In The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness: a Complete Handbook for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society (Florence Hartley, © 1860. Public domain, USA), there’s a sizable section called “Receipts: for the Complexion.” It includes a number of Victorian-era beauty recipes that you can make yourself, if you’re so compelled.
Cold cream was like the Robitussin for the Victorian face. It had a distinct, pungent aroma that should indicate it does the job. It makes you want to sleep until you don’t feel gross anymore. But, unlike Robitussin, cold cream is best for those with oily yet dry, slightly patchy complexions. This is because it is an emulsion.
Emulsions melt and combine two or more ingredients that otherwise wouldn’t combine. It’s a bit of chemistry and a lot of cooking.
You melt a few of these ingredients in one of the other ones, pour all of it combined into a mortar then douse with or plunge the warm oils into water to make one of a few (Hartley lists three) different varieties of cold cream.
It is called “cold” cream because the key ingredient is temperature itself: Boiling, warm, or cold water yield the finished product, which is then cooled. The reason why temperature is so important is because it creates the type of emulsificative properties of the cream. And, if you are a lady, you know that different types of creams do different things.
There is also the material that make the vessel that the oils are poured into that plays a close second to temperature. The mortar, which is a vessel that should be marble or wedgwood, factor into the type of cream being produced because of the ability to heat these materials with the degree of uniformity required.
The third most important part of the process is the speed by which the temperature of the oils change. Slower speeds produce creamer oils. More drastic temperature changes produce a looser emulsion that’s slightly clotted.
The fourth most important item in the making of the three types of cold cream Hartley provides are the ingredients. Which you’d think would be the first most important thing. Many aspects of Victorian beauty regimens have more to do with the temperature and materials used to create the products than the ingredients in the products because you only buy those things once, and this is like cooking.
And like cooking, the ingredients serve as fat, salt and acid. In this recipe, and all beauty recipes of the Victorian age, products were food items combined with cosmetics. In other words, they’d spoil and stink.
Different types of fats: oil, cheese, and meat are fats which react to temperature. The fats used in these recipes are as follows:
Sweet oil of almond: oil of almond is made from the 50 percent of the drupe (that is the part that you’d eat) that is fat. That fat breaks down into omega-9 and omega-6 fatty acids, along with saturated fatty acids. It is also a rich source of Vitamin E. This, as the name implies, is the oil part of the fat equation.
White wax: this wax is water in-soluble and secreted from insects. It is also called Chinese Wax. It is very much like spermaceti. This would be the cheese part of the fat equation.
Spermaceti: in the 17th and 18th centuries, whaling was a major source of income because it created products that people bought and used often because they were expendable. One of the parts of the whale that was used was the waxy substance found in a gland in the whale’s head. This was spermaceti. It was used to make oils used in creams and salves, candles, and a lot of other things for the beauty and home. It was also burnt as a source of heat. Also cheese.
Otto of roses: essential oil extracted from the petals of roses that are extracted through steam distillation. It is used in cosmetics as a perfume, and is used today in perfumery. This is an oil.
Prepared lard: this substance is a semi-solid white fat that is the rendered—or converted—parts of the fatty tissue of pigs. Rendering is the process by which an unusable part of an animal becomes stable and usable—in other words, it won’t become putid, and rot. This is the meat part of the fat equation that equals cold cream.
Salt: water and salt become solvents that react to fats.
Sub-carbonate of potash: known today as potassium carbonate, this inorganic compound—a chemical compound that lacks the carbon-hydrogen bond—is a water soluble white salt. The reason why it is used in this recipe is to trap and hold water in otherwise in-soluble fats, allowing the various viscosities to combine to create the emulsion. This is a salt that serves to create a paste that helps extend the life of the lard so it doesn’t get rank too fast.
Spirits of wine: also known as aqua vitae, Latin for “water of life.” It is also more commonly known today as liquid ethanol, which is distilled drinking alcohol. Spirits of wine was like a hyper-distilled brandy, and is a concentrate. It’s a solution in which the solvent is water so it serves to dissolve the potassium carbonate to create salt. It is a base, which reacts with the acids in the fats to create something else. In this case, it’s the cold cream. Which no one wants to rub on their face if it smells like putrid, sickly-sweet death. Combined with the salt, is becomes a paste that acts much the same as miso, essentially pickling the lard.
Rose water: this helps mask that death smell the lard will give the cold cream. The recipe says to add as much as you want, which might be a lot depending on how well the lard was rendered.
Anyway, depending on what type of cold cream is desired, the oils sit in the water for a length of time, which produces the colloid in the cream. The colloid is what holds the emulsion together, and gives the cream its emulsifying effects. The colloids and their final form results in a denser or looser cream. Here are the recipes and instructions, ranging from dense to loose colloid.
ML
Recipes:
Cold Cream 1.
- Take 2-1/2 ounces of sweet oil of almonds
- 3 drachms of white wax
- 3 drachms of spermaceti
- 2-1/2 ounces of rose water
- 1 drachm of oil of bergamot
- 15 drops of oil of lavender
- 15 drops of otto of roses
Melt wax and spermaceti in the oil of almonds by placing them together in a jar, then plunging into boiling water. Heat a mortar (which should be marble, if possible) by pouring boiling water into it, and letting it remain there until the mortar is uniformly heated. The water is to be poured away, and the mortar dried well.
Pour melted wax and spermaceti into the warm mortar and add the rose water gradually, while the mixture is constantly stirred or whisked with an egg whisp, until the whole is cold, and, when nearly finished, add the oil and otto of roses.
(In the absence of a mortar, a basin plunged into another containing boiling water will answer the purpose.)
I think this would be a body cream.
Cold Cream 2.
- 10 drachms of spermaceti
- 4 drachms of white wax
- ½ pound of prepared lard
- 15 grains of sub-carbonate of potash
- 4 ounces of rose water
- 2 ounces of spirits of wine
- 10 drops of otto of roses
Proceed as above.
This cream is possibly not used for the face due to the insane amount of lard. This was probably a sunscreen, or burn cream. It would be very think, and putrid-smelling.
There’d also be a lot of it, so you’d probably use it for your kids, who were out in the sun, and burning themselves constantly. Victorian ladies strived not to go outside, lest their skin get darker—a weird, antiquated phobia we no longer have to worry about.
Granulated Cold Cream.
- 1 ounce white wax
- 1 ounce spermaceti
- 3 ounces almond oil
- Otto of rose—as much as you please
Heat the oil and dissolve the wax and spermaceti in it. Allow to cool slightly, then pour into a wedgwood mortar previously warmed, containing a pint of warm water. Stir briskly until the cream is divided, add the otto, and suddenly pour the whole into a clean vessel containing eight to 12 pints of cold water. Separate the cream from the water by straining through muslin, and shake out as much water as possible.
Since this formula is essentially some cheese heated with oil, it creates the “cream” she mentions. I’m thinking of white Velveeta. I feel like this is the most disgusting variation on the cream.
What the drastic temperature change does is essentially “break” the cream, which is like a kind of cake batter, rather than Velveeta. Because the cream, created by heat is cooled to a temperature colder than the otto of roses, the room temperature of the otto causes the cheesy stuff to curdle in a way. This is why it’s called “granulated.”
I am not sure what you’d do with this stuff. Face? Maybe? Because of the amount of the finished product? I don’t know. Could be body too.
I don’t recommend making any of these cosmetics. They might be hazardous, they are definitely gross. I claim no responsibility if someone should actually make this stuff and smear it on their body. This is just how I entertain myself—and hopefully you too.
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