Lately the demographics focused on veins could also be limited to nurses and the people commenting on fuckboy thirst traps, nevertheless they were over again widespread. In a time before Bondi Sands and St Tropez, beauty was measured by pallor – and one option to emphasise how pale you were was through the blueness of your veins.

The practice of drawing on veins has been recorded way back to Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome, but really got here into its own among the many upper classes in Seventeenth century England and France. “It was more prevalent within the French court because the English were more conservative with face paint,” cosmetics historian Gabriela Hernandez explains. By the Victorian era, the practice had turn out to be widely adopted, with recipes for blue pastes appearing right up until 1915, in line with make-up historian Louise Young.

Rooted within the racist and classist ideologies of the time, Victorian beauty ideals favoured pale, almost translucent skin, often known as alabaster. “Pale skin was a standing symbol, showing that ladies were wealthy enough to remain indoors and avoid the sun,” says Young. Women took to extreme measures to realize this pallid look, painting their faces with lead-based foundations and powders and even consuming arsenic to lighten their complexions. (The whitewashed face also conveniently covered up blemishes from pimples, smallpox and syphilis.) And having outstanding veins contributed to this look: “The veins made the skin look more delicate and translucent, making the white pastes appear more authentic – or so that they thought,” Young says.

For those people whose veins didn’t stand out naturally – or were too caked in make-up to be seen – veins might be applied using a blue paste constructed from a combination of calcium carbonate, gum arabic and Prussian blue, explains make-up artist Erin Parsons, who recreated the mixture for her series on vintage make-up. Oil-based cosmetic pencils were also used, manufactured by brands like Guerlain within the late nineteenth century. “These were often paper-wrapped color sticks fabricated from fats and pigments, with waxes to make them harder,” says Hernandez. “The color was drawn on the skin and blended with fingers, brushes or puffs.”

Much of this needed to be done in secret because, back within the 1800s, using make-up was not approved of by men, who associated it with sex employees and actresses. “Make-up in that point period was frowned on, so women went to great lengths to seem as in the event that they weren’t wearing it,” Young explains. If done subtly, though, these artificial veins could actually obscure the incontrovertible fact that make-up was being worn, because it created an illusion of naturalness. “By bringing out the veins and adding rouge, it’s as when you’re wearing nothing in any respect,” says Parsons who compares it to today’s practice of adding fake freckles on top of foundation to create a no-make-up make-up look. “By adding the freckles it creates this sense of naturalness to the skin. You’ve placed on all of your foundation, concealer and powder but by adding the freckles it’s meant to look as if you might have nothing on. It probably doesn’t at all times look realistic and I imagine it was the identical sense with drawing on veins.”

Throughout history, veins have held significance beyond anatomical structures: ancient civilisations in Rome imbued veins with spiritual and life-giving properties. This reverence for veins endured through the medieval and Renaissance periods, where they were considered essential channels through which the body’s vital forces flowed. Outside the Western world, people in Ancient Egypt traced their veins with blue paint constructed from calcium copper silicate – a combination often known as Egyptian blue. This application of blue was not an try and appear whiter but as an alternative an appreciation of the color.

The practice of vein colouring faded within the early twentieth century, as trends shifted and wealthy people began to point their status through the tanned skin of countless leisure activities and sunny holidays. Practically speaking, the white pastes used back then were also extremely dangerous. Despite lead being recognised as a poison since 1631, it lingered in beauty products until the Victorian era’s shift towards ‘natural’ beauty phased it out. Movements resembling the Recent Woman and the Suffragettes also meant that the fragile look of ladies lost its appeal, and more athletic aesthetics were adopted.