Cosmetics
The most uncanny look
IRRESISTIBLE EYES MAY BE HAD BY TRANSPLANTING THE HAIR. If your eyes are unattractive you may make them irresistible by transplanting the hair. Transplanted eyelashes and eyebrows are the latest things in the way of personal adornment. There are specialists who make a handsome living out of the process of transplanting hair from the head … Continue reading
Compliments of the Season
The Quack Doctor wishes you a happy Christmas and the best of health in 2013! Tweet
Bailey’s Rubber Complexion Brush
A harmless alternative to the arsenical preparations then in vogue for improving the complexion, Bailey’s rubber brush was intended to improve the circulation, clear the pores and allow the blood to free itself of impurities. Charles J Bailey of Newton, Massachusetts, invented the product in 1887, immediately patenting it in England, France, Canada, Belgium … Continue reading
No More Baldheads, No More Dandruff
Whether they promised to cover a bald head with a mop of curls, to rejuvenate greying locks or to produce manly whiskers on the smoothest of chins, hair-related products appear in numerous Victorian and Edwardian adverts. There was a huge choice of potions, lotions, devices and even pills for bringing back a youthful barnet – … Continue reading
Curlypet
Australian Women’s Weekly, 17 Jan 1962 . Although I focus on medical advertising here at The Quack Doctor, I do like to feature the occasional beauty product when it catches my eye. I stumbled on this mid-20th-century Australian hair lotion while failing to find something else I was looking for. Curlypet’s heyday was the 1930s … Continue reading
Terradermalax – a skin laxative
Source: The Pittsburgh Press, 11 March 1923 . . Why, when a woman is 30, do her blushes no longer show? How does a skin grow dull and unlovely while the eyes are still clear and sparkling? Science has learned the reason, and – glorious news! – a painless, pleasant way to correct it in … Continue reading
Professor Modevi’s Beard Generator
While some historical quacks and their remedies remain famous, I often find adverts for products that have faded into obscurity. Some were one-hit wonders that only appeared in the papers for a few weeks, while others were well known in their time but don’t have much extant background information associated with them. There are also … Continue reading
Capsuloids Hair Restorer
Source: Black & White, 19 March 1904 Chief among the ills to which flesh is heir in the springtime is the provoking habit of our ‘crowning glory’ to come off in handfuls, leaving us with the parlous prospect of a denuded poll. So says a 1904 advertorial recommending Capsuloids as a hair restorer. I’m not … Continue reading
The Bloom of Ninon
DELICACY of Complexion.—The incomparable BLOOM of NINON DE L’ENCLOS, superior to any thing yet discovered for rendering the skin soft, smooth, and beautiful in the extreme. Its wonderful effects in removing freckles, morphews, worms, &c. justly entitle it to that preference so long bestowed on it by the most elegant beauties in this kingdom. It … Continue reading
The Nose Machine
NOSE MACHINE.—This is 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. Any one can use them, and without pain. Price 10s. 6d., sent carriage free.—ALEX. ROSS, 248 High Holborn, London. Pamphlet … Continue reading
