Nineteenth century women did some insane things in the pursuit of beauty. But the modern woman is a hell of a lot crazier.

Mental Floss lists 11 Really Terrible 19th-Century Beauty Tips. They include:

  • Bathe in ammonia.
  • Don’t wash your face, hands or hair.
  • Dash soapsuds into your eyes to keep them clean.
  • Sit naked by the window in order to absorb sunlight and “vapor bathe.”
  • Keep your eyelashes trimmed daily.

Strange, yes. But are they any more strange than today’s female beauty tips, which include:

  • Change the color of your eyelids to shades of pink or green.
  • Install bags of saline in your breasts to enhance their size.
  • Cook your skin to a shade of brown via cancerous ultraviolet radiation.
  • Undergo a process in which dermalogen is taken from your skin and is transformed into a into a high concentration collagen slurry that is injected into your lips to make enhance their size.
  • Don shoes with heels that will permanently damage your feet over the course of a lifetime.
  • Burn your hair daily until it is sufficiently straight. 

I admire my wife for many reasons, but one is her rejection of the trappings of the beauty industry.

She does so little in the pursuit of beauty and looks so damn good.