Why Did Georgian Aristocrats Risk Their Lives For Cosmetics? | Our History

I'm starting in the late 18th century with the peacocks of British fashion history, the High Georgians. I love this look. It's just so painterly. The colour palette is so delicious. Looking at this lady here, her cheeks, for example, they're just the most wonderful shade of coral. And there's a great contrast between the white powdered wig and her black eyebrows. It's a very dramatic look. Now, it's not just women who are wearing this look. This guy is just telling us he is hot. He's gone very heavy with the rouge, not just on his cheeks, but on his lips, on his eyelids, on his hair. And the lipstick is just out there. He's going for it. These wealthy Georgians used their look to show off just how rich they were. And that fits in with the age. The 18th century was a period of massive ostentation matched by staggering inequality. It's an era that ended in parts of Europe with bloodshed and revolution. But for the Georgians, bling was in. To recreate this look, I'm going to need some help from our model, Queenie. Hi, Lisa. Hi, Queenie. How are you? I'm good, thank you. What about you? Very good. I'm very excited about today. We're going in strong with the Georgians. So you're really going to experience the full transformative power of makeup today. Yeah. And I know you don't wear a lot of makeup normally. What do you normally wear? Just nothing. Gosh, OK. You're going to have a big surprise then. So the Georgian makeup is really about ostentation and really showing off. So I thought to easy win, let's start with a modern version of that, something like the type of makeup I do for a high fashion shoot or maybe for a fashion show. Very noticeable then. Very noticeable. You up for that? Yeah. Great. To make sense of this 250-year-old look, it might help if I show you the modern equivalent. It's strong, colorful, and bold. You can't miss it. It takes time and a huge amount of products, just like the Georgian look. The sheer glamour of the rich Georgians was no accident. It's a style that owes its origins to the turbulent history of the age. There are few places better to explore the elegance and extravagance of Georgian glamour than Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. I'm here to seek out one of the great beauties of the day. Walking through its halls and corridors transports you back to an extraordinary time in British history. In the late 18th century, the rich were getting richer. Half the productive land in the country was in the hands of just 310 titled families. And boy, did they love to flaunt their wealth. Art, houses, entertaining, and of course, clothes and hair. In the 1770s, Chatsworth was home to Georgiana, Duchess of Derbyshire. Be still my beating heart. I'm so in love with this portrait of Georgiana. This is by the society portraitist Gainsborough. And having your portrait by Gainsborough was the equivalent to, say, in the 20th century, having David Bailey do your family picture. This was the height of her celebrity status. And she's in her late 20s here, so she really is also at the height of her influence. For me, what stands out, of course, is the beauty look. The makeup is divine. The blushed cheeks, the lip colour, which is just that most perfect pink. It's just so beautiful. And their hair is enormous. It's not just high, but it's wide and it's so far back. I can't even imagine having this much hair on your head. It's just phenomenal. Along with the hat and the feathers, I just can't stop thinking of that quote by Dolly Parton, the higher the hair, the closer to God. In Georgian society, you couldn't just be rich, you had to look rich. And the wealthier you were, the more extreme you could take your look. Historian Hannah Wallace has pulled some documents from the archives here at Chatsworth to show me just how important creating the right look was to Georgiana. So, Hannah, I work on big fashion shoots, and I know that to create those big hairdos and makeup, it takes an army and it takes hours and hours and hours. Who did Georgiana have on staff that could help her with those iconic looks? We know she certainly had a team of servants. The account books here show that she had a lady's maid, a chambermaid, and most importantly, her own personal hairdresser. He was paid more than any of the women, including her lady's maid and even the housekeeper. In fact, we can see him here in this account book. Here he is, Gilbert. He earned 52 pounds, 10 shillings a year. That's a lot of money. It's a huge sum. We know he's earning far more than the coachman on 40 pounds a year and more than the butler as well. Gilbert was earning the equivalent of about 100,000 pounds a year. And what's more, he got the same again in travel expenses. I think you get a real sense of how important hair was to Georgiana. So Gilbert, he was French? He certainly was, and that would have been a huge draw for Georgiana. The French court was really influencing fashions at this time. In fact, in this letter here. Oh my God, that's amazing. This is a letter written by one of Georgiana's friends who was in the French court in 1774. You can see here she's drawn the latest style to have the hair placed large on the head. We know that Georgiana really took inspiration from this and made it her own. She made the hair towers even taller and she added ostrich feathers on top. So we're seeing the hair getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's obviously, it's very ostentatious. Is it almost like it's a race now every time you see an image of another lady that's in a bigger headdress than you that you have to go bigger? It absolutely was. You can sense from these letters and the moving back and forth of information that there was perhaps a little bit of a competition at this point to copy the latest trends and to make sure you were always one step ahead. We do have one more thing. Here we have- Oh, wow. Is that an actual hair? Of Georgiana's hair. Can I touch it? After she died. Not the hair, I won't touch the hair. I just want to touch the paper. God, it's such a good color. Was that her natural color? It's the kind of color that you ask colorists to do for you when you go to the hairdresser. It's just the most beautiful sort of golden brown color. Would this have had powder on it, do you think? She certainly would have been wearing hair powder up until she died. The hair powder that was named after Georgiana was called Devonshire Brown. I think we get a sense of that. This is Devonshire Brown. This is the color I want, Devonshire Brown. That is extraordinary, if not a little morbid. It's time to start Queenie's Georgian look. My area of expertise is the face, but inspired by Georgiana, we clearly need to start with the hair. Close your eyes. So I've asked hairdresser Carol Robinson to help me out. So Carol, this is just a casual little Georgian number you're going to do for us here. Oh, I don't know if it's casual, but... Quite the opposite. Yeah, exactly. It'll look marvelous when I've finished it all, but it's, yeah, it's quite... There's nothing casual about Georgian, high Georgian hair. It is enormous. To make it as authentic a look as possible, we've been seeking inspiration from the era, like these fashion plates, hot off the press from 1781. And I've asked Carol to use only period products and techniques. So you're starting with the grease. Yeah, with a little bit of animal fat and lavender. Hair grease was known as pomade and was used to mould the hair. It smells really nice, actually. Smells so good. Smell, because it is, this is really nice. At least it's not bear grease, which is apparently what they used. Oh my God. The other must-have hair product was powder. Powder was originally used to stop hairdos becoming smelly and greasy. Hair washing was not a daily habit. It was also supposed to help keep away head lice, but it evolved to be a fashionable part of the look, and pastel-coloured powders were particularly popular. Carol is using wheat starch as powder and layering it onto the hair with pomade to create bulk and set it, the Georgian equivalent of hairspray and mousse. How long do you think, realistically, this would have taken? This would have taken a few hours. For a start to finish. It would have taken hours. So layer upon layer of grease and powder Is that, so that's just the prep work? Yeah, and then after that, I would start with my structure. And then the fun begins. And then the fun begins with your bits and pieces. Lots of padding, lots of bits of fake hair. Yeah, and they're really coarse, aren't they? Do you think that's good because it holds the hair more? Yes, absolutely, the hair clings to it. Wow, these are magnificent. I think we're going to do double that height, right? Don't scare me. Hairstyles like this are incredibly time-consuming, but that was the point. An elaborate hairstyle showed you had the time and the staff to do it. In fact, the very act of doing your toilette and makeup became a public performance in itself. One woman who knew this more than most is an all-time favourite beauty icon of mine, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. She once wrote, I put on my rouge and washed my hands in front of the whole world. It was an honour and a privilege to be invited to the Queen's toilette. And I really can't overstate how much of a huge theatrical performance this was. Initially, the very trusted, probably lady-in-waiting would have been in there just to help to get her out of bed and get the first layer of makeup on, fix her hair. And then more and more important people would be arriving to watch the toilette. The thing that I can compare this to is probably when I do behind-the-scenes video. And what we'll do is we'll get the model almost ready, so she looks pretty good already, and then invite the cameras in to do the final tweaks, maybe just arrange the hair. So in a way, it's almost a performance. In Georgian times, the high art of makeup was such an important symbol of wealth and status that in 1764, George III's wife, Queen Charlotte, was painted in front of her dressing table. It was seen as a fitting backdrop for the highest-status lady in the country. While Carol is working on Queenie's hair, I'm really keen to get started on the makeup look. Throughout history, perfect, smooth skin as a signifier of health and vitality, youth and fertility has been constant. If we look at today, there's an ever-growing army of lotions, potions, and creams, all promising us perfection. Marketing aside, it is true that great makeup starts with good skincare. In the 18th century, skincare was particularly important. At this time, increased consumption of alcohol and sugar took their toll on the complexion, and diseases like smallpox left many people scarred. The importance of a good skincare regime is illustrated in this 18th-century recipe book, The Toilet of Flora. It says at the front here, receipts for cosmetics of every kind that can smooth and brighten the skin, give force to beauty, and take off the appearance of old age and decay. Marvelous, that sounds very promising. This is full of weird and wonderful things, but I think my all-time favorite recipe from this period has to be the one that involves putting myrrh onto a shovel, heating it in the fire until it's boiling hot, glugging back the white wine, and then spitting the wine onto the shovel and putting your face immediately over. The idea was that the steam would magically melt away all of your wrinkles. Can you imagine? Firstly, third-degree burns, and secondly, what a waste of wine. Luckily, there are some less dangerous-sounding recipes in this book. To find out more about the Georgian approach to a clean complexion, I'm going to make these, an everyday cleanser called Common Wash Balls. I'm starting by grating olive oil soap. So, next onto the brandy. Eight drops of fragrance, and this is lemon. It smells so good. I'm also adding starch, which will help when it comes to shaping the soap. There's so much here in common with making modern-day cosmetics. We still use various alcohols, fragrance, waxes, starches, and water. Hmm, this has got a really nice rosy hue to it now. Actually looks quite pretty. Look how pink it is. Gorgeous. The pink with the lemon. Fine. Smells good. Definitely smells good. Right. Yeah, I think that's the perfect size. Now I just need to let that set. The wash balls will take a couple of hours to dry out and will then be ready to use. Traditionally, wash balls were made at home. Family recipes were passed down from generation to generation. But in the 18th century, making cosmetics became more commercialized. New exotic spices and scents found their way in thanks to the expansion in global trade. So this is how the common wash balls look when they're finished. They smell good and they would certainly do the job. But if you had some cash to spend, you might want to get one of these wonderful things. These are called figured wash balls. And they were made using quite exotic ingredients, things like coffee, or this one has beautiful rose petals. And on the inside, there are layers of colored soap, which were cut into quite intricate shapes. I'm going to peel this one so we can have a look what's on the inside. Ooh. Oh my gosh, how exciting. Got some really nice yellow stars appearing here. If you had the money, I would definitely have invested in one of these. So I finished my wash balls and now I'm excited to see what Carol's done with Queenie's hair. Queenie, your hair looks amazing. How does it feel? It feels really heavy. Does it? Yeah. How does it feel walking around? Do you feel very powerful? Yeah, it feels kind of like regal, but also like I can't really fit through doors anymore. We know they used to have to sit on the floor of their carriages because if they sat on the seats, they wouldn't be able to fit their hair into their carriages. Well, you know, it's gone a bit too far when you can't even sit in your own carriage anymore. Yeah, true. Right, let's get some makeup on. We need some good Georgian makeup to complement this fabulous hair. There's an aspect of the Georgian look which is particularly attention-grabbing. Before I try it on Queenie, I want to have a go at doing it on myself. The Georgians enhance their makeup with accents of jet black, most notably in the shape of patches. Patches could be made out of different fabrics, so something like this, which is taffeta, would be perfect, or velvet or any kind of cloth, really. And in a way, they were the perfect concealer of the day. If you had a blemish, a spot, or a mark left from a disease, you could just pop one on and conceal it. Quite handy, really. They also had a secret language. A heart on your right cheek would tell the world that you were married. A heart on your left cheek would say that you were up for grabs. They also signified your political leanings. I'm going to make a crescent moon. They could be stars, moons, any shape you wanted. They were then soaked in gum arabic, so you could wet them. A patch closed to the eye told the world that you were passionate and possibly a mistress. It's tempting to go over the top with patches, and not surprisingly, the excesses of the Georgian look were easy prey for cartoonists. The late 18th century was a golden age of satire, and overdressed men and women often featured. Another area of the face that the cartoonists loved to poke fun up were the eyebrows, which needed to be black and thick to really contrast against the white face makeup. Deep breath. We have here some mouse hide brows, which apparently were a thing. Oh my God, they are hideous. Okay, so... Ugh. Let me see. Oh my God, how horrific. They are horrendous. It's like the Sharpie brow all over again. I'm going to apply these ones. They could be dyed black as well. These ones have been dyed to be a little darker. Ah, yai yai, okay. Can you imagine this against the white makeup? Oh, good God. Wow. Attractive, not. I can't bear to look at myself in these any longer, but luckily, there's a more natural-looking alternative that was also favoured by the Georgians. Clothes. These can be burnt with candle flame and turned into an eyebrow pencil. Put the round edge into a flame to create some charcoal here. That looks great. Very promising. Good colour, not too harsh. Nice, soft effect. Quite warm. Oh, that's nice. That's as effective as any modern eyebrow pencil. This would have been a really flattering way to achieve a good, strong statement brow without having it look too harsh. You could almost blend in as well, as I'm sure they did, and create a really good shape. Thoroughly impressed with this. I'll definitely be using clothes on Queenie, not so much the mouse brows. Getting a look right can be a minefield, and some amazing sources from the times show us that the Georgians were every bit as judgmental as we are today. I've come to Chiswick House in West London, another home of Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, to meet historian Emily Brand. She has fascinating evidence of the importance of how rich Georgians decided who was hot and who was not. Well, we've got a really great 18th century source here, Scales of Beauty. This is from the Gentleman of Pleasure's pocketbook. So this one's a little bit- Ooh, letchy. Well, yeah, it's a bit bawdier. So in this one, it's essentially a list ranking women with a point-scoring system based on their various assets. So beauty, elegance, and grace we've got in this example here. And we can see at the top, Duchess of Devonshire, and she's got a brilliant 42 out of 50 for beauty. But we can see with Georgiana on grace and elegance, she's basically trouncing almost everybody else. So I feel really sorry for Mrs. Jones because she's only on a 12 for beauty, six for grace, and a four for elegance. That's really sad. It's a bit embarrassing for Mrs. Jones, I think, to have been even included on that one. That sort of reminded me of those men's magazines in the 90s that used to rate people on the cover. There are elements of that sort of sexiest women. Was there an equivalent scale for men? There are actually equivalents for men, but it's interesting because they aren't judged on any sort of beauty. It's on their talents or their knowledge or their wit and conversation. So there's a real gender divide in what's prized. But I think what's important to note here is that really it's about status. Especially where we're dealing with the aristocracy, it's saying, you know, I'm at the top of the hierarchy here because I'm beautiful and very elegant. So it brings this sort of power dynamic at play as well. So was it possible for someone who wasn't of noble birth, so wasn't, say, the daughter of an aristocrat, to work their way in? If they went to the right dinner parties or the right balls, could they find themselves on this scale? I think so, yeah. This is a real time of change. Economically, Britain's in sort of an economic boom and there's all these new families and new money hoping to be able to marry up, to marry into the aristocracy. For a Georgian woman determined to marry up into the bon ton, your best shot was to look like you already belonged there. And at that time, in the very narrow restrictive definition of beauty, nothing said aristocratic more than a painted white face. With her hair done, it's time to prepare Queenie's skin for the white foundation. White makeup had been fashionable for centuries. For Tudors like Elizabeth I, it was a symbol of wealth, showing that they'd never had to work outside. And it also covered the signs of aging or ill health. The most popular white makeup was known as sarous and was made with white lead pigment. By the 18th century, it was common knowledge that lead was poisonous. But despite this, people kept using it. I want to know what it was about lead sarous that made it so desirable. Of course, you can't buy lead sarous these days. So I'm getting some help at the University of Kiel. I've asked pharmacist, Dr. Su Zhenwang to make me a genuine Georgian sarous. So we're going to be making sarous, which is lead white paint. And it does have some very, very nasty side effects if you use it regularly. Indeed, it does. Lead is a poisonous metal. It can be processed to form white pigment, which is the active ingredient in sarous. It can be absorbed through the skin. It can cause infertility in women. And if a person actually consumes it or use it for a prolonged period of time, it could lead to deafness as well. And I suppose eventually lead to death. So the thought of people putting it on all over their faces, necks, bodies, day after day, after day, after day. Horrific. It was horrific. It's interesting because by this time, they know that. Yes. But they're still risking using it. Su's following a recipe that mixes lead carbonate with beeswax and oil. Lead carbonate is more commonly known as flake white, prized by artists for its ability to create brilliant white highlights. Because it's so poisonous, today flake white is only ever used for art restoration. And Su is using it carefully in a controlled environment to recreate some of the highly prized lead sarous. So is this it? This is it. Can I try that, put it on my glove? You can, but let's treat it with respect and care. I will. Okay, here we go. Well, the colour is pure white. Oh, it's very creamy. Mm. That's good. Mm. It's beauty over health again, isn't it? Yeah, and it has got sheen as well. It does have that lovely, dewy glow. Of course, 18th century beauties didn't parade themselves around brightly lit labs. This was definitely a look intended to be seen in a somewhat softer light. I'm going to compare Su's lead sarous with a safe, non-toxic version made using another recipe from the time. So here we have our Venetian sarous. So this is the poisonous lead version. And here is the non-toxic version. This one's made with French chalk and beeswax, but it could also be made with talc or flour or even bones. So I'm going to use a spatula and have a look at it on a palette just to see how the textures differ. I can see straight away that the non-toxic version is quite shiny. It looks really nice. It's pretty liquidy, but it seems really smooth. Touch greasy, but it definitely has a nice shine to it. Okay, onto the lead. Ooh, yes. Nice. Oh, completely different. Yeah, much more opaque, much purer white. You can see it almost makes the non-toxic version look grey. This one is white. Of course, it looks like clown paint to us now, but you've got to remember that men and women would have worn this in the evening and they would have been seen in candlelight. So I think I need to see what it looks like in candlelight. We can see straight away that there's a slight sheen, but it's a beautiful ethereal glow. The non-toxic version looks slightly grey in candlelight and it's way too shiny. We look back and think, now that's crazy. Okay, they looked good, but they're risking their lives. But is it that different to today? I mean, we all do things which we know maybe aren't great for our health. In the name of beauty, it still happens. Now that I've seen what genuine Ceruse looks like, I know how to replicate that 18th century ethereal glow with modern makeup. It's getting whitened up. It's definitely really pale. It's going to get paler. I'm actually building up to the really white. We're going to go slowly. The perfect Georgian look is hard to get right. And just like today, in Georgian times, the public displayed a certain glee when a celebrity's beauty mishaps led to a disaster. A tragic example of this are the Gunning sisters, a pair of beauties who were the Kardashians of their day. Mariah and Elizabeth Gunning came from a relatively humble background, but their great beauty gave them a ticket into the bon ton, and at balls and soirees in rooms like these, they would have sparkled and attracted a crowd. When they went travelling, people would hire out the rooms of the hotels that they were staying in so they could dangle out of the windows and try and catch a glimpse of them going into their carriages. So it is really an 18th-century type of celebrity. So how did their lives progress once they got to London and they were the toast of the fashionable world? Well, it wasn't unusual for women to be admired just for their beauty and have no breeding. They might go on to become actresses or mistresses or courtesans, but Mariah and Elizabeth bagged a duke and an earl, so they penetrated high society and they earned titles of their own. So there was a bit of fuss caused about this, shall we say. Was there a lot of disapproval amongst high society that the sisters had somehow managed to sidle their way in and all the way up to the top? There was definitely a sense that they had stolen almost two of the nation's most eligible bachelors. The lengths Mariah was prepared to go to to stay in these elite circles became a cautionary tale of the day. It was rumoured that she was addicted to lead ceruse and wouldn't be seen without it. We know that she fell ill when she was about 26 or 27 and that this was a long and lingering illness that killed her just shortly after her 28th birthday. At the time, the gossip was certainly that she'd been killed by white lead, so by her cosmetics. Do you think that she just couldn't face the world without it? Absolutely. You can see how you can get kind of roped into it. Yes, and this wasn't a total one-off, you know, there were other women who were succumbing to this as well, but I think with Mariah, it was very much tied to this idea of her reputation and her personal vanity and so she became really a bit of a cautionary tale for women who would submit to this sort of fakery, I suppose we might call it today. Mariah was a victim not only of her own vanity, but of a society where beauty was one of the only ways a woman could make her way in the world. Looking at the grandeur and the drama of these rooms, it's not that surprising that men and women felt compelled to use the transformative power of hair and makeup to really help them make their entrance. Imagine coming to a ball here, it must have been extraordinary. All of the beautiful dresses, all of the costumes, rustling, the diamond necklaces, gleaming in the candlelight. It was also a very, very competitive environment, so wearing your hair just a little bit higher and your complexion a little bit more dramatic would really help you get noticed. Was it worth using poisonous cosmetics for? Some people thought so. Achieving a perfect alabaster face was the most important step of the Georgian look, but without any other color on the face, it would certainly drain the life out of you. Part of the trick to show you're a proper lady was a tendency to blush. And still today, there's nothing to compare to a well-blushed cheek. Luckily, the recipe books from the time offered plenty of formulas for rouge. I'm making one which uses two natural dyes, cochineal, which is derived from dried beetles, and Brazil wood. Just grinding them in to release the pigment. Right, now I'm going to mix these up with some vinegar. Pop it into the pan and heat. This is exciting, because I'm expecting a really vibrant color. Already it's, wow. This is definitely more of an orangey red. It's a real firecracker of a color. It's almost like chili. I think this one definitely, you'd have to go sparingly with, but not the Georgians, obviously. More is more. Red pigment is the oldest makeup in existence. The ancient Egyptians mixed it with animal fat to tint the skin. And there are references in ancient Greek texts of women applying rouge to create a youthful flush, much as we do today. Okay, I think it's done. Let's switch the heat off. The next thing I'm going to do, I'm going to sieve it into this bowl. And I'm then going to tear off a strip of this. And this was known as Spanish wool. And you would tear off a strip, soak it in the mixture, and then leave it to dry out. And this was a way of having portable rouge. And this is actually how you'd buy it as well from the pharmacy. So, let's have a go. I'm going to use a muslin cloth. Such a good colour. Okay. Marvellous. Ooh. Ooh, I didn't get very much. But this colour's going to go a long way. So let me just soak some Spanish wool. Oh, wow. This is very cool. You never really know how makeup's going to turn out. To get the authentic Georgian look, I'm applying some white makeup first. Right, onto the pièce de résistance, the Spanish wool. I need to wet this. Oh my God, this is perfect. So I'm going to apply this cheek in a Marie Antoinette style. And it's reported that she applied her rouge in huge, precise circles, in a colour not far from scarlet. And on this cheek, I'm going to apply it in a more English style. Good colour, though, and it's very subtle. England, France. Well, I'm very happy with my Georgian rouge. So I'm ready to move on to the next step of Queenie's makeover. I'm loving doing makeup with all these authentic formulas. It's just so interesting to see how they behave and how they would have actually achieved the effects that I'm seeing in the paintings. While I'm enjoying experimenting with this look, it is all about artificially whitened faces. I'm acutely aware that so much of the wealth and splendour of Georgian Britain was generated by the transatlantic slave trade, trafficking tens of millions of people from Africa to the New World. So I've come to talk about this with art historian Steve Martin. Steve, if one researches beauty ideals in Britain at this period, it is a bit like Groundhog Day. Constant references to white porcelain, skin and pink cheeks. What were attitudes to black beauty at this time? Well, attitudes to black beauty were surprisingly various. Whilst on one hand, you do have this very pale, powdered and print image which is put forward, particularly of white women. You also see, for the first time, representations, portraits of black men and women as individuals rather than being contrasted with white social superiors. Let's take a look at some of these portraits. Yes, Dido Bell, the great niece of Lord Mansfield. And she's depicted here side by side with her cousin Elizabeth. And very interestingly, although she's clearly a young woman of some beauty, the point is still made to emphasise her blackness. You see she's pointing at her cheek. So the statuses are still delineated, but it's very interesting to see these two young women, these cousins as equals. This is another really beautiful painting of a very handsome young man. Who is this? We're looking at Francis Barber. His hair is arranged in a very Europeanised style, but there's a nobility to his expression. There is a sort of strength in his face, which could be unexpected, given the lives that ordinary black people would have lived at the time and the garden which they'd have been held. So Barber is clearly one of a number of black people from this period who have been immortalised in paint, but it's only a select few. So they are the exception at the time. Very much the exception and telling contrast to the realities of the majority of black lives lived in Britain during this period. For the majority of black Georgians, racial prejudice was extreme. But these portraits show that a few transcended the class divide. The sitters had black skin, but they share the hairstyles, fine clothing and stance of white Georgian aristocrats. These trappings of beauty show membership to an elite club. And the look I'm doing on Queenie is all about showing that she belongs to this wealthy set. So Queenie, onto brows, and I've got a bit of a treat for you. Great. How do you feel about a mouse brow? It's very authentic. That is made of mouse hide. But we're just not sure if they firstly did wear them, which I don't think they did. And secondly, it's just killing the whole look. So we are definitely not going to go with those. Instead, I'm going to use some of this, which is burnt clove. That's really beautiful. It's so easy to blend. Such a good way of doing brows. They were onto something. Trust me, mouse brows are never going to make it into my makeup bag. Clothes, on the other hand, pretty good. Mouse brows may in reality have been no more than a myth, but they were definitely joked about as an example of how excessive the aristocratic beauty look could be. The cruelest of all of the prints, the satirical prints of this time, is definitely this one, which is called Six Stages of Mending a Face. And this depicts someone called Lady Archer, who was a bit of a party girl and liked gambling. So she's already the target of gossip. This artist has depicted her, the first stage is she's completely bald and they've turned it into a really old hag. And they've got her putting this enormous wig on, then putting on her eye makeup, her breasts are hanging out, they're all sort of saggy. And then you have her putting in teeth, putting on her rouge. And then finally you see this really, what they would have considered very attractive woman at the end. And the message here is that makeup and hair is deceptive. You know, it's almost like a warning to men that if you think this is what you're marrying, actually it might be this. It's time to do the finishing touches to Queenie's makeup. We've already given her a hairdo that will make her seven foot tall. Now I want to add some of the playfulness of the macaroni look, but I'm aiming more for a Gainsborough than a caricature. I'm using the rouge for the lips, just as the Georgians did. I'm used to using modern professional makeup, but it's amazing how effective these simple Georgian recipes and techniques are. The blush is just fantastic. Actually much more natural looking and blendable than I expected. And applying it with the Spanish wool is pretty effective too. And I absolutely love the effect of the burnt clothes for the brow. At times, period products can be tricky to use, but by building it slowly, it does create a very beautiful painterly effect. Final touch. I'm going to put a patch on you. It's a heart. So, are you married? No. Okay. In that case, you're going to have it on your left cheek. There you go. So finally we're done. I've turned Queenie from this to this. In the Georgian era, this is what power looked like. A beauty look that only huge amounts of time and money could buy. Painted white skin, and products made with expensive, exclusive ingredients. And what's more, with hair this high, there's nothing much you could do but be on display. The ultimate lady of leisure. Seeing the Georgian look on Queenie really shows what an incredible insight makeup gives us into an era. By the end of the 18th century, the decadence of this look came to represent all that was wrong with this unequal society. In 1789, France was convulsed by revolution and the shockwaves were felt in Britain. It's no coincidence that as Marie Antoinette lost her head at the guillotine, excessive displays of wealth became not just unfashionable, but dangerous. Britain wanted a new kind of beauty, sensible, practical, pared back. There wouldn't be a makeup look as bold again until the 20th century.