1350AD-1500AD (vague)
The beginning of the end of the Middle Ages (Medieval times), it was the period of learning and art, a cultural movement. Renaissance art was characterized by realism and naturalism, such as ‘The Mona Lisa’ (Da Vinci) and ‘Statue of David’ (Michelangelo). However, only the richest of the rich people experienced it. Poorer people (pheasants) where still living in the Dark Ages.
As you can tell from Renaissance paintings, it was a sign of beauty for women to be curvy.
Skincare:
Skincare was a big deal because having any freckles, moles, or birthmarks were thought of as “stains of witchcraft”. They would make facemasks from the blood of hares, or from oats and vinegar
Make-up:
Just like the eras before, women of this time also preferred paler skin. They used toxic lead powder to achieve their desired shade. To make their skin look even more translucent, some ladies would draw on veins with blue ink.
They used a blush made from Mercury and rubbed it into their face.
They powdered over their eyebrows or shaved them off to make their forehead look bigger. They didn’t like to accentuate their eyes so would pluck out their eyelashes! When they were bored of this fashion, their eyebrows would barely grow back from over plucking so they stuck animal fur to their brows instead… Their lips were either left natural or they also used Vermilion to define them to a red colour.
Hair
As a high, large forehead was a sign a beauty, women would pluck their hair line to make their forehead bigger.
They would also dye their hair to reach a lighter shade (preferably blonde). They used a mixture of saffron, onion skin, alum, soda, sulphur and the Sun’s hot rays. Of course, this was very damaging, leaving it dry and brittle.
Other women that didn’t want to go to such extremes would decorate their heads in jewelled turbans and headdresses, or wear their hair natural and use pearls, ribbons and hair combs.
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