Lead based face powder - a recipe

Here's a great recipe for lead-based powder. In the 18th century it was considered highly fashionable to whiten your face, and have sparkling eyes, made so by belladonna drops.

Recipe for Lead Powder

Several Thin Plates of Lead

A Big Pot of Vinegar

A Bed of Horse Manure

Water

Perfume and tinting agent

Steep the lead in the pot of vinegar, and rest it in a bed of manure for at least three weeks. When the lead finally softens to the point where it can pounded into a flaky white powder (chemical reaction between vinegar and lead causes lead to turn white), grind to a fine powder. Mix with water, and let dry in the sun. After the powder is dry, mix with the appropriate amount of perfume and tinting dye.

Covent Garden stalls

In the 18th century Covent Garden stalls were often no more than baskets of vegetables. There would not have been any tables or stalls as we know them today.

The most exciting city

By the mid 18th century London was the biggest, most exciting city in the world. But it was also the dirtiest, most foul and unkempt city. Houses were often ramshackle. Raw sewage ran in the streets. Crime was endemic.

Calendars

In September 1752, Great Britain changed from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar. 11 days were omitted from the calendar. The day after 2 September 1752 became 14 September 1752.

The first day of the year also changed. Prior to 1752 in England, the year began on 25 March (Lady Day).

The first year was short - it ran only from 25 March to 31 December.

Macaroni

In The Finish I refer on occasion to a 'macaroni' - far from being a meal, a 'macaroni' was an 18th century term for a foppish and highly fashionable young man.

The Magdalen Hospital for Penitent Prostitutes

 
The Magdalen Hospital for Penitent Prostitutes was founded in 1758 to give 'guidance to the fallen'. I was a place of respite based on silence, isolation and hard work. The18th century rich would flock to the Chapel to listen to the popular preacher William Dodd sermonise, and to observe the penitent prostitutes. In 1777 William Dodd was executed for forgery and the Magdalen Hospital fell out of favour, although something akin to it continued, in name only, until the 1950s.

The Finish - what's it all about

The Finish is my new novel featuring Kitty Ives, an 18th century prostitute, who plies her trade in Covent Garden. When a man is found dead in her bed she fears she may swing from the gallows. So begins Kitty's quest to uncover the identity of the murderer. 

We are in Covent Garden in 1769. It seethes with all manner of life. It smells. It is dirty and beautiful at one and the same time. It is home to the whores and harridans, aristocrats and artisans, actors and a drunks alike.