Odd Beauty Trends from History (18 Pics)

Erotic Piercings Were Somehow Huge During The Victorian Era The Victorian Era is generally associated with starched clothing, lots of black, and showing as little skin as possible. Probably the last thing you would think of is a sexual piercing, but life is full of surprises. During a brief period in Victorian England, wealthy women would pierce their nipples, often connecting them with a chain. As for men, they would pierce the head of their penis, supposedly making it easier to comfortably wear the increasingly tight pants of the era. This piercing is known as the "Prince Albert," and it is rumored the Victorian prince himself sported the look. 

The Greeks Loved A Good Unibrow The Greeks had a very different idea of "power brows." In Ancient Greece, women's unibrows were considered a sign of intelligence and purity. If they didn't have one naturally, women would use kohl pigment to draw one on, for that bold and beautiful look.

Veiny Cleavage Was A 17th-Century Must-Have 17th-century England saw an increase of cleavage in fashion. Necklines plunged, and breasts became one of the most prominent features that women attempted to display. At the same time, extreme paleness was in style, as it suggested wealth and an ability to stay out of the Sun, unlike laborers. In order to extend the paleness achieved by powders on the face to the cleavage, women would draw blue veins on their breasts to mimic translucent skin.

Japanese Women Actually Wanted Black Teeth If you ever get tired of brushing your teeth, this is a good alternative. For thousands of years, Japanese women would blacken their teeth permanently after marriage. This continued through the 19th century, and it was a symbol of beauty and marital commitment.

Men's Calves Were The Abs Of The Middle Ages Women's legs are highly admired these days, but back in the Middle Ages and well through the 18th century, men's calves were what it was all about. Men wore stockings like women in order to show off their well-shaped calves, and some even wore padding inside their stockings to improve their unsatisfactory gams. King Henry VIII, for example, was renowned for his excellent calves.

Beauty Patches Were Super Classy In the 18th century, the previous standard of bare-faced women disappeared, and women began wearing heavy makeup. They also started wearing beauty patches, small pieces of fabric that were adhered to the face. They came in many shapes, such as stars, circles, and squares, and their placement on the face had specific meaning. For example, one by the mouth implied flirtatiousness, and one on the right cheek meant that the woman was married.

Short Teeth Were Essential During The Renaissance During the Renaissance, the essential "beauties" of women were well-known. This list eventually climbed to 30 different (very specific) traits. Many of them are familiar to us: long legs, wide hips, and a narrow waist, for example. However, one of them was short teeth. They just loved gummy smiles.

Incredibly Small Feet Were All The Rage In China Although foot binding is perhaps one of the most infamous forms of body modification, its origins in China are unknown, though historians know it was prevalent among the wives and daughters of nobles by the 13th century, and it spread from there. Foot binding usually began when a girl was five to seven years old, and it consisted of her feet being bandaged tightly while she was growing, causing the bones in her foot to break, the sole to bend down to meet the toes, and the toes to bend under the foot. This painful and disabling practice was based on the sexual and aesthetic appeal of small feet.

Skull Shaping Was An Aesthetic Preference For The Ancient Maya Beginning around 1000 BCE, the ancient Maya started modifying the skulls of their infants. A child's head was kept strapped to a board or bound with various implements, forcing the skull to reshape itself. This was done to both males and females, and it is believed to not have been related to social standing, but a sign of ornamental beauty. Many other groups all over the world had similar practices, including the Germanic tribes like the Huns, as well as Hawaiians, Tahitians, Incas, and the Chinook and Choctaw tribes in North America.

Long Fingernails Were No Game In China The Chinese have a long history of long nails. Both men and women of the Qing Dynasty grew nails that were 8 to 10 inches long, and some women wore gold nail-guards in order to protect their rather inconvenient manicures. This was to indicate that they were wealthy enough that they didn't need to labor with their hands. Instead, they had to rely on servants to do things like dress or feed them.

Eyelashes Were So Out During The Renaissance For European women during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the plucking did not stop at the forehead. Eyelashes became symbols of oversexuality, and the fresh face was in. Thus, women of means would often remove their eyelashes entirely, which sounds way too painful to begin thinking about.

Painted Legs Were The Look During WWII Thanks to nylon shortages during the WWII, women's pantyhose were lacking. However, the tan appearance of stockinged legs was still considered necessary, so dozens of paint products meant to mimic the look of nylon hit the market. According to a 1942 edition of LIFE Magazine, "When they are properly applied the most scrutinizing pair of masculine eyes cannot distinguish between legs thus covered and legs in sheer hose." However, some women would just go for what was around and use gravy to paint their legs to get that stunning nylon look.

Some Native American Tribes Plucked Their Pubic Hair When colonists arrived in the Americas, they were shocked by a painful beauty standard for native women in some tribes: plucking off all of their pubic hair. Thomas Jefferson said of this foreign tradition: "with them it is disgraceful to be hairy in the body. They say it likens them to hogs. They therefore pluck the hair as fast as it appears."

A Desire For Separated Breasts Created The "Divorce Corset" The corset is one of the most famous examples of body modification, designed to create a small waist and lifted breasts. From the 16th through the 19th centuries, women wore a variety of corset styles, some tied so tight that they created trouble breathing. However, in the 19th century, corsets evolved in order to support the new beauty trend: separated breasts. Instead of the high and tight cleavage of the past, women wanted to have a distinct gap between their breasts. Cue the arrival of the "divorce corset," so named for its function in separating the breasts and creating distinctly broader cleavage.

Ancient Chinese Women Constantly Updated Their Colorful Eyebrows Ancient Chinese women had a chance to get very creative with their eyebrows. They would paint their eyebrows with black, blue, or green grease and shape them according to the trend at the time; at one point in the Han Dynasty, sharply pointed eyebrows were the style. At another time, women were expected to have short and high eyebrows, and one style was called the "sorrow brow," where the brows were arched upward in the middle in an expression of sadness.

Renaissance Women Wanted Receding Hairlines If you've ever looked at Renaissance paintings and wondered why the women seem to look so strange, it's not just you. Large, curved foreheads were an important indicator of beauty, and women would pluck or shave their hairlines to increase the size of their forehead. Basically, they created a receding hairline on purpose.

The Tang Dynasty Loved Big Cheeks During the Chinese Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), women with plump figures, round faces, big cheeks, and wide foreheads were considered the most beautiful. (Love the ad choice for this one)

Edwardian Women Went For The Sway-Backed Look Women's fashion during the Edwardian Era was all about celebrating the mature female body. That meant using corsets to create hourglass figures. However, some people worried that the tight, constricting undergarments hindered women's breathing and put undue pressure on their internal organs. Enter the s-bend corset, which eased the stress on women's waists. Instead, it was designed to throw the hips back at an exaggerated angle. These corsets created the look of a bustle without all those extra layers. However, they forced wearers' spines into unnatural positions, causing them to walk with an exaggerated sway and sometimes inflicting lasting damage.