Feminine beauty in the Middle Ages:women who comb their hair
You would have never thought that medieval women, at least the most advanced, underwent "modern" beauty treatments such as peeling and hair removal?
We know with certainty that this was an essential habit for many Florentine ladies of the 14th century , since sources in our possession attest to it; methodology and ingredients make the skin crawl but, evidently, even the torture was endured in order to be beautiful.
To smooth and velvet the skin of the body, the women of Florence used the skills of professionals who went home:the tool used to achieve the desired results was a wooden and glass spatula which was repeatedly rubbed on the parts to be treated.
This type of peeling it is nothing compared to hair removal, implemented with systems to say the least ... rude; below I quote verbatim what is reported in a book even prior to the fourteenth century:
"A depilatory that removes the hair so that it is never reborn in any time:in a bowl of earth put quicklime and six parts of water; and let the lime stand in said water three days. Then dry the said lime in a pignatella and put back six parts of water and one part of orpiment (golden yellow arsenic) and stay in the sun as much as it is very strong. And taste it with hen's feather and if it is too strong, temper it with water; and if it did not peel and it was too light, put lime and orpiment in equal parts; and it will be done. ”
The basic ingredients of this common hair removal recipe from the 1300s were therefore arsenic and quicklime :that after such a treatment the hairs did not grow back “in any time ”We can bet. Photo from:(ilpalazzodisichelgaita.it)