She might look great now but would Angelina Jolie pass old beauty tests?
What does beauty mean to you? A pout like Angelina Jolie? Thick bouncy hair like Cheryl Cole? The pain we go through now to achieve our look is nothing compared to what women put themselves through in the past.
In the 1800s women dropped extract of deadly nightshade into their eyes to dilate the pupils and recreate the eyes appearance in sexual arousal. Not only did this give women blurred vision, it raised heart rates and could even result in blindness. Note that men did not take part in this technique!
We're all slapping on the fake tan now in order to get a golden glow but back in Edwardian times women craved a porcelain skin colour worthy of Girls Aloud's Nicola Roberts. They would bleach their hands with arsenic and later their faces, what would Danielle Lloyd say! It might have seemed a good idea at the time but women did not realise that arsenic was deadly poisonous.
Ever spent hours trying to create the sculpted look that only razor sharp cheek bones can achieve? Spare a though for film stars of the 1940s who often had their wisdom teeth removed to create the effect of a hollow cheek. The point been that in their black and white films the shading would give the cheek a delicate look.
In the 1920s, flapper girls set the tone for style but underneath their fancy fringed dresses the girls were wearing restrictive bands to give their boobs a flatter appearance. Don't tell Jordan!
Ever burnt your self with your hair straighteners? Hurts doesn't it? Imagine then having to smooth out kinks in 1940s and 50s America where women used 'conking' techniques to relax the hair. This meant using a home made potion to burn the scalp and straighten her. Ouch.
Makes the tingling from lip plumping glosses seem like nothing now doesn't it!
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