This double advert shows only a fraction of the cosmetics range sold by Alexander Ross. He sold several products for the hair, including his famous Cantharides (Spanish Fly) Oil for curing baldness, and Golden Hair wash that turned the hair “a golden colour after a few usings.” Other products included a Skin Tightener liquid for removing wrinkles, a Vegetable Skin Pill, Chiropo for the cure of corns and the Hair Destroyer depilatory. The most intriguing part of this advert, however, is only mentioned in passing – the Nose Machine.
This was a kind of metal brace that people with crooked noses were advised to wear strapped to their head. Ross advertised it as:
A simple, successful contrivance which, applied to the nose for an hour daily, so directs the soft cartilage of which the member consists, that an ill-formed nose is quickly shaped to perfection.
Before deciding whether to fork out 10s. 6d. for the Nose Machine, you could send off for an information pamphlet. Intriguingly, this also contained “interesting remarks on noses generally.”
C O M P L E X I O N G L O B U L E S produce a clear com-
plexion without injury. Strange, but true, they give white-
ness to the hands and lustre to the eye if taken now and again.
They are perfectly harmless. 5s. free by post.—ALEX. ROSS, 21,
Lamb’s Conduit-street, London, W.C. Established 1850.
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P L U M P E R S for T H I N F A C E S are placed in the
mouth, between the teeth and the cheeks, making the profile
perfect, and the shape of the face correct. They are the colour of
the gums, and easy to wear.—Post 21s.—ALEX. ROSS, Inventor of
the Nose Machine, 21, Lamb’s Conduit-street, London.
Source: The Daily News (London) Friday 24 April 1891
