“Clever ministrations”: regenerative beauty at the fin de siècle

Abstract

This paper is the first to consider the role of late-nineteenth century British beauty culturists in establishing the respectability of anti-aging goods and services. It surveys self-published beauty texts, periodical press coverage, and advertisements to ask how female beauty providers positioned their businesses so as to enhance the reputation of their wares. These texts reveal that, by foregrounding the respectability, modernity, and novelty of regenerative techniques, British beauty culturists challenged existing narratives of commercial beautification, shifting feminine regeneration from the realm of vanity to necessity, from a question of moral character to commercial endeavor. However, these discursive strategies, not to mention the use of technology for the purpose of female bodily enhancement, were not welcomed by all. The paper subsequently turns to police court coverage and medical journals that criticized beauty "quacks" for reportedly duping unsuspecting female customers. The pursuit of duplicitous "beauty doctors" by unsatisfied customers and medical publications comes to the fore in a concluding profile of Anna Ruppert, a popular London-based beauty culturist who found herself charged under Ireland's Pharmaceutical Act in 1893 for selling arsenical compounds. And yet, despite public scrutiny, the British press, consumers, and commercial providers increasingly embraced a more overt beauty culture that would prevail through the interwar period. This paper argues that this was due, in part, to discursive shifts advanced by fin de siècle beauty culturists, who paid the price for these interventions, existing as a liminal group straddling respectability and quackery.

What is ‘regeneration’ and who needs it?

“…Negative stereotyping of old age as a period of decrepitude requiring regeneration risks persuading some people that they should hide their ageing artificially by methods developed, as Clark describes, since the late nineteenth century, including cosmetics and cosmetic surgery, often still encouraged by those making money from such procedures, sometimes causing damage and deterioration rather than regeneration (Clark, 2017). An alternative is for society to learn to value not denigrate the appearance of ageing, to accept that women with gray hair and wrinkles can be just as effective as TV presenters, for example, as men with gray hair and wrinkles.…”

“…A s several papers in the collection accompanying this article point out, regeneration is an ambiguous term with diverse meanings (Burke, 2017;Clark, 2017;Edwards et al 2017;Gilleard, 2017;Logan, 2017). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to be regenerated is to be 're-born; brought again into existence; formed anew', no doubt an accurate usage but too narrow to describe the range of activities discussed here.…”

Perspectives on human regeneration

“…Chief amongst these was the application of scientific ideas to promote an improved aesthetic. In her article ‘“Clever Ministrations”: Regenerative Beauty at the Fin de Siècle ’, Jessica P. Clark provides a window into a hitherto neglected episode of regenerative beauty practices and products (Clark, 2017). Focusing primarily on the British case—at once distinctive but with clear resonance for other localities—Clark uses the figure of the 'beauty culturist' to explore how everyday regenerative practices, including the use of products decried in the medical press as ‘quack concoctions’, became a necessity rather than a curiosity.…”