'Shakespeare in Love' inspiration: How to beat your face 16th Century style

Purchase tickets to 'Shakespeare in Love' here

  Good evening my angelic angel food cakes covered in strawberry jam! Do you need a few beauty hints to prepare yourself before seeing 'Shakespeare in Love' this week?  We're here to tell you how to attain the toxic death-pallor women of the Elizabethan Era found so beguiling, ensuring you land a husband and die in childbirth at the ripe old age of 25. Twenty five! 28 if you can survive a plague and not be burned as a witch. Hashtag goals!
​    Below are our hot beauty tips we just know you'll all replicate on Instagram.

 Our Queen Cate Blanchett being an actual Queen in 'Elizabeth' and 'Elizabeth The Golden Age'

Step 1: Prepare your skin

  In a time when smallpox was rampant, if you lived through this deadly disease, you would be guaranteed to be disfigured with deep facial scars, pock-marks, and lasting infection that could eat through your cheeks. (Why vaccinate, right? Hahahaha.....oh.....wow.....) You're also not washing your face, because you bathe only monthly. 
     Oh, before we go any further we need to specify that these tips only apply to the aristocracy, meaning only 5% of the population. Everyone else has proper jobs and lives, ensuring them an early death of malnutrition, disease, poor hygiene, or a variety of human-waste related infections. So this is for fancy people only, no peasants. 
    If you can afford honey, beeswax and oil, mix it together in a bowl you've never washed and stir everything with a spoon that has never been properly cleaned. Slap this over your scars and be grateful you aren't dead. 
     Find your rustiest tweezers and prepare to remove all of your eyebrows and pluck your hairline back three inches, until your hair starts on the crown of your head. Perfect.

Step 2: Foundation

    Everyone during this time knew that the best foundation required to achieve the white, virginal, angelic pallor idealized in paintings and the Elizabethan Court is created by mixing white lead and vinegar.  Mix white lead powder with vinegar, try not to inhale too deeply, and using a brush most likely made from bird feathers, apply this to your face. 
      Don't worry about contouring, just slap this on. Now add another layer. And another. Cover up all your defining features including noses, eyebrows, eyelashes and cheekbones. 
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Step 3: Pretend you have cheeks with this fun trick!

   Now that you've spackled your face with poison, its time to burnish your cheeks so it looks like you're suffering from a fever, which to be honest, you probably are.  You most likely used a chamber pot, never washed your hands and then proceeded to smear makeup on your diseased skin with filthy fingers. Ugh, you disgusting Queen.

   Mix together egg whites, vermillion, gum arabic, and figs until it creates a paste.  Rub this into your cheeks with reckless abandon, being careful not to kick up the three layers of lead you've coated your face with. 

Step 4: Poisoned eyes are sparkly eyes!

   When we say 'make your eyes sparkle' we don't mean 'take care of your eyes and ensure they're healthy.' Most certainly not. What we mean is that your eyes should look sparkly. SPARKLY!  This can be achieved by placing drops of belladonna directly into your eyeball. 

   Hmm? What's that? Belladonna is nightshade, a deadly poison?  Listen here, poo hands, we've long abandoned any sense of safety or common sense about four paragraphs up. We're here to look pretty before death snatches us, and we have to ensure we live long enough to become property of a man.  Put that belladonna in your eyes and stop sassing, you mouthy harlot.

Step 5: Dress in something full of ribbons which has never been washed

   The most glamorous looks of the Elizabethan era were heavily embroidered, rich fabrics sewn into voluminous, intricate gowns which were worn over and over until they fell apart, or the stench of unwashed human sweat ate the fabric away. 
     Before you put your gown on, be sure to check for nits and fleas. Attempt to remove them, realize this is an exercise in futility, give up and lace yourself into your dream dress.

   Look at you, my pale, sickly Queen!  Who knew that covering your squalid body in a variety of deadly poisons could result in such beauty!  Now get our there and attempt to dance, because you only have....oh. Oh wait, you're 29?  Never mind, this is all for naught. You're already dead. 
​   Now go wash your hands.

Purchase tickets to 'Shakespeare in Love' here

. Thanks to  Historical Honey and Elizabethancostume.net for their informative but deeply frightening makeup tips. Images courtesy of Mad Shakespeare, historyextra.com, and good old Wikipedia.