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History's Most Ridiculous (and Deadly) Beauty Trends · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio, Hello
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Speaker 1: and welcome too, Ridiculous History, Ridiculous Historians. I am not
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Speaker 1: been Bowlen and surprised. I'm not no whatever his last
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Speaker 1: very special Monday episode if you're listening to it when
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Speaker 1: it comes out, because today is International Women's Day and
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Speaker 1: an honor of that, we're taking over ridiculous history and
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Speaker 1: uh for this episode, We're going to look at some
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Speaker 1: of history's most ridiculous beauty and fashion trends. Well not
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Speaker 1: only just ridiculous, but somewhat dangerous, absolutely deadly, and and
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Speaker 1: it's sometimes flammable, apparently flammable often So if we look
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Speaker 1: at beauty standards in a lot of ways, people and
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Speaker 1: especially women in this case, have come a long way.
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Speaker 1: But I think it's really easy to look back and
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Speaker 1: laugh at at beauty standards people had in the past
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Speaker 1: or the ways they went about achieving these beauty standards.
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Speaker 1: But let's not forget beauty standards are still around and
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Speaker 1: people still suffer. Beauty is pain. I heard it recently, right,
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Speaker 1: and it is can be very dangerous and it can
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Speaker 1: be lethal for some, and it can be costly for
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Speaker 1: a lot. And it's definitely a point of contention when
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Speaker 1: we talk about beauty standards versus reality. What's damaging and
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Speaker 1: what's just good for your mental health and your self esteem.
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Speaker 1: So we definitely don't want to drag that because sometimes
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Speaker 1: it's it's nice to look pretty, but at what cost?
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Speaker 1: At what cost? And that's certainly I think right now,
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Speaker 1: especially when we were talking about feminism, Um, there is
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Speaker 1: this intersection of power and oppression, right of like wanting
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Speaker 1: to look a certain way and it but then that
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Speaker 1: societal obligation to look that certain way, and we can't
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Speaker 1: just you know, it's easy to say, well, just don't
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Speaker 1: do it. If you don't want to put on makeup,
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Speaker 1: don't do it. But there are things like the pretty
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Speaker 1: privilege and and and there have been studies that shown
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Speaker 1: that people, especially women, who look a certain way do
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Speaker 1: get paid more. So there are things in society that
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Speaker 1: we can't control that you can't just dismiss as well
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Speaker 1: don't do it, So that that's the problem, like the
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Speaker 1: societal expectations and pressure, that's where the issue is. And
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Speaker 1: I feel like if you want to do it, men
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Speaker 1: are women you should be able to do it, but
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Speaker 1: again that's what costs and and then who is it
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Speaker 1: damage age? Truly, And of course we know that the
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Speaker 1: beauty standard and the beauty industry makes tons and tons
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Speaker 1: and tonss of money at the expense of its customers sometimes.
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Speaker 1: So we're not gonna get into all that. If you
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Speaker 1: want to hear about all that, you definitely should check
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Speaker 1: out our show because check that out there. But but
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Speaker 1: we want to talk about the history of some of
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Speaker 1: the things that seems so outlineish today that existed back
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Speaker 1: then just caveat. You know, beauty is a very messy,
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Speaker 1: evolving world, so it's really fascinating to look back and
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Speaker 1: see how things have just flipped in a lot of cases.
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Speaker 1: But also when you're looking at different cultures, there can
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Speaker 1: be just very different beliefs about what beauty is. And um,
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Speaker 1: trying to be respectful of all of that, and then
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Speaker 1: there are very problematic things in here when you're talking
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Speaker 1: about like the white standard of beauty, because we are
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Speaker 1: going to be largely but not completely focused on Western beauty,
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Speaker 1: which has for a long time been uh like white,
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Speaker 1: heteronormative and also impossible to achieve for most of us
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Speaker 1: unless you want to poison yourself, which we will talk about.
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Speaker 1: So we're going to break this down into five main
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Speaker 1: groups because there's a lot to go over and this
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Speaker 1: is by no means an exhaustive list. Um, So we're
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Speaker 1: gonna break it down into skin, teeth, fashion, hair, and
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Speaker 1: body shaping. And we're gonna start with skincare because the
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Speaker 1: importance of youth that has been a theme throughout history
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Speaker 1: when it comes to beauty, to these beauty standards and
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Speaker 1: wanting to have that youthful look. And as I'm coming
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Speaker 1: up on my like like the years of the forties,
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Speaker 1: I would say I have realized, yes, this definitely impacts
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Speaker 1: all of us, and when you are trying to obtain
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Speaker 1: the impossible youth forever goal, which honestly, to be fair,
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Speaker 1: my youth was really tiresome. So I'm cool with just
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Speaker 1: sitting in my rocking chair and yelling at the kids.
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Speaker 1: Do you have a rocking chair one day? And one
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Speaker 1: day it's gonna happen. I'm gonna have a rocking chair
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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna sit on my porch and start screaming
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Speaker 1: at the kids. And eventually I want to be that
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Speaker 1: which on the corner that they have rumors about that
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Speaker 1: the children. Wow, that is quite the goal, Samantha one day,
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Speaker 1: but now until I get that rocking chair. Yes, I
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Speaker 1: definitely have looked at skin regiments and looking at these
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Speaker 1: old school ones. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't. Yeah, I
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Speaker 1: mean people have resorted to what now seem very odd
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Speaker 1: or dangerous choices to achieve this. Look like again, people
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Speaker 1: have died for beauty, they have suffered for beauty. So
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Speaker 1: if you look at anti regal treatments, for example, uh,
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Speaker 1: they're things like ancient Greeks and Romans used animal excrement
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Speaker 1: to get rid of wrinkles, and apparently crocodile dung was
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Speaker 1: the best. And you know what, there's still stuff used
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Speaker 1: today that you're kind of like, wait, would um? I know,
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Speaker 1: for a while, some like poisonous venoms were used, um,
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Speaker 1: and not too long ago people were using sperm. I guess. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I like the face you're making, a very confused one,
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Speaker 1: and I want to put in here I'm not a scientist.
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Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I feel like a relationship is
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Speaker 1: based on a lie. It is. I didn't mean to
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Speaker 1: tell you this way, but I don't know. Maybe crocodile
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Speaker 1: dung actually is good for the skin. It's just odd
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Speaker 1: to hear. And also it seems kind of difficult to obtain. Um,
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Speaker 1: so interesting in our modern eyes. Um. Also, this is
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Speaker 1: one of my favorite fun facts. UM. Much later, marshmallow
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Speaker 1: cream was used for the same thing to get rid
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Speaker 1: of wrinkles. According to one ad, it could even fill
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Speaker 1: out a shriveled old throat or bust bust. Even I
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Speaker 1: like that. I guess we need the marshmallow cream to
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Speaker 1: lift our boobies wonderful or shriveled old bust. I feel
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Speaker 1: like that's just so sticky. Okay, so that's the thing.
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Speaker 1: Is Like again, I cannot say for certain that this
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Speaker 1: doesn't work. And in fact, if you were to search
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Speaker 1: this today, marshmallow of the plant is used in skincare regiments,
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Speaker 1: but this was marshmallow cream specifically, And to me that
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Speaker 1: sounds the worst thing, like the stickiest worst mess you
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Speaker 1: could put yourself in. And as someone who has failed
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Speaker 1: very fantastically at making marshmallows before, no, thank you. Well yeah,
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Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna lie as a dog on this
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Speaker 1: seems like a nightmare. This seems like I'm training my
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Speaker 1: dog to eat my face off when I die and
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Speaker 1: left alone in my apartment because she's like, oh, you
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Speaker 1: have marshmallow cream on your face. Yeah, let me eat that.
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Speaker 1: I like how honest you are with yourself about how
9:13
Speaker 1: your dog will eat you at Oh, I absolutely believe
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Speaker 1: my dog's gonna eat my face off or something something
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Speaker 1: like she's not going to be the cool dog that
9:21
Speaker 1: just says waiting patiently for someone to find me, She's like, oh,
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Speaker 1: I have to survive. This dummy is dead, so let
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Speaker 1: me eat that. Anyways, going on a talk about radium
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Speaker 1: unless touchy subject, very better about this radio? Wait what yes?
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Speaker 1: So after Marie Currie discovered radium, people started using radium
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Speaker 1: in cosmetic lines okay, including though radio produced by Alfred
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Speaker 1: Curie no relation, but I suspect was trying to write
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Speaker 1: off her name like hitch his wagon to her star
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Speaker 1: um and this cosmetical line promise to brighten, rejuvenate and
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Speaker 1: promote quote cellular vitality and all kinds of things like
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Speaker 1: getting rid of wrinkles, pimples, boils, redness, and halting aging
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Speaker 1: all together. Like I think, yeah, it would work. It
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Speaker 1: definitely would just burn your face off as well as
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Speaker 1: kill you, so it stopped aging. Is that not how
10:21
Speaker 1: that goes? I suppose that's one way to I mean,
10:25
Speaker 1: it follows through with his promises in this point, it's true. Um.
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Speaker 1: There's also this nineteen eighteen ad for Cosmetical Line Radio
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Speaker 1: that reads, an ever flowing fountain of youth and beauty
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Speaker 1: has at last been found in the energy rays of
10:40
Speaker 1: radium energy rays. That's literally a gunpoint at your face. Right,
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Speaker 1: is the Star Wars version of those sabers. Yes, it's
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Speaker 1: a bunch of little death stars just on your face.
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Speaker 1: I love this ad copy, honestly, I love that somebody
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Speaker 1: wrote it. And at the time this was apparently like
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Speaker 1: energy raised on my face. Wonderful, wonderful. Again, there are
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Speaker 1: it's easy to laugh, but there are things that are
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Speaker 1: similar to this that people are doing today, and I do.
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Speaker 1: I am often curious a hundred years from now, if
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Speaker 1: humanity still exists, if we're going to look back and
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Speaker 1: be like, what were they doing? Right? But in the
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Speaker 1: case of radium, these radium products were outlawed in the
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Speaker 1: US and nineteen But now let's talk about arsenic. Oh,
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Speaker 1: I'm so excited. Yes, arsenic for a rosie glow. Uh,
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Speaker 1: during the nineteenth century, people in what is now Austria
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Speaker 1: and Slovenia may have taken arsenic to quote produce a
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Speaker 1: blooming complexion, a brilliant I, and an appearance of inbum
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Speaker 1: points or sexy stoutness. Wait, what is that sexy set?
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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. That may be my new favorite phrase.
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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna put that on read dating site. I'm
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Speaker 1: at sexy stoutness. I feel like that is a Dungeons
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Speaker 1: and Dragons description of a dwarf or gnome or calm.
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Speaker 1: Like I said, that's gonna be my title. Well, I
12:14
Speaker 1: don't go to correlate the two. And this was from
12:18
Speaker 1: an eighteen fifty seven article. And this article also specified
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Speaker 1: that people believed it was quote dangerous to take it
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Speaker 1: at any time other than the increase of the moon. Yeah.
12:31
Speaker 1: I think you know, even then people realized arsenic in
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Speaker 1: high quantities was not safe. So I think this was
12:39
Speaker 1: a way too spread it out. But of course the
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Speaker 1: more arsenic you took, the worst your complexion actually got
12:46
Speaker 1: over the long run. So the more you had to take. Well,
12:50
Speaker 1: what's funny about that is arsenic was used for poisoning,
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Speaker 1: specifically to poison people they could not get rid of
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Speaker 1: of their life. So we know that way back when
12:59
Speaker 1: we have this whole conversation of women coming together and
13:02
Speaker 1: be like, Oh, I can't get divorced. This is how
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Speaker 1: I'm going to kill my husband. This is gonna be perfect.
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Speaker 1: And so you know, they knew the dangers of arsenic
13:09
Speaker 1: but they still were like, but it gets rid of
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Speaker 1: my pimples. Let's do this. So I love the fact
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Speaker 1: that they're like, yes, I'm gonna use this to get
13:18
Speaker 1: rid of my husband because he's annoying. I don't like
13:20
Speaker 1: him always. Of course, it's bigger conversations to that than
13:23
Speaker 1: anything else, but just putting it on the simple terms
13:26
Speaker 1: of like, at the same time, let me see what
13:29
Speaker 1: it does when I put it on me. Yes, yes,
13:34
Speaker 1: the things people will do, the things people will do
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Speaker 1: for beauty. Um. There were products like Dr Mackenzie's improved
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Speaker 1: Harmless arsenic complexion wafers that were available until the nineteen twenties,
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Speaker 1: and I love that harmless was in the name right,
13:49
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that not only did they
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Speaker 1: have these wafers that they were like, oh, if I
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Speaker 1: eat this, it's gonna clean me out inside out. So okay,
13:57
Speaker 1: but they also used like arsenic to put into a
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Speaker 1: splash of their favorite cocktail or drinks in order to
14:03
Speaker 1: do the same effects. But then I guess they would
14:06
Speaker 1: added tode there, you know, enemies drinks as well, maybe
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Speaker 1: in a larger quantity, because you know, we know as
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Speaker 1: we look through this and we're gonna talk more about this.
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Speaker 1: Arsenic is used in hell a lot of products, whatever
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Speaker 1: it may be. And the fact that it's like, hey,
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Speaker 1: it poisons people, Okay, well, let's also use it for
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Speaker 1: something else. It's not just for poisoning anymore. You should
14:27
Speaker 1: be you should be publicity for arsenic. It's not just
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Speaker 1: for poisoning. It's not just for poisoning anymore. And it
14:34
Speaker 1: also closes your skin of pumples. Here we goes both
14:38
Speaker 1: don't ask questions. And then we wanted to talk about
14:43
Speaker 1: these things called beauty patches. Um so smallpox and syphilis
14:49
Speaker 1: they were big problems during the seventeen and eighteen hundred's
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Speaker 1: and they left scars on people's faces, which some people
14:56
Speaker 1: covered with lead powder inside. Effects may include toothroat, baldness,
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Speaker 1: irritation of the eyes, and blackening of the skin. With
15:05
Speaker 1: extended use and again. People would then apply more of
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Speaker 1: this powder to cover all of that, which meant that
15:12
Speaker 1: it became worse. It was this vicious cycle, right, so
15:15
Speaker 1: they just kept adding it all and they're like, oh,
15:17
Speaker 1: it's the docketing my skin. Let me had a little more.
15:19
Speaker 1: I had a little more. You know what? Though, with
15:23
Speaker 1: all of that, when we were talking about what we
15:26
Speaker 1: were gonna do as we were researching it, I have
15:28
Speaker 1: seen a many romantic movies period pieces, and I'm a
15:33
Speaker 1: big fan. I never knew that when I would see
15:36
Speaker 1: the little stars or see the little hearts patches on
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Speaker 1: their faces, what it was, what it was. I thought
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Speaker 1: it was completely like decorative. And then learning that this
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Speaker 1: was the way they've actually covered up scars, I find
15:48
Speaker 1: it genius. So we don't. We talked about these small
15:52
Speaker 1: pieces which were made of expensive fabrics like silk and
15:55
Speaker 1: velvet and shaped like stars and moons, and they were
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Speaker 1: called beauty patches. How perfect is that? I don't really
16:01
Speaker 1: want them to come back now? Yeah, I mean, to
16:04
Speaker 1: be honest, I would have been so into that. I'm
16:07
Speaker 1: not saying I wouldn't do it now, but especially when
16:09
Speaker 1: I was younger, because I I remember I used to
16:13
Speaker 1: use the slip Boss for a very brief, hot minute
16:15
Speaker 1: from Claire's and it had like stars and hearts in it,
16:18
Speaker 1: and you could already see the problem. I'm sure, gloss,
16:22
Speaker 1: but I did you inguest exactly? But this would have
16:28
Speaker 1: been right up my alley, and I think, um, these
16:31
Speaker 1: became really fashionable for a time, and the placement of
16:35
Speaker 1: these symbols could represent things like married or single, ready
16:37
Speaker 1: to mingle, especially when we're talking about this time period
16:41
Speaker 1: when it there was a lot of repression of those
16:44
Speaker 1: kinds of things going on and a lot of rules
16:46
Speaker 1: around courtship. This could be a way to be like, no,
16:49
Speaker 1: I'm I don't Yeah, I definitely didn't know that, and
16:52
Speaker 1: I love that fact. By the same time, I'm like,
16:55
Speaker 1: I'm cynical enough, Like what did they really use it for?
16:57
Speaker 1: Like was that some kind of like invitation or a
17:00
Speaker 1: challenge or what are these days? Because you know, we've
17:03
Speaker 1: definitely seen in the present times where kids will do
17:06
Speaker 1: challenges and by having different whatever it is, braceless or
17:11
Speaker 1: we are stickers or whatever, being into a challenge of
17:14
Speaker 1: some sorts, that's a little bit nefarious. I wonder if
17:18
Speaker 1: that's became a competition. Yeah, And you know me, Samantha,
17:22
Speaker 1: that I'm very oblivious in a lot of these things,
17:24
Speaker 1: and I feel like I would have been the person
17:25
Speaker 1: that didn't realize if I placed it under my left eye,
17:28
Speaker 1: for instance, that it means I'm ready to kill someone
17:31
Speaker 1: or something. I'm obviously making this up, but the point
17:34
Speaker 1: being that's where are you left to? Don't ask. I
17:39
Speaker 1: don't want you to read into that too much. I'm
17:41
Speaker 1: just saying I would. I would have just put it
17:43
Speaker 1: on my face because I thought the placement was cool
17:45
Speaker 1: and not realizing that its signals I was thinking sexually
17:50
Speaker 1: a relationship. But you went to killing. So there's that. Okay,
17:53
Speaker 1: now we needed not not even know let's pocket that.
17:57
Speaker 1: Let's put that away, um and talk about hilons for
18:00
Speaker 1: a second. Okay. So, due to a nylon shortage caused
18:04
Speaker 1: by World War Two, um, there was not enough pantyhose
18:08
Speaker 1: to go around, so women resorted to painting their legs
18:13
Speaker 1: to get that pantyhose look. But for those who didn't
18:17
Speaker 1: want to go with the paint route it could be
18:18
Speaker 1: expensive and time consuming. They turned to a household items
18:22
Speaker 1: like gravy, which again, I feel like you're going to
18:25
Speaker 1: get bugs you're going to be chased by dogs, but
18:28
Speaker 1: I guess you'll have that look. You will be that
18:30
Speaker 1: dog's favorite person that would eventually gnaw off your leg. However,
18:34
Speaker 1: you know you did. In comparison to though the self tanning,
18:37
Speaker 1: it kind of is the same thing. Maybe it's not
18:39
Speaker 1: directly specifically towards your legs because you want to look
18:41
Speaker 1: like you have nylons, But I know that pantyhose went
18:44
Speaker 1: out the window, and we would just rather have a
18:47
Speaker 1: tan in hopes of not having to wear things on
18:50
Speaker 1: our legs and not blind somebody by people's white legs. Right,
18:56
Speaker 1: you know there are fragrances associated with that, and that
18:59
Speaker 1: that's actually a really a good lead into what we're
19:01
Speaker 1: gonna talk about next, because tanning has been something that
19:04
Speaker 1: has shifted of the meaning and desirability of it over time,
19:08
Speaker 1: because eventually it became in vogue because it represented, especially
19:13
Speaker 1: for white people, that you had the time to go
19:17
Speaker 1: on vacation in tan Essentially you had the money and
19:20
Speaker 1: time to be outside for leisure activities. But one standard
19:26
Speaker 1: of beauty that is more problematic in this whole conversation
19:30
Speaker 1: throughout time has been skin whitening, and the standard of
19:35
Speaker 1: white beauty and the preference for later skin. So toxic lead,
19:43
Speaker 1: let's talk about oh man, Yeah, so Victorian women used
19:47
Speaker 1: toxic lead to achieve maximum illness. And we've seen in
19:51
Speaker 1: paintings how vogue it was. And not only just white,
19:55
Speaker 1: we mean like you almost dead or definitely have been
20:01
Speaker 1: painted white. That it is. I don't know if it
20:05
Speaker 1: actually maybe I don't know enough white people in my life,
20:08
Speaker 1: but I feel like that's not true to have seen
20:10
Speaker 1: that pill of skin on purpose. I don't know. And
20:15
Speaker 1: you know, we also will be talking about a little
20:17
Speaker 1: more later. But you know, a lot of the Asian
20:20
Speaker 1: cultures would also do the same thing and lighten their skin,
20:22
Speaker 1: and and and even today that's still a big thing
20:25
Speaker 1: to want to bleach or whiten their skin. But because
20:28
Speaker 1: of that, like comparison to that whiteness in comparison to
20:32
Speaker 1: the rest of your body, how it natural it was.
20:34
Speaker 1: It made people's teeth look yellow, which caused them to
20:37
Speaker 1: blacken it. But that's a whole different thing. But it
20:39
Speaker 1: is this level of look at me, the paleness of
20:43
Speaker 1: my skin reflects on how rich and how acceptable and
20:48
Speaker 1: desirable I am, right, right, And and people would go
20:52
Speaker 1: during Victorian times, especially in Europe, people would go to
20:55
Speaker 1: great links to achieve this, including blood letting to get
20:58
Speaker 1: this level of paleness. Yes, I know that the rosy
21:01
Speaker 1: thing was a thing too, so they would even use
21:03
Speaker 1: leeches to get that blood out. I'm still kind of
21:07
Speaker 1: horrified because I don't want those guirmy things on me. Ever, Yeah, yeah,
21:14
Speaker 1: Well a famous example is of all of this is
21:17
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth the First and her Mask of Youth out
21:21
Speaker 1: of England, of course, and to further accentuate this paleness
21:25
Speaker 1: before the French Revolution, women again in Europe use blue
21:29
Speaker 1: pencils to draw and really make their their blue veins
21:34
Speaker 1: stand out. Uh. And I even read that they went
21:37
Speaker 1: as far as because they wanted it on their clavical
21:39
Speaker 1: and near their boobies, that they wanted to draw the
21:42
Speaker 1: veins on their chests to make sure you knew, yes,
21:47
Speaker 1: even under all of this, I am this white and pale,
21:50
Speaker 1: which I feel like that's a whole lot of the conversation,
21:52
Speaker 1: but that they would actually draw the veins on their
21:54
Speaker 1: breasts as well as their clavicals, and I'm like, wow,
21:57
Speaker 1: that's a whole different level of wanting to be really
22:00
Speaker 1: only translucent. I just want to point out it's the
22:03
Speaker 1: second time you've said boobies. You're welcome. Okay, thank you.
22:10
Speaker 1: Let's talk about serial killers for a second. Yeah, I'm
22:14
Speaker 1: not gonna lie. One of my favorite subjects. Let's go. Yeah.
22:18
Speaker 1: I try not to think too hard about that. Hey,
22:20
Speaker 1: you're the one that was talked about killing people. I
22:22
Speaker 1: don't know. We're not making a good impression. Please understand,
22:27
Speaker 1: this is normal. Actually that never mind. Let's let's make
22:31
Speaker 1: it worse. Okay, let's do this. And we're also going
22:34
Speaker 1: to be talking about virgin blood. Oh yes, yes, So
22:45
Speaker 1: in the fifteen to sixteen hundreds, Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory,
22:49
Speaker 1: also known as the Blood Countess and the world's most
22:52
Speaker 1: prolific female serial killer Guinness World Record certified Boom tortured
22:58
Speaker 1: and killed somewhere between one hundred to six d fifty
23:00
Speaker 1: young girls and women. There are so many conflicting stories,
23:05
Speaker 1: and of course, as I know you listeners are familiar
23:09
Speaker 1: with on this show, history and records and record keeping
23:13
Speaker 1: can make for a bit of a mess of things,
23:15
Speaker 1: especially when you're talking about something as horrific potentially as this.
23:18
Speaker 1: So that's why the range. But she had a lot,
23:21
Speaker 1: a lot of legends about her, and clearly, I mean,
23:25
Speaker 1: we're still talking about her today, right, I know. Yeah. Also,
23:29
Speaker 1: this is one of those things where we go back
23:30
Speaker 1: and say, Okay, is it really because she did these
23:33
Speaker 1: things or is this just the tail in order to
23:35
Speaker 1: make her look really, really bad. Of course, there had
23:39
Speaker 1: been a few women who said they left and fled
23:42
Speaker 1: captivity from her, So maybe I don't know the extent
23:47
Speaker 1: of this, but of course we know that it's kind
23:50
Speaker 1: of because of her. We have the legend of Dracula, right, right,
23:54
Speaker 1: and that is certainly something modernly people people suspect that
24:00
Speaker 1: perhaps because she was a woman who owned property, especially
24:03
Speaker 1: a big castle, and at the time that was terrifying,
24:07
Speaker 1: that all these stories got really exaggerated about her um
24:11
Speaker 1: and that's something certainly something to keep in mind. But
24:13
Speaker 1: when we're talking about beauty, one of the most enduring
24:17
Speaker 1: parts of her story is that she bathed in the
24:21
Speaker 1: blood of her victims, believing that virgin blood would keep
24:25
Speaker 1: her skin young and fresh, which is terrifying. And I
24:30
Speaker 1: can absolutely see why it was so effective even if
24:33
Speaker 1: it wasn't true, right, I Mean, bathing and blood is
24:36
Speaker 1: the whole kind of horrital anyway, So talking about young
24:40
Speaker 1: women who are the most vulnerable of all species outside
24:44
Speaker 1: of children, Okay, yeah, yeah, well you know, actually we've
24:51
Speaker 1: had kind of a I also don't want to put
24:54
Speaker 1: this in comparison, but you know, a more modern example
24:57
Speaker 1: would be the vampire facial right, because Kim Kardashi had
25:01
Speaker 1: made some waves when she published a picture of her
25:05
Speaker 1: face covered in blood a few years back. Can you
25:09
Speaker 1: tell us about that? So I had to go and look.
25:11
Speaker 1: This stuck because I was like, what is happening? What happened?
25:13
Speaker 1: Of course, the top two headlines had a what is this?
25:17
Speaker 1: And be Kim Kardashian and regrets having this? So those
25:20
Speaker 1: are the two headlines that you should know. But apparently
25:23
Speaker 1: this process is a combination of microderm abrasions followed by
25:27
Speaker 1: an application of the PRP which is called the platelet,
25:30
Speaker 1: which is actually the platelet rich plasma. And in one column,
25:34
Speaker 1: one of the doctors said that the p RP is
25:36
Speaker 1: derived from the serum portion of the blood which contains platelets.
25:40
Speaker 1: The platelets contain high levels of growth factors which would
25:43
Speaker 1: apply to the skin will stimulate cells and turn over,
25:47
Speaker 1: So essentially it's trying to bring out the healthy cells
25:49
Speaker 1: and try to rejuvenate all of this. So when you
25:54
Speaker 1: look at the picture, it's literally just crusted dry blood
25:57
Speaker 1: on her face. That caused is caused from the poking
26:00
Speaker 1: of her skin. And by the way, if you've looked
26:01
Speaker 1: at any of these roly things that have a little
26:03
Speaker 1: prickly needles, I have one. I've never used it because
26:07
Speaker 1: I'm petrified of this, but it probably makes sense. It
26:11
Speaker 1: just seems way too painful for what I'm willing to do.
26:14
Speaker 1: Those are the questions you gotta ask yourself with beauty
26:16
Speaker 1: of like the comfort, what are you willing to to
26:19
Speaker 1: suffer for it? This picture of Kim Kardashian is shocking,
26:23
Speaker 1: And I know this is ridiculous history, and you're like,
26:25
Speaker 1: this is not history, but we did want to keep
26:28
Speaker 1: bringing up these kind of modern examples just to continue
26:31
Speaker 1: to make the point y. Yeah, exactly, it's easy to
26:35
Speaker 1: laugh at these past examples, but we're kind of still
26:38
Speaker 1: doing a lot of similar things, right, the micro needling
26:42
Speaker 1: thing it exists. Acupuncture has been proven as as a
26:46
Speaker 1: stress relief, but to be fair, when you look at
26:48
Speaker 1: people who go for full acupuncture, it looks like a
26:50
Speaker 1: horrifying the beginning of a movie, torture movie. So there's that,
26:54
Speaker 1: but we know there's benefits to it. However, what if
26:58
Speaker 1: in twenty years are like, you didn't know as much
27:02
Speaker 1: as you thought you did. I think that's probably you
27:05
Speaker 1: didn't know as much as you thought you did. Is
27:08
Speaker 1: the theme for the every year exactly like every twenty years.
27:11
Speaker 1: I think that next generation can say that. Um. Also,
27:15
Speaker 1: you can still tour the Castle of Elizabeth Bathory and
27:18
Speaker 1: they sell Bathory blood red wine. So they're really leaning
27:21
Speaker 1: into this whole thing. And I just want to put
27:23
Speaker 1: in here. I remember a few years back there was
27:25
Speaker 1: this big news story about injecting, like older folks injecting
27:29
Speaker 1: blood from young folks to like get their use in vitality.
27:33
Speaker 1: So again, like we're still doing these things, all right,
27:38
Speaker 1: but let's move on to teeth, uh, and let's talk
27:41
Speaker 1: about what you you mentioned earlier, Samantha with the black teeth, right.
27:46
Speaker 1: So in one of the things that we looked at,
27:48
Speaker 1: they talked about the culture of black teeth, which we
27:51
Speaker 1: don't see much of ever anymore because we are obsessed
27:54
Speaker 1: with bleaching our teeth. Um, But way back when, Uh,
27:58
Speaker 1: in Japan, they would actually to have black blacker teeth,
28:01
Speaker 1: and there are several theories as to why, including maybe
28:04
Speaker 1: because yes, they dawned on the very white makeup and
28:07
Speaker 1: the contrast of their not as white teeth was very,
28:11
Speaker 1: very prominent, So therefore they would him. We're like, hey,
28:13
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this all black, because black was considered
28:15
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful colors within that culture. And
28:18
Speaker 1: to be fair, I love black. Like when you look
28:22
Speaker 1: at black onyx and any of those really beautiful stones,
28:25
Speaker 1: that's just a glossy black. There's something beautiful about that
28:28
Speaker 1: at black, a slimming So I'm cool with that. I
28:31
Speaker 1: will wear that all day. It helps you with your emotions,
28:35
Speaker 1: that's playing. That's the whole different level. But yeah, so
28:37
Speaker 1: black was considered so beautiful and so rare that it
28:40
Speaker 1: was also an added, uh function of showing their level
28:43
Speaker 1: in society. Also, black boos teeth were kind of a
28:47
Speaker 1: measure of your, as we said, maturity, and it not
28:50
Speaker 1: only just didn't age, but possibly with sexual um understanding.
28:55
Speaker 1: And I read in one column where they said that
28:57
Speaker 1: it possibly could have been used within the gay culture
29:01
Speaker 1: to show off their sexual maturity as well, that if
29:03
Speaker 1: they had that black teeth. Then that's what it shows.
29:06
Speaker 1: And it even goes as far as being used into
29:09
Speaker 1: ghost folklore, which I love because Annie and I, if
29:13
Speaker 1: you come to our show, you're gonna understand we love ghosts,
29:17
Speaker 1: we love horror, we love all those things, and especially
29:20
Speaker 1: what those implications meaning for women or in a feminist lens.
29:24
Speaker 1: But this specifically was a woman who was all white faced,
29:28
Speaker 1: black teeth, but no actual eyes, no nose, just her teeth,
29:32
Speaker 1: and she didn't she was apparently harmless. She'd just like
29:35
Speaker 1: to scare people. I can get behind that, right, I
29:38
Speaker 1: can get hyding that. Uh yeah. So the women and
29:42
Speaker 1: actually men did this too, and in fact this is
29:45
Speaker 1: a because this went on from two in Japan until
29:50
Speaker 1: about the eighteen seventies, and during that time period it
29:54
Speaker 1: shifted over who could do it and what it meant. Um.
29:57
Speaker 1: So for a period like wealthy men were the only
30:01
Speaker 1: ones who did it outside of a few exceptions, and women,
30:04
Speaker 1: um but whatever the case, women would drink this tea
30:09
Speaker 1: with pieces of iron in it that would oxidize and
30:12
Speaker 1: die the liquid black, and scientists actually believe that this
30:15
Speaker 1: strengthened the teeth, that they had really strong teeth. They
30:19
Speaker 1: were like they had the best teeth ever. And even
30:22
Speaker 1: though it looks like what we would consider it rotting,
30:26
Speaker 1: they had really strong teeth. And I'm like, Okay, maybe
30:29
Speaker 1: we really do need to do this iron teeth. And
30:34
Speaker 1: and Japan wasn't the only place that did this, especially
30:38
Speaker 1: in in Asia, a couple of cultures had similar practices.
30:42
Speaker 1: But also, um, this wasn't the only time black teeth
30:45
Speaker 1: were in outside of Asia because Queen Elizabeth the First
30:48
Speaker 1: again was a huge fan of sweets, which meant that
30:52
Speaker 1: her teeth were blackened and decaying. And it became a
30:56
Speaker 1: brief trend for women to blacken their teeth to prove
31:00
Speaker 1: that they too had enough money for sugar in Europe.
31:04
Speaker 1: So I feel that's the opposite of what was happening
31:07
Speaker 1: in Japan. But okay, very very very different, correct, And
31:11
Speaker 1: when we look at teeth in general, it has been
31:14
Speaker 1: used as a standard of beauty or even just a
31:18
Speaker 1: uh divisive issue of what is in and what isn't in.
31:22
Speaker 1: And even today we talk about grinding teeth. So when
31:25
Speaker 1: we talk about grinding takes, I'm not talking about you know,
31:27
Speaker 1: being stressed out, worried about things and doing these things
31:30
Speaker 1: inadvertently that you have to go to the dentist for
31:32
Speaker 1: we're specifically talking about cultural things where they may have
31:36
Speaker 1: ground specific teeth to show that they are a not
31:40
Speaker 1: animalistic and it kind of separates them as being a
31:43
Speaker 1: higher being. They felt like it was a way of
31:46
Speaker 1: measuring their adulthood and maturity and to rectify and show
31:50
Speaker 1: that they are of a higher plane. We can say,
31:55
Speaker 1: but just an understanding that they were not animals and
31:58
Speaker 1: that it separated them from that and the way that
32:00
Speaker 1: their teeth were shaped and who they were. Of course
32:03
Speaker 1: we do see teeth or that we're sharpened in two
32:05
Speaker 1: points and able to show their animalistic manliness as well.
32:11
Speaker 1: And we're not gonna say that it's just one because
32:13
Speaker 1: it's still practice today. They're still shaping of their teeth
32:16
Speaker 1: and we don't quite get what's happening, but it is
32:19
Speaker 1: for their specific culture, and I think it's something that
32:23
Speaker 1: we note because grinding teeth it sounds like a nightmare
32:26
Speaker 1: to me. I have very sensitive teeth growing out, growing
32:30
Speaker 1: up with like no enamel on my bottom teeth. That
32:32
Speaker 1: sounds like a horror, horrific experience. Which may be part
32:35
Speaker 1: of the thing is that it comes through in a
32:38
Speaker 1: way of showing your manliness that you're able to withstand
32:41
Speaker 1: the grinding of teeth. I don't know, that's just an opinion,
32:45
Speaker 1: because I feel like you that you just have to
32:47
Speaker 1: go to a whole different level of pain to go
32:49
Speaker 1: through that. But also in the way back when days
32:52
Speaker 1: they also it would put jewels within their teeth, and
32:55
Speaker 1: they found skulls and different are archaeological days that showed
32:59
Speaker 1: that they had actual, remaining, beautiful jewels within all of
33:03
Speaker 1: their teeth, which I think put them on a different
33:05
Speaker 1: social standard as well. Yeah that makes sense. Um also
33:10
Speaker 1: sounds painful but makes sense. A well, well, let's move
33:14
Speaker 1: on to fashion then, no more teeth. It's not going
33:17
Speaker 1: to get much better though. So arsenic we're talking about
33:21
Speaker 1: Arsenic again was also used as a dye to get
33:24
Speaker 1: Paris green, which I have to say, it was a
33:26
Speaker 1: beautiful color during the Victorian era. But doctors started to
33:30
Speaker 1: notice a link between women's love of this color and
33:33
Speaker 1: a rise in the death of young women due to cancer,
33:36
Speaker 1: and they put it together. There was enough of a
33:40
Speaker 1: link that they saw that they were like, oh gosh,
33:42
Speaker 1: stop wearing this color. Right. I like that that I
33:45
Speaker 1: have a feeling that they were like stop wearing this color,
33:47
Speaker 1: but keep ingesting your way. First, the wafers are fine,
33:51
Speaker 1: but the color not good. Not good. Uh, and let's
33:54
Speaker 1: talk about the damn courses. Now we have seen many
33:58
Speaker 1: a pictures and we know the damage that it could
34:00
Speaker 1: have caused, and we even talked about it today where
34:03
Speaker 1: they have the shapers, and then there's still kind of
34:05
Speaker 1: a conversation of like how healthy is this? Who is
34:08
Speaker 1: doing it? Was it for um? But yeah, these courses
34:12
Speaker 1: were legitimately towards your chambers to me, like, I cannot
34:16
Speaker 1: imagine what kind of pain you had to go through.
34:18
Speaker 1: And of course there's rumors and assumptions that it caused
34:23
Speaker 1: a lot of damage, including people talking about cracked riz
34:26
Speaker 1: possibly people removing ribs. Uh. They used it to get
34:30
Speaker 1: the perfect s curve, I believe is what was called.
34:33
Speaker 1: And I'm just coming like what no, thank you? Yeah,
34:37
Speaker 1: and achieved the fourteen inch waste. Yeah, I'm trying to
34:43
Speaker 1: figure that out, Like I'm trying to see that in
34:45
Speaker 1: my head as a picture of what fourteen inch so
34:48
Speaker 1: that would be half of mine. Oh and you're tiny, yeah,
34:54
Speaker 1: and there's a I mean, we're not gonna go too
34:56
Speaker 1: deeply into this because I feel like it has been
34:58
Speaker 1: discussed in the past, Like there are a lot of rumors,
35:02
Speaker 1: like you can't verify historically in the record that people
35:07
Speaker 1: got ribs removed, But it's terrifying enough that we believe
35:11
Speaker 1: it's like people might have done that. That's scary enough.
35:15
Speaker 1: And whether who got punctured with like cracked ribs, that's
35:18
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, it definitely led to rib
35:22
Speaker 1: cage deform to use spineus alignments terrible things. Um, but
35:27
Speaker 1: let's talk about the nineteenth century crinoline hoop skirt. So
35:30
Speaker 1: so these courses we were talking about, we're also from
35:32
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. But this hoop skirt, these hoopskirts were
35:35
Speaker 1: made with wood or steel, and they caused all kinds
35:38
Speaker 1: of issues from wind gusts, like getting caught up in
35:41
Speaker 1: wind gusts, getting caught up in wheels, um, inability to
35:46
Speaker 1: get out of door raised and in fact, a fire
35:48
Speaker 1: at a Chilean church in eighteen sixty three left thousands dead,
35:53
Speaker 1: many of whom were women whose crinoline skirts got caught
35:57
Speaker 1: in the door and they couldn't get out. Terrifying, Yeah,
36:01
Speaker 1: that is horrifying. Could you imagine just having these skarts
36:04
Speaker 1: and trying to be pretty, but you're gonna end up
36:07
Speaker 1: being up in flames. I know. I definitely read how
36:10
Speaker 1: Oscar wild to half Sisters burned to death. Whether crinoline
36:15
Speaker 1: skirts caught on fire, no wonder. Oscar is so so jaded.
36:20
Speaker 1: First name basis he and I would have been friends,
36:23
Speaker 1: and I've been like, dude, sorry, that is a horror movie.
36:28
Speaker 1: Like I can't imagine being an address that's just got
36:30
Speaker 1: on fire. It is terrifying. And all he wanted to
36:32
Speaker 1: do that day was look pretty in your skirt. You
36:36
Speaker 1: probably started with very high hopes. You go up. And
36:41
Speaker 1: let's talk about a different skirt. The hobble skirt, also
36:43
Speaker 1: called the speed limit skirt whip. I had never heard of,
36:47
Speaker 1: so this is ah. It was a long skirt with
36:50
Speaker 1: an extremely narrow him around the wears calves and it
36:54
Speaker 1: was popular during the nineteen tens. And you know, hobbling
37:00
Speaker 1: the word This was a method of tying and animals
37:02
Speaker 1: legs together to prevent them from escaping, right, and I
37:06
Speaker 1: love that This is the French designer Paul Paray often
37:10
Speaker 1: who by the way, is credited for inventing this cart says, Uh,
37:14
Speaker 1: he wasn't a fan of the corset m and so
37:17
Speaker 1: he stated, yes, I freed the bust. Oh great, thank you,
37:20
Speaker 1: but I shackled the legs. Congratulations, Les, congratulationous ball, You're
37:26
Speaker 1: the worst. Thank you. And here is a bonus man
37:31
Speaker 1: fact um, because men weren't immune to ridiculous beauty turns either.
37:36
Speaker 1: And we've we've discussed some of these. Uh, Samantha, you
37:39
Speaker 1: like to bring up the calves when calves were super popular. Yeah.
37:43
Speaker 1: I love the fact that that that's they were so
37:45
Speaker 1: proud of it. And uh, that's a Scrubs episode by
37:47
Speaker 1: the way of of the older doctor who's very proud
37:50
Speaker 1: of his calves. But yeah, they were showing those calves
37:53
Speaker 1: all like nobody's business. Don't worry about the brust, it's
37:56
Speaker 1: the calves. It's the calves. Uh. And the copy was
38:00
Speaker 1: something that I really floated for this episode, but I
38:02
Speaker 1: got shut down. So if you're mad at anybody, take
38:05
Speaker 1: it up a bin and knoll Um, even though they
38:08
Speaker 1: really had nothing to do with this, but take it
38:10
Speaker 1: up with them. Yeah, but here is I had never
38:14
Speaker 1: heard of this. Um. It was this high and tight
38:18
Speaker 1: collar that men wore during the nineteenth century, especially in
38:22
Speaker 1: the upper class, and it was called the father killer
38:28
Speaker 1: um and they were pretty much what the name sounds
38:30
Speaker 1: like in terms of high and tight color. Not necessarily
38:33
Speaker 1: father killer, but these collars could get so tight they
38:36
Speaker 1: would cut off oxygen to the brain, and drinking made
38:39
Speaker 1: the whole thing much more dangerous. I mean the very
38:42
Speaker 1: fact that it has that nickname. Yeah, did you see
38:46
Speaker 1: some of the pictures when you would looking this up?
38:48
Speaker 1: It literally is just a man sitting up with his
38:50
Speaker 1: head hung over to the side because he just he died.
38:53
Speaker 1: He died because the oxygen was cut off. And you're like, well, damn,
38:58
Speaker 1: that wasn't a good choice for the day, was it? No?
39:00
Speaker 1: Once again? But who could know? Who could have known
39:05
Speaker 1: that a caller would kill you? Also, I wanted to
39:07
Speaker 1: mention sexual piercings. So there's not too much written record
39:14
Speaker 1: to back this up, but there's a few, and apparently,
39:17
Speaker 1: if we're to believe the record, these were popular among
39:20
Speaker 1: those that could afford it during the Victorian era. For women,
39:24
Speaker 1: this might mean piercing nipples their nipples and connecting them
39:27
Speaker 1: with a chain, while men might pierce the head of
39:29
Speaker 1: their penis, and this was called a Prince Albert because
39:32
Speaker 1: apparently he had one, and also apparently I don't believe this,
39:37
Speaker 1: but I guess it made wearing the ever tighter pants
39:40
Speaker 1: that were in fashion more comfortable. Well, we know that
39:43
Speaker 1: the Prince Albert supposedly still exists or there were those
39:47
Speaker 1: who did it not too long ago, years ago. So
39:50
Speaker 1: if that exists, let us know. Doesn't help with with
39:52
Speaker 1: your pants. Don't let us know, but do not. Let
40:03
Speaker 1: us move on now to hair, because historically we've fluctuated
40:07
Speaker 1: on where hair should and shouldn't be. Um, so let's
40:10
Speaker 1: start with hair removal. Ancient Egyptians and Renaissance women used
40:14
Speaker 1: a dangerous mixture of once again arsenic, arsenic yep, and
40:18
Speaker 1: quicklime to remove unwanted hair. Yeah, so, ancient great women
40:22
Speaker 1: may have used arsenic again among other things, to also
40:26
Speaker 1: lighten their hair, since blonde was seen as exotic and
40:31
Speaker 1: it still is obviously as we use bleached now safer
40:35
Speaker 1: to continue with that tradition. Yes. Uh. And during the
40:39
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, when women's foreheads were considered highly attractive, some
40:43
Speaker 1: women removed eyelashes and eyebrows to draw attention to it
40:48
Speaker 1: and related plenty. The Elder wrote that women's eyelashes fell
40:53
Speaker 1: out due to too much sex. So ancient Roman women
40:56
Speaker 1: took great care of their eyelashes because it was the
40:59
Speaker 1: look look, it was what was trendy, but also to
41:02
Speaker 1: prove their chastis okay. As an Asian woman, it that
41:05
Speaker 1: doesn't have that doesn't have a lot of eyelashes. I'm
41:08
Speaker 1: very confused. I'm very confused, and I don't understand how
41:12
Speaker 1: this is correlated to sex. So I'm gonna need to
41:16
Speaker 1: take a minute. Keep going. I I understand the thought process,
41:20
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's correct. According to article from
41:25
Speaker 1: the Dundee Chronicle, here's how eyelash extensions at the time
41:29
Speaker 1: went down and just like trigger warning, this is pretty gruesome.
41:32
Speaker 1: Um quote. An ordinary fine needle is threaded with a
41:35
Speaker 1: long hair, generally taken from the head of the person
41:37
Speaker 1: to be operated upon. The lower border of the island
41:40
Speaker 1: isn't thoroughly cleaned, and, in order that the process may
41:43
Speaker 1: be as painless as possible, rubbed with a solution of cocaine.
41:47
Speaker 1: The operator, then, by a few skillful touches, runs his
41:52
Speaker 1: needle through the extreme edges of the islid between the
41:55
Speaker 1: epidermist and the lower border of the cartilage of the tragus.
41:58
Speaker 1: The needle passes that and out along the edge of
42:01
Speaker 1: the lid, leaving its hair threaded loops of carefully graduated
42:06
Speaker 1: like mm hmm. When this article came out, the trend
42:10
Speaker 1: had already been around in Europe for at least two decades.
42:13
Speaker 1: Oh god, I just can't imagine how many times our
42:15
Speaker 1: eyes were poked out. That's like a horror movie in itself.
42:19
Speaker 1: Move on next. Yeah, by the way, Yeah, we're gonna
42:23
Speaker 1: move on now, because there you go, there's your torture moment. Moment.
42:26
Speaker 1: But they also used X rays. Yes, the X rays
42:29
Speaker 1: where we are fairly heavily guarded to make sure we
42:32
Speaker 1: don't get the extra of the X rays. Uh. They
42:36
Speaker 1: actually used that as hair removal at one point in
42:38
Speaker 1: time during the nineteen twenties. Uh. It led to serious
42:41
Speaker 1: injuries like not surprisingly bone loss. Uh. These devices were
42:47
Speaker 1: incredibly wild looking, including the Treaco system invented by Dr
42:52
Speaker 1: Albert C. Geyser. He recommended a series tend to twenty
42:57
Speaker 1: short treatments. I don't know how many short treatments we're
43:00
Speaker 1: gonna handle. In general. Up until the nineteen forties, medical
43:03
Speaker 1: journals reported on the cases of women injured and other
43:06
Speaker 1: ill effects of using this system, this really bad system,
43:11
Speaker 1: and they definitely don't recommend it today. No, it kind
43:15
Speaker 1: of looks like a big mr I that you like
43:18
Speaker 1: put things you wanted to get to be costly too,
43:21
Speaker 1: like why it was huge. Um. But on the other hand,
43:26
Speaker 1: there have been instances of when hair, especially big hair,
43:32
Speaker 1: has been in vogue. And I know I've been in
43:35
Speaker 1: all have done an episode on wigs. Why did people
43:37
Speaker 1: why did judges wear wigs before? And so we're just
43:39
Speaker 1: going to briefly touch on this. But in in the
43:41
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, women when these big, tall wigs were in fashion, um,
43:48
Speaker 1: they would use lard to keep this hair in place,
43:51
Speaker 1: these wigs in place, and that went to lice infestations,
43:55
Speaker 1: rhett infestations, and then with cages to keep out the
44:00
Speaker 1: and scratching sticks. And by the way, this was also
44:04
Speaker 1: very flammable, and if you look through some of the history,
44:06
Speaker 1: there's conversations of people dying from their ways catching on fire. Yeah,
44:12
Speaker 1: we laugh, but it's sad. It's unibrows. At one point
44:17
Speaker 1: during ancient Greece, Union brows, often made of goat hair
44:21
Speaker 1: or painted on the pigment, were all the rage, and
44:23
Speaker 1: they could symbolize things like intelligence, and in some parts
44:26
Speaker 1: of the world today unibrows are considered the fashionable beauty
44:31
Speaker 1: standard that you want to achieve. Um ancient Chinese women
44:35
Speaker 1: shaped and painted their eyebrows and various colors like blue,
44:39
Speaker 1: and I believe other Asian cultures during that time did similar.
44:43
Speaker 1: And by the way, once upon a time, not having
44:46
Speaker 1: eyebrows was also a thing. When we were talking about
44:48
Speaker 1: the no like the large foreheads, they would also take
44:51
Speaker 1: off the eyebrows because they wanted the foreheads, and by
44:55
Speaker 1: they actually used standpaper like to stand off the hairs.
45:00
Speaker 1: Know that sounds horrible, but then again, I was just
45:03
Speaker 1: thinking about the fact that to this day you can
45:04
Speaker 1: still go pour hot wax on your leg and then
45:06
Speaker 1: rip it off. That's also really painful. Honey laser like
45:12
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. I'm telling you, let's move to body
45:18
Speaker 1: shaping and modification, and let's talk about Belladonna or deadly nightshade.
45:24
Speaker 1: So these were drops for the eyes used to achieve
45:27
Speaker 1: a sexy and seductive, blown out wide eye to look
45:31
Speaker 1: that do we look like you were? So you know,
45:33
Speaker 1: the deer and the headlights look. They love that yeah, call,
45:36
Speaker 1: it was caused by dilation, a deluded version of the
45:39
Speaker 1: active ingredient which is used to dilate eyes to this day.
45:43
Speaker 1: But they usually tell you don't drive after the side
45:45
Speaker 1: because exactly um, but undiluted. The side effects may include vertigo, headache,
45:53
Speaker 1: blurred vision, and potentially blindness. And just by the way,
45:57
Speaker 1: Belladonna means beautiful woman. Yes, beautiful woman who's gonna blind you? Well,
46:04
Speaker 1: every beautiful woman is dangerous and might kill you according
46:09
Speaker 1: to our horror series, yes I'm being sarcastic. Oh, I'm sorry,
46:14
Speaker 1: but according to the horror movies, yes, I'm still sticking
46:16
Speaker 1: with that. But we also want to talk about head shaping,
46:20
Speaker 1: which was used in several different cultures way back when,
46:24
Speaker 1: way like when they've had archaeological digs and discovering heads
46:28
Speaker 1: that had been elongated to have cone shaped heads, which
46:32
Speaker 1: they stated it would have been done um within like
46:35
Speaker 1: a month of their birth and banded, bandaged up um.
46:38
Speaker 1: And of course they talked about the fact that, yeah,
46:40
Speaker 1: this would have caused a lot of damage and sometimes death,
46:43
Speaker 1: which is really sad um. And we know that shaping
46:47
Speaker 1: is not new. It's not a new thing, and it's
46:49
Speaker 1: been around, and it kind of still around. Um in
46:52
Speaker 1: several different other aspects of ways. I've actually seen where
46:56
Speaker 1: they were binding breasts to stop the growth of the
47:00
Speaker 1: breast tissues because they wanted small breast, which I'm like, yeah, cool,
47:03
Speaker 1: I would have been in then. Um. And then we
47:06
Speaker 1: can talk about foot binding, which we're not gonna get
47:08
Speaker 1: too into obviously because it's been discussed and if you've
47:11
Speaker 1: seen those pictures, they are painful, including the fact that
47:13
Speaker 1: women had to really learn to walk after the bidenings occurred.
47:17
Speaker 1: And this whole aspect of the smaller feet, which is
47:20
Speaker 1: still a joke today, uh used against women about having
47:23
Speaker 1: big feet is a bad thing for women, great for
47:26
Speaker 1: men apparently, like even shaming men in general about their
47:28
Speaker 1: feet size as well. So it's a whole other thing.
47:31
Speaker 1: And it started in the tenth century and yeah, and
47:34
Speaker 1: then the practice happened continued in China until nineteen forty nine. Again,
47:39
Speaker 1: it's the whole thing if you look at what happens.
47:41
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and and that's worth its its whole episode.
47:45
Speaker 1: But we did want to mention it because there are
47:49
Speaker 1: modern day similarities in terms of things that people are doing,
47:54
Speaker 1: like toe shortening, tobesity and Cinderella procedures, so that they're
48:00
Speaker 1: feet in. Generally we're talking about women here will fit
48:03
Speaker 1: better in heavils and those Sometimes those hills are no joke. People.
48:09
Speaker 1: They can be I'm I'm scared of heels. And then
48:14
Speaker 1: dangerous diets, I would say, also falls in this category. Um,
48:17
Speaker 1: we're not going to talk about too many of them,
48:19
Speaker 1: because yes, that could also be it's a whole episode,
48:22
Speaker 1: and you can contact but a Knoll if you want
48:24
Speaker 1: to hear more about that, you can contact us. We
48:26
Speaker 1: can take over again. But they have had it on
48:28
Speaker 1: our show. We may have already talked about it. But
48:31
Speaker 1: one of the famous examples of this is the tapeworm diet,
48:34
Speaker 1: which actually may or may not have existed. A nineteen
48:36
Speaker 1: twelve article in the Washington Post titled tapeworm pills for
48:39
Speaker 1: fat People merely a wild yarn, says experts claim that
48:43
Speaker 1: it was just a myth. However, you can still find
48:46
Speaker 1: old ads for it. So it reminds me of what
48:49
Speaker 1: we said earlier. I think the terrifying thing about this
48:52
Speaker 1: is I believe it could exist, right, And if you
48:55
Speaker 1: look at diets today, some seem really really out like
48:58
Speaker 1: far fetched, but they is so I could not imagine
49:01
Speaker 1: what we know today and the diece that exists today
49:03
Speaker 1: and what we didn't know way back when and what
49:06
Speaker 1: may have existed then yes, oh yes, Well, speaking of
49:10
Speaker 1: we wanted to close this out with some contraptions, because
49:13
Speaker 1: who doesn't love a terrifying contraption Probably a lot of people,
49:16
Speaker 1: but um, and we wanted to start with the dimple stamper,
49:21
Speaker 1: which was invented in n quote spring loaded contraption that
49:26
Speaker 1: promised to make a fine set by pressing a pair
49:29
Speaker 1: of knobs into the cheeks. I'm telling you, please, if
49:33
Speaker 1: you would like to, I don't want to pressure you,
49:35
Speaker 1: but I look up pictures hilarious. They're terrifying and very funny. Yeah,
49:42
Speaker 1: And I went out a brief rabbit hole because I
49:44
Speaker 1: was just sort of curious about why dimples. Dimples are attractive,
49:48
Speaker 1: and it seems like the main theory is that it
49:51
Speaker 1: reminds us of youth that we've seen throughout this and
49:55
Speaker 1: to this day there are dimple piercings and surgeries. Yeah,
49:59
Speaker 1: and then also there's the freckle remover, which, by the way,
50:01
Speaker 1: apparently still exists. It is not the same contraptions but
50:04
Speaker 1: the idea of removing freckles, which I'm confused by because
50:08
Speaker 1: I thought that that was in and has been in
50:09
Speaker 1: because freckles are cute. Keep your freckles, I'd like them.
50:13
Speaker 1: But apparently, whether it's they're scraping it off or they're
50:16
Speaker 1: burning it off with chemicals or all of these things,
50:19
Speaker 1: they're still chemicals and gadgets that are used. But if
50:23
Speaker 1: you look at the old school things, it literally is
50:25
Speaker 1: like they're trying to scrape it off your face. Weird.
50:29
Speaker 1: Oh well, all right, let's talk about dr Max Chin
50:35
Speaker 1: reducer and beautifier is hilarious. Okay, So this looks like
50:40
Speaker 1: a leather strap or some fabric around the forehead and
50:43
Speaker 1: then over the top of the head with what appears
50:46
Speaker 1: to be these metal pulleys with cords threaded through them
50:49
Speaker 1: that you're meant to pull out. You you pull that
50:52
Speaker 1: they were kind of resting along your cheeks, and you
50:54
Speaker 1: pull on them to quote massage your double chin away.
50:58
Speaker 1: Only ten dollars Antha, Yeah, here's the ad. What better
51:03
Speaker 1: investment could be made? Curves of youth will be yours
51:06
Speaker 1: if you pull the chords, pull those chords. It'll work perfectly. Also,
51:12
Speaker 1: I thought double Gen's had more curves. I'm confused. I
51:16
Speaker 1: don't think we should question too deeply the logic of
51:19
Speaker 1: these ads, and I think that will get us in
51:23
Speaker 1: a loop that we won't be able to escape from.
51:27
Speaker 1: Um also, no shapers, So this was like a helmet
51:32
Speaker 1: for your nose. It was like a case who knows
51:33
Speaker 1: that was held in place by two straps around your head,
51:36
Speaker 1: promising to give you the perfect nose. Right and forget
51:40
Speaker 1: that that the facts that you have, the cartilages and
51:42
Speaker 1: you know, bones and your nose, this will be perfect
51:45
Speaker 1: for you. Which also looks like a ridiculous bandage monster movie.
51:51
Speaker 1: It does. And speaking of monster movies, we've got to
51:53
Speaker 1: talk about the beauty micrometer because I laughed aloud when
51:56
Speaker 1: I saw this one. It looks like something out of Hell.
51:59
Speaker 1: Raiser Ore saw is the torture machine. It absolutely looks
52:03
Speaker 1: like a torture machine. And here's the ad for it.
52:06
Speaker 1: Recently perfected by Max Factor, one of Hollywood's most famous
52:10
Speaker 1: beauty experts. A new instrument designed to aid makeup men
52:13
Speaker 1: accurately registers actors facial measurements and discloses which features should
52:18
Speaker 1: be reduced are enhanced in the makeup process flaws almost
52:22
Speaker 1: invisible to the ordinary I become glaring distortions when thrown
52:26
Speaker 1: upon the screen and highly magnified images, but factors beauty
52:30
Speaker 1: micrometer reveals the defects. The device, remotely resembling a baseball
52:35
Speaker 1: mask um nah, fits over the head and face. The
52:39
Speaker 1: flexible metal strips metal strips, which is conformed closely to
52:44
Speaker 1: the various features. The strips are held in place by
52:47
Speaker 1: a set of screws along for three possible adjustments. For instance,
52:52
Speaker 1: the subjects noos is slightly crooked, so slightly in fact
52:56
Speaker 1: that it escapes ordinary observation, The flaws promptly detected by
53:01
Speaker 1: the instrument, and corrective makeup is applied by an experienced operator. Okay,
53:06
Speaker 1: first of all, three hundred twenty five possible. Really, I
53:10
Speaker 1: just I don't like being told the one thing that's
53:12
Speaker 1: wrong with that phase, the ten things, five different ways. No,
53:16
Speaker 1: thank you. I don't need a machine to tell me
53:19
Speaker 1: that I am I have a quote defect, but that
53:23
Speaker 1: I can't see. That's not necessary. I don't want it
53:27
Speaker 1: in my life. No one can see it, but we
53:29
Speaker 1: can see it and tell you, Oh girl, you're gonna
53:31
Speaker 1: change that real quick. My other favorite, and it doesn't
53:37
Speaker 1: seem like it would be a big thing. It's called
53:39
Speaker 1: the hair wave machine, and yes it is what you think.
53:41
Speaker 1: This is for women who wanted curls in the nineteen hundreds.
53:45
Speaker 1: You know who doesn't love that cute look? Um, and
53:48
Speaker 1: they had this device for them. It looks like literally
53:52
Speaker 1: looks like a matrix which I just recently watched again
53:55
Speaker 1: set prop to torture you. Uh, these tubes and pipes
53:59
Speaker 1: sucking human was dry. Yeah. Yeah, it's like I'm taking
54:03
Speaker 1: your soul and your brain waves. Um, but all concentrated
54:07
Speaker 1: yes on the head, so it's all like it's a
54:10
Speaker 1: I feel like the pictures I saw had a person
54:13
Speaker 1: in scrubs, so like, oh yeah, they're they're taking your
54:15
Speaker 1: brain brun girl runs um and women sit under these
54:20
Speaker 1: things for ten hours with the risk of possibly being
54:25
Speaker 1: burned or being bald. No, it's terrifying this picture. Uh yeah.
54:33
Speaker 1: Once again the things we have been willing and are
54:38
Speaker 1: continually willing to do for beauty. Um that we have
54:43
Speaker 1: covered a lot of ground in this episode, and we
54:46
Speaker 1: have also introduced a lot of pathways for future episodes
54:51
Speaker 1: because a lot of these topics should be covered more. Yes,
54:56
Speaker 1: you should be covering these subjects. Just kidding, uh, but
55:01
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you all for sticking with us on
55:04
Speaker 1: this journey on International Women's Day or whenever you have
55:07
Speaker 1: and to be listening to this. Um. Thanks to Casey Uh,
55:11
Speaker 1: the amazing wizard behind the scenes. We know you're the
55:16
Speaker 1: real man behind this project. We know you're the one. Oh, yes,
55:19
Speaker 1: we know it. Thanks to be a Null for inviting
55:25
Speaker 1: us to do this. Yes, I hope we did you proud? Yeah,
55:28
Speaker 1: I hope so. I I hope so. And if you
55:31
Speaker 1: would like to find us, you can find us on
55:33
Speaker 1: the podcast stuff Mom Never Told You where ever you
55:35
Speaker 1: listen to your podcast. You can also find us on
55:38
Speaker 1: Instagram at steffone ever told You are on Twitter at
55:40
Speaker 1: mom Stuff Podcast. You can find me personally at Annie
55:44
Speaker 1: Reese That's a an E y R E s E
55:47
Speaker 1: on Twitter or Instagram. I don't post much, but sometimes
55:50
Speaker 1: I post things. Yeah, And if you want to find me,
55:52
Speaker 1: I'm McVeigh Samantha m c v e y s A
55:56
Speaker 1: M A and T H or McVeigh Sam on both
55:59
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram. If you want all of the updates
56:02
Speaker 1: of my cute dogs a jerk Yes, UM, but not
56:08
Speaker 1: usually excuse it exclusive, So thank you again for listening,
56:13
Speaker 1: thanks to the Ridiculous History crew of Ben and Nolan Casey,
56:18
Speaker 1: and we hope that you come check us out. For
56:29
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart
56:31
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
56:34
Speaker 1: favorite shows