Woman of the Middle Ages
We are quite well informed about some aspects of daily life in 14th century Florence and we know enough of the care that women of the time devoted to their beauty .
The most vain, as always, were the ladies belonging to the middle-upper class, while the commoners, who lived in much poorer conditions, were engaged in occupations marked by greater practicality, although it is by no means excluded that they too, in some way, they found time to indulge in some pampering.
The skin of the face and the hair they were considered the strengths of feminine charm and were therefore the parts of the body that we dedicated ourselves most to.
To keep the face clean, young and radiant, we relied on beauty recipes reported in ancient manuals or derived from popular wisdom; water, added with natural ingredients, was the basis for cleansing the skin.
Here is an example of how the Florentine women of the time prepared a "facial cleanser" themselves (the recipe, "dated" at the beginning of the 14th century, is probably taken from a much earlier text):
“To wash every stain from the face:five mugs of milk, five crumbs of fresh bread, and let them stand in the said milk for 5 hours; then put in lambicco; and the water that will come out of it you will keep in an ampoule inside half a scruple of pesto borax. And so by washing your face and letting it dry by itself, it will become neat and clean ”. Photo from:illusionanddessire.com)