If you lived in 1880...

BittyMonkey

BittyMonkey

O.G.
Mar 10, 2007
6,360
5,517
#1
What would you look like?

I shudder to think...makeupless, unibrow, overbite, acne. My best feature would be my hair but it's dulled with age.

Living now has its drawbacks but thank Dog for beauty treatments and hair dye!
 
#2
Hmm, I am going to take a wild guess that without antibiotics or cesarean sections I would be dead by now, so I wouldn't have to worry about looks. But you make a good point about teeth. I can live without makeup or hair colour, but I suspect I would look positively beastly had I not had orthodontia and other dental intervention. And while it would be tedious compared to, say, waxing, they had tweezers then, so the brow might not have been as big an issue.
 
#3
HauteMama said:
Hmm, I am going to take a wild guess that without antibiotics or cesarean sections I would be dead by now, so I wouldn't have to worry about looks. But you make a good point about teeth. I can live without makeup or hair colour, but I suspect I would look positively beastly had I not had orthodontia and other dental intervention. And while it would be tedious compared to, say, waxing, they had tweezers then, so the brow might not have been as big an issue.
Click to expand...

I have a couple of etiquette books from that time, and they say a unibrow, while unfortunate and ugly, just can't be helped!
 
#4
Surely they had tweezers back then!? Now you have got me curious.
Are there any references to what women actually did back then for cosmetic enhancement?
 
#5
It is interesting how many things known to ancient civilizations were either forgotten or never discovered in other areas of the world, then. Egyptians were using an early form of waxing (sugaring) to remove body hair in at least 60 BCE, and threading was used in the Middle East. Depilatories were also commonly used, although they were made of some pretty harsh chemicals. I know that Romans used tweezing, and that ancient peoples used many different devices to scrape unwanted hair away. It is fascinating, then, that unwanted facial hair was considered inescapable to Europeans or Americans in 1880! I don't doubt that it is true, as many of the beauty practices of one part of the world never made it to other parts of the world, but given that doctors used tweezers, it is unfortunate that no one thought of using them for vanity's sake instead of medical uses!
 
#6
Well, considering the life expectancy was only about 40 at that time, you wouldn't have to worry about a lot of aging showing up yet.

I have naturally good skin and teeth (never had braces but my teeth are straight), although who knows if they would have pulled all my teeth out since dentists were not filling cavities back then. Maybe some disease would have killed me at 15. I bet I wouldn't have grey hair because life was a lot simpler back then.
 
#8
I would henna my hair. I don't wear makeup everyday so I wouldn't look that different, just pinkier face. I hope removal of facial hair is allowed. :P I already have a slight overbite that doesn't bother me and wear long dresses...maybe I'm living in the wrong era. :P
 
#9
I don't know whether to LOL at this thread, or cry.

Considering I got my first grey hairs around age 14 and had horrible teeth before 2 rounds of braces, I'm super happy for "technology". I'd be completely grey right now (age 29) with a gap between my 2 front teeth you could drive a truck through. And super frizzy hair with brows like roly polys would not be lost on me. My best quality would be my skin, and it's only "good" because I never get acne.

The mere thought of this is going to give me nightmares, haha.
 
#10
Wasn't it in the 1880's when men preferred curvier female bodies, and the figure of beauty was Marilyn Monroe? I would love to go live in that century. It would be a completely different lifestyle, there'd be no revealing clothes or high heels, or need for plastic surgery... Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Women won't feel pressured from society to fit into some falsely constructed guideline of beauty. There prevalence of eating disorders would be low too.
 
#11
The medical aspect of things in the 1800's makes me cringe. I just remember that hbo special about John Adams...he had a daughter who had breast cancer and they actually gave her a mastectomy, obviously without anesthesia. She actually recovered, but died from the cancer as it had already spread. Though this was in early 1800, maybe medicine was a little better in 1880, not sure.
I'm sure if I lived back then I'd only have about 6 teeth left, plus I wouldn't be able to see anything. They didn't make glasses strong enough for me back then. Lol!!
 
#12
I would have the most crooked messed up teeth. (had braces in middle school) I do not wear makeup at all, rarely have acne and all the hair on my body is naturally manageable so I can't think of anything else.
 
#13
I would probably have really crooked teeth and would be too skinny for anyone to want to marry me. Oh and that i probably would be born to farmer parents and therefore have to work in the sun so my skin will be tanned and yeah no one would want me. LOL this is a little bit sad
 
#15
hahah, funny thread. I guess besides teeth there wouldnt be much, I got blonde hair so not really any body hair at all, straight teeth ( I guess the only thing could have been if I got caries). I was never seriously ill (knockknock). But who knows maybe some fever could have done it for me back then...
Lookwise I would have been not too bad ;)
 
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