The Most Toxic Make up Fact 17

"History's packed with some horrible stuff"

If you see the pictures of Queen Elizabeth 1 of England, you'll be struck by her flame-red hair chalky-white face. If a woman looked like that today, she would be probably be the victim of undisputed scrutiny from the Media and people all around the world. But in the 1500s it was the height of fashion and women wanted to look just like the queen.

They wore red wigs and powdered their faces. Some went even further to get a ghost-white complexion - they smeared their faces with white lead! White lead is extremely poisonous. It rotted the women's teeth and turned their skin yellow and green. It ate away the top layer of the skin leaving horrible scars. To cover up the scarring, women put on more lead make-up. Eventually their hair fell out, their eyes swelled up painfully and their lungs were affected. Some women died - making them history's greatest, sorry foulest fashion victims.