Gilded Age Fads and Beauty Trends

Ouch! Creating scented blood? Sewing eyelashes on? Throughout time, men and women alike have gone to extremes for the sake of keeping up with the latest, so-called ‘beauty trends.’ The gilded age was no different.

It was the Parisian women who were so credited two or three years ago with the objectionable practice of injecting perfume under the skin, by which the very blood became aromatic, and now to them is ascribed another process, less objectionable, perhaps, but still very questionable. It is a method by which false eyelashes may be made. A fine needle, threaded with dark hair, is drawn through the skin of the eyelid, forming long loops, and after the operation is over— it is said it is painless — there remains a beautiful fringe to veil the wearer's eyes. — The New York Times, June 1894

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