to a daughter:
Have your face always powdered and use a Bar soap,
If you want to be fair-faced.
A strongly alkali Bar soap was in everyday use for whitening the washing. This is the degree of women's devotion. There should be a rosy-cheek on every pale face. Thus a beauty 'will sometimes pinch her cheeks/ just to keep her little face red'. When a stronger effect was desired, our great grandmother reached for... a beetroot.
A vegetable or animal based lipstick was equally popular. Kochanowski criticised a 'dyed' beauty in Latin Elegies: why 'Paint your lips with crocodile excretes?' He is echoed by Kochowski in his criticism of women's beauty products and attires: nothing will help ' eagerly go to the Nile/ get the poo of a crocodile' A woman of poor natural beauty or one who lost it due to old age will ask for it.
Let us quote Pedemontano's recipe for a barwiczka for lips and cheeks: 'even easier and cheaper is the blusher made by poor women in Italy: they brewed caesalpina, some alum and Arabic gum [...] and barwiczka is immediately ready.'
Teeth whitening powders were also commonly used. Alongside simple recipes mentioned in an anecdote of Polish Facetiae from 1624 as 'chalk that colours your teeth', Pedemontano quotes more complex ones: 'Wipe your teeth with a piece of burnt bread skin, cinder, red coral, vulture egg shells, and deer horn. All this must be powdered, and with this powder wipe your teeth'.
Eyebrows were blackened with coal powder and tar. 'Why blacken your eyebrows with coal powder?' – asks Kochanowski in Elegy; 'Burn almonds into charcoal /so your eyebrows become black in colour' – Kochowski writes ironically.
Another beauty treatment was dyeing grey hair. Kochanowski claimed in his epigram 'On a comb': 'It is a new unpopular trick: to use a lead comb on a silver beard'. But about seven decades later, Jan Andrzej Morsztyn describes this technique as ancient: 'You make yourself look young and in old fashioned way/ dyeing yourself with alum and combing with lead'.
The seriousness of the problem was proved by a series of recipes collected in the section On dyeing both red and grey hair black, by Pedemontano. Most of his recipes are based on a dye extracted from chestnut tree leaves and gallnut, but also lead. To give women due respect it should be added that according to Old Polish texts, the aforementioned treatment was applied also by elderly suitors. Jan Zabczyc recommends in Eternal diary:
Should this not help, buy a lead comb,
Or wipe some tar from a wall,
and rub it into gray hair.
Chestnut dye may also be helpful.
Lady Anna would favour you more,
If only your hair was black like a raven,
Not grey as a pigeon.
Some old cosmetic recipes would be worth restoring. In the age of '2 in1' shampoos, Pedemontano's recipe for a double effect shampoo should make a stunning career: 'expensive alum to wash your hair with, not only makes your hair thick and fair, but also helps your memory and brain'.