Perfection: 400 Years of Women's Quest for Beauty

by Margarette Lincoln

A colourful account of women’s health, beauty, and cosmetic aids, from stays and corsets to today’s viral trends
 
Victorian women ate arsenic to achieve an ideal, pale complexion, while in the 1790s balloon corsets were all the rage, designed to make the wearer appear pregnant. Women of the eighteenth century applied blood from a black cat’s tail to problem skin, while doctors in the 1880s promoted woollen underwear to keep colds at bay. Beautification and the pursuit of health may seem all-consuming today, but their history is long and fantastically varied.
 
Ranging across the last four hundred years, Margarette Lincoln examines women’s health and beauty in fascinating detail. Through first-hand accounts and reports of physicians, quacks, and advertising, Lincoln captures women’s lived experience of consuming beauty products, and the excitement—and trauma—of adopting the latest fashion trends.
 
Considering everything from body sculpture, diet, and exercise to skin, teeth, and hair, Perfection is a vibrant account of women’s body-fashioning—and shows how intimately these practices are related to community and identity throughout history.

Genres: Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

Published October 29, 2024

About the author

Margarette Lincoln was director of research and collections and, from 2001, deputy director of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. She is now a visiting fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Reviews

[Kidlitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a serious view on the forces of social, health, cultural, practical and most of all economic forces that have shaped so much of women's lives for centuries. Though it has a British slant, it is a universal account of these pressures - some of the them positive, admittedly, in terms of hygiene and diversion, others nefarious. And that gorgeous cover depicting one of Herbert Gunn's portraits supports the thesis entirely - we're seduced by her gorgeous, made-up anxiously alluring self. Kudos to Lincoln.

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection: 400 Years of Women’s Quest for Beauty by Margarette Lincoln is a fascinating and deeply researched exploration of how women across centuries have navigated the complex relationship between health, beauty, and identity. From the deadly allure of Victorian arsenic pills to the curious balloon corsets of the eighteenth century, Lincoln exposes not only the extremes women endured but also the cultural forces that shaped these standards of perfection.

What makes this book stand out is its ability to blend historical precision with human depth. Through first hand accounts and the voices of physicians, advertisers, and ordinary women, Lincoln crafts a narrative that is both informative and intimate a mirror reflecting society’s evolving definition of beauty. The book isn’t merely a chronicle of fashion and cosmetics; it’s a social history of power, conformity, and self-expression.

Richly detailed, Perfection invites readers to consider how today’s viral beauty trends echo the same desires and anxieties that have persisted for centuries. It’s a vibrant, intelligent, and timely contribution to cultural history one that challenges us to rethink beauty not as vanity, but as a form of survival and identity.