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Rouge

Page history last edited by H.Mehboob@warwick.ac.uk 5 years ago

 

ROUGE

 

Figure 1: "Lavinia Fenton" by George Knapton

 

1. Introduction

2. The rise of Rouge in England

3. Making rouge

4. Styles and application

5. Social controversy 

6. Toxicity

 

1. Introduction, definitions and etymology 

  

In the eternal quest of human beings to look their best, the 18thcentury was no exception to developing truly wild ways to perfect one's appearance. Images of women with ornate hairstyles piled high and bound into suffocating corsets spring may at first spring to mind, however perhaps an overlooked element of the fashion of the period lies in rouge and its complex history, which carries far more complex cultural connotations and sinister health implications than one might imagine upon the first glance at the portrait of an 18thcentury woman.

 

‘Rouge’ as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary:

 

Adj.  

  1. Of or being of the colour red. rare.

 

Noun

  1. Red colour; an instance of this. rare
  2. A cosmetic used to give colour to the cheeks or lips; (originally) a fine red cosmetic powder prepared from safflower. Now somewhat archaic.
  3. figurative and in allusive use. Something that adorns, embellishes, or disguises a person or thing, esp. in a superficial way. Also: natural redness of the face or cheeks; a flush, a blush.
  4.  A person wearing rouge. obsolete. rare.

 

Verb

  1. To apply rouge to (the cheeks, lips, etc.); to colour with rouge.
  2. To apply rouge to the face (cheeks, lips, etc.).
  3. To go red in the face; to blush; to become flushed.
  4. To cause to blush or become flushed; (more generally) to redden. Frequently in passive.

 

The Oxford English dictionary's analysis of the etymology of the word 'rouge' shows it to be a borrowing from the French language relating to the colour red, going back as early as 1130 in Old French.

 

2. The Rise of Rouge

 

The introduction of rouge in England is widely attributed to be a result of neighboring French influence in fashion. Paris, in particular, was widely regarded as the introducer of rouge into popular fashion, and as such Parisian women were regarded as inseparable from their use of rouge, and by 1791 it was estimated that women in France were using 2 million pots of rouge in one year alone. Brecknock, narrating a visit to Paris, describes the same as "The City of Paris, where Ladies of Fashion, and Actresses on the Stage are particularly remarkable for the immoderate Quantity of Rouge they put upon their Cheeks". Despite the picture Brecknock paints of the wearing of rouge being widespread, rouge was not on the whole as a fashion statement for all classes, but as one employed by those who could afford it. As such, it was seen as one of many symbols of wealth, and as such, when the French Revolution began, it became one of many symbols inextricably associated with the aristocracy and upper classes, and as such was largely pushed out of French fashion in defiance against the culture of excess which the French Revolution intended to quash. In the Memoirs of the late Mrs Robinson, Mrs Robinson describes the appearance of Mademoiselle Bertin, the dressmaker to Marie Antoinette, as "The native roses of her cheeks, glowing with health and youth, were stained, in conformity to the fashion of the French court, with the deepest rouge". Marie Antoinette herself, as the symbol of the excess of the Revolution, was frequently depicted with rouged cheeks, as in Vigée Le Brun’s “Marie Antoinette en Chemise”:

 

Figure 2: Vigée Le Brun’s “Marie Antoinette en Chemise”

 

However, where rouge was eliminated for its association with the upper classes in France, it was for this reason that it was adopted into English fashion. Where rouge had previously been associated with prostitution in England, the influence of French connection between rouge and the aristocracy allowed it to be reinvented as a respectable and popular fashion statement for the upper classes which was indicative of wealth and class, and as such it was remarketed as a means of rejuvenating the appearance of the well-to-do woman in the French style. However, despite its ongoing presence in English fashion during the period, the inescapable "Frenchness" of rouge itself remained pervasive in English opinions on the subject, and the classification of rouge as a French style, rather than part of English fashion culture. In Harriet's List of Covent-Garden Ladies, one lady wearing rouge is described as "[laying] on a profusion of rouge ... in the French stile and taste", and it was arguably this link between Rouge and France which allowed continental manufacturers of rouge to profit, by advertising the fact that their rouge had been produced in France, the original source of the fashion. 

 

3. Making rouge

 

William Salmon’s ‘Polygraphice’ points towards many of the methods employed in the homemade production of rouge for the period, which mainly involved extracting the pigments of various natural materials which were naturally highly pigmented:

 

 

Figures 3 and 4: Recipes for rouge in William Salmon's Polygraphice

 

However, the commercial manufacturing of rouge was vastly different and arguably much more dangerous. As trade increased between European countries, so did the innovation in cosmetics, resulting in a new rouge being manufactured known as 'Vermillion' rouge. This product was made from ground cinnabar, or mercury sulphide. 

 

Once made, rouge was often packaged and sold in small, ornate boxes, specifically designed to for their beauty and ease of use:

 


Figure 5: "Box for rouge and patches"

 

 

4. Using rouge

 

Cosmetic rouge was marketed as being a means of enhancing one's beauty in a natural way, by “immediately [giving] the complexion the most beautiful and natural blossom, which is impossible to be distinguished from nature itself” (General Advertiser, 1796). However, one might argue that the results were far from the natural flush which was advertised. Most portraits from the period demonstrate a strong flush of colour on the apples of the cheeks, barely blended and very striking in colour. The two most common styles of application were a line of rouge from the temple to the lips and a circle of rouge in the centre of the cheeks. As such, it is hard to reconcile the advertisements of rouge as an enhancement of the wearer's natural beauty with the reality of the fashion, which was bold, brash and more editorial than natural.

 

5. Controversy surrounding rouge

 

The Superficial

 

Though rouge was seen as a pleasure of the aristocracy and a symbol of disposable time and income, the connotations with rouge in the period are largely negative. Rouge, and cosmetics in general, were regarded as a deceptive tool, used by women to feign youth and beauty which they did not naturally possess. Wilke’s An Essay on Woman. [A spurious imitation of the real work.] comments on the gap between the real appearances of women, and those which are constructed with the application of rouge: 

 

And that great friend the rouge, embloom’d tho

Ere to the lips, auxiliary red,
Returns to the beauty which was lost in bed

[…]

TO see how fallow and how lean they look,

You’d swear for angels, devils you mistook

Amaz’d at the delusion, wond ring cry,

Did I for powder, paint, and patches, die.

 

The Pernicious Custom of Ladies Painting Themselves was highly critical of the use of rouge as an artificial substitute for natural beauty, writing that "by painting, [women] mean entirely to deceive the gazer; for they do not give a streak of read to enliven the eye, but they artfully blend the white and red to improve a yellow skin, and give artificial roses to the cheek where the roses of Nature had long faded”. Similarly In The Toilet: Addressed to the Fair, rouge is seen primarily as a tool of disguise:

 

“At the toilet of Maria there is no powder for the hair, no washes for the skin, no rouge for the cheeks, not pencils for the eyebrows; in short, none of those innumerable articles which which the silly part of the sex think to improve their charms, by disguising nature.” 

 

One might conclude that for the most part, the issue which society claimed to have with rouge, was not with it being worn, but its use by women to deceive their male counterparts into believing that they were more beautiful than they actually were. 

 

One particular example of this criticism of rouge was in Lady Archer, who was famed for her dedication to cosmetics and heavy use of blush, and was often a source of great ridicule in connection with this. Despite her involvement in establishing illegal gambling venues and criminal activity, she appeared more often in satirical pieces on the falsities of women, based upon her devotion to rouge. In Figures 5, she is pictured applying rouge to her cheeks and undergoing a transformation from ugliness to beauty, and in Figure 6, she is pictured at her dressing table, applying huge amounts of rouge to her cheeks.

 

Figure 6: Lady Archer in Thomas Rowlandson’s “Six Stages of Mending a Face”

 

FOR DESCRIPTION SEE GEORGE (BMSat). 1791 Hand-coloured etchingFigure 7:  Lady Archer in James Gillray's "The Finishing Touch" 

 

  

The Sexual

 

Despite England’s adoption of European association of rouge with wealth, there remained an inescapable sexual narrative which remained in the forefront of society's perception of rouge. The use of the term "painted ladies" during the period in place of "prostitute" emphasises the inextricable link between cosmetics and prostitution. Rowlandson's "Launching a Frigate" depicts two prostitutes, complete with a heavy application with rouge, outside a brothel in Portsmouth:

 

 

Figure 8: Thomas Rowlandson's "Launching a Frigate"

 

Rouge was even included in more official documentation in relation to prostitution; Thoughts on the fatal consequences of Female Prostitution; together with the outlines of a plan proposed to check those enormous evils was an officially published report on prostitution in England by Reverend Thomas Scott. His descriptions of the appearance of a prostitute appearing in Court mentions the wearing of rouge as a striking feature of the woman's appearance:

 

“The well-dressed but fast-fading beauty on whose cheeks the rouge is scattering and cracking, giving her in the daylight a pitiful and perishing appearance” 

 

Later in his report, he explores “The same routine of dirty cards, rouge, drink and scent.", once again reinforcing the centrality of rouge to the physical appearance and social perceptions of Eighteenth-century prostitutes.

 

The Destructive  

 

Despite its entire purpose being to rejuvenate and beautify the face, the application of rouge was not without criticism for its role in destroying natural female beauty. Mary Darby Robinson writes rouge served "to spoil a fair skin", and an unattributed poem in Extempore wrote of the same power of rouge to disrupt natural beauty:

 

Figure 9: "To a lady with a box of rouge"

 

In its narrator's incapability to abide the notion of rouge, the poem argues that the application of rouge does not revitalise the appearance of the wearer, but in fact serves to deform natural female beauty. The poet argues that nature's authentic "blush" of the cheeks is the only way in which a woman's beauty can truly show.

 

6. Rouge and Toxicity

 

During the Eighteenth-century, warnings did begin to emerge about the long-term implications of the frequent use of cosmetics such as rouge. "A caution to the ladies against the use of white lead as a cosmetick" discussed the dangers of both white cosmetics on the whole face and rouge on the cheeks, arguing that “it may be observed that the certain ruin of the complexion, to say nothing of more serious maladies, must ever attend the constant application of this drug”. Similarly, "The Art of Beauty" warned against use of highly toxic rouge, arguing "it is very dangerous; for by using it frequently they may lose their teeth, acquire a stinking breath, and excite a copious salivation". There were many warning such as these in circulation during the period, and it might thus be concluded that the population was aware of the dangers of cinnabar-based rouge, and consciously decided to continue to use it.


There were many cases of suspected rouge-related illness and death during the 18th century, particularly in relation to "cinnabar", or mercury sulphide products. Arguably, the most high profile case of the same was in Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry, a hugely popular icon of English makeup during the period who died at the age of 28. The Countess was so devoted to her cosmetics, a story has emerged that once, when her husband once tried to persuade her to give up her use of toxic cosmetics and she refused, he chased her around the dining table and wiped off her cheeks with a napkin.  Her death was widely regarded to be the result of her overuse of cinnabar-based rouge and lead-based face cream. Arguably, it was this case that brought the dangers of the overuse of cosmetics containing toxic ingredients to the forefront of social consciousness, leading inevitably to an effort to produce rouge which did not have the disastrous effect it had on the Countess of Coventry. 

 

Figure 10: Jean Etienne Liotard's "Maria, Countess of Coventry"

 

 

PRIMARY SOURCES

 

SECONDARY SOURCES

  • Angeloglou, Maggie. A History of Make-up. MacMillan, 1970. 

  • Butler, H. Poucher's Perfumes, Cosmetics and Soaps. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013.

  •  Finlay, Victoria. The Brilliant History of Colour in Art. Getty Publications, 2014.  

  • Martin, Morag. Selling Beauty: Cosmetics, Commerce, and French Society, 1750–1830. JHU Press, 2009.

  •   The National Trust, "Maria Gunning; Croome's great beauty". The National Trust, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/croome/features/maria-gunning---the-great-beauty-of-croome. 

  • Williams, Kate. "Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon". Random House, 2014. 

 

VISUAL SOURCES 

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