The Arts of Beauty

Madame Lola Montez published The Arts of Beauty or Secrets of a Ladies Toilet to help give young ladies advice on the best ways to take care of their bodies. This advice ranged from how to dress to tips for preventing greying hair. The book set out strict rules that women were encouraged to follow in order to fit into society. Lola Montez developed especially stringent guidelines on the topic of makeup. For example, Lola Montez tells her readers, “if Satan has ever had any direct agency in inducing women to spoil or deform her own beauty, it must have been in tempting her to use paints and enamelling.”[1] This quote is the opening sentence to the chapter on paints and powders. Montez intensely conveys to all of her readers her disgust at the thought of makeup. These strong opinions on the overt use of makeup continued to enforce the stereotype that in order to be a proper woman, makeup could not be overused.

Interestingly, the advice given in The Arts of Beauty or Secrets of a Ladies Toilet directly opposed the way in which Lola Montez conducted her life. Born in Ireland in 1818, Lola Montez became a professional dancer who toured around the world.[2] She fled England after a divorce and settled in France where she became better known for her love affairs than for her dancing abilities.

By writing a book, Lola Montez used her fame and the interactions she had with women in high society to create a guide to life that could be distributed to the average woman. While Lola Montez sold her books based on her reputation as a performer, the book advised women on how to obtain the current beauty standards, not wearing overtly seen makeup, and not the standards that she followed during her lifetime.

[1] Lola Montez, The Arts of Beauty or Secrets of a Ladies Toilet (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald Publisher, 1858), 47.

[2] Ralph Friedman, "Lola Montez in Grass Valley." Prairie Schooner 25, no. 1 (1951): 18.