6 Apr 2009

Saving Face

'New powdered,
patch'd and paint'd o'er,
The marks of a retailing whore.'
Ned Ward, Hudibras

The Spectator complained, in an article in 1711, that the vogue for make-up had become so excessive that women were in constant danger of 'losing face':-

'A sigh in the languishing lover, if fetched too near, would dissolve a feature; and a kiss snatched by a forward one, might transform the complexion of the mistress to the face of the admirer.'

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