Recipe #194: Red Lip Salve

Recipe 194: Red Lip Salve

This recipe looks surprisingly modern except for the butter, most recipes nowadays prefer to use oils versus animal based fats.

 In my attempt at this recipe I quartered this it for ease of replication plus I’d never get through a lip gloss using a half pound of butter. This is one of many recipes in the book for red lip colors, most use a variety of red colorants and animal fat bases to create a lip slave.

Gathering the ingredients for this recipe was easy, most herbal stores carry alkanet as it still is used in many small batch personal/spa type products. I found that the alkanet had almost no smell before it was cooked but had a smell like mild valerian when heated (no one else in my house noticed this so it might just be me).

Mixing these in the pan for the first few minutes was hard and required constant stirring.

The butter melted first. The recipe does not specify if the grapes should be squished or not, I didn’t but some of them burst in the mixing.

After about 15 minutes both the wax and butter had melted and the alkanet had brightly colored the mixture.

It was strained through a cloth.

Upon being set aside it cooled and hardened quickly. I separated it into two containers. One jar to keep and a cup to see how long it would keep unrefrigerated.

Once set and cool the lip salve hardened more than a modern chap stick but was still fairly easily applied with a warm fingertip.

The coverage is very sheer yet still pigmented. It lasts on the lips quite a while but has a slick feeling and smells a bit of butter.

After leaving the cup of the finished mixture out for nearly two weeks no change has occurred, it holds up well to time and can stand at least temperatures of 75F.

Overall this recipe was a great success, it produces a useable and stable lip colorant that suits modern use and needs no real adaptation (although if I was remaking this recipe for daily use I would add a lip safe flavoring because I’m not partial to the butter scent). I would recommend if you want to try this recipe to use utensils that you don’t mind getting stained from the alkanet!

Recipe 146: A Cosmetic Juice

First off I have to say the title of ‘cosmetic juice’ is very off putting to modern sensibilities.

This is another recipe calling for washing the skin in lemon, although in this preparation the lemon is to be roasted.
For this recipe it calls for sugar candy to be inserted into a whole lemon, I prepared in advice a simple sugar and water candy.

It advises to cut a hole in the lemon and once the sugar candy is added to close up the hole with gold leaf. For my experiment I chose tinfoil instead of gold leaf. Since the reason for adding the gold is to close the hole to prevent juices running out and not to interact with main ingredients at all I opted for the cheaper solution.

The lemon is then to be covered in hot ashes and roasted. I built a small fire and burned it down to ash

then inserted the lemon while the ash was still very warm.

The recipe does not specify roasting time so I left the lemon in the ashes until they were almost fully cooled (about 25 minutes).

After removing the lemon from the ashes it was completely covered in fine dust except for the area where the tin foil was covering the hole. The lemon was then left to cool.

The recipe states that when you are ready to use the preparation, to squeeze some of the mixture out of the lemon onto a cloth and wipe the skin with it. This was accomplished quite easily. The liquid that was produced resembled a soft jam or melted candy center.

Upon applying to the skin it left a sticky residue.

The book does not state whether one should wash off the mixture, so I chose to try not washing it. After about 15 minutes the sticky feeling subsided.

The recipe promotes this application as cleaning and brightening. The fact that it is somewhat liquid would clean the skin (or at least give the appearance of cleaner skin). I saw no brightening effect in my use of it.

Overall this was a mostly unpleasant and useless experience. But if you ever want to try making basically jams inside of a lemon go for it!

Recipe number 154

Recipe number 154: A Good Varnish for the Skin.



This recipe presents simply with only 3 ingredients, egg whites, lemon juice, and essential oil of your choice. But the idea of rubbing barely cooked egg on myself then leaving it caused me to be a bit squeamish about it (I’m going to have some major problems when it comes to the veal lotion later on in the book). I was also hesitant because of the description of earlier versions on ‘varnishes for the skin’ the Elizabethan version in particular being regarded as a sticky shiny mask created with a similar egg white concoction.

Anyway pressing on I prepped the first two ingredients and mixed them in the pan. The recipe calls for an earthenware pan which I don’t have nor plan to invest in so I substituted a non stick modern pan, please excuse the inaccuracy. At first look the mixture had gained a scum on top even before heating.

Cooking the mix was to be done over a slow heat while constantly stirring with a wooden spoon until it reached a soft butter consistency. This took only about 10 minutes; the first picture was snapped at about 4 minutes in.

Achieving the full thicken consistency was harder, after about 6 minutes in the liquid had turned into what looked and acted like a failed Italian meringue or seven minute icing, lightly fluffy with some small lumps.

After taking off the heat the mixture firmed slightly and thickly coated the spoon.

(please excuse the candle, we lost power about half way through the recipe)
The recipe called for the face (or wrist in this case) to be washed with Water of Rice then the egg mixture to have the essential oil added (this had no effect on the texture) then applied to the washed body part.

Smoothing the varnish on felt like applying a thin slightly oily lotion, a little of it when a very long way, of the amount shown in the picture about half was removed after I realized I put way too much on.

Skin rinsed with rice water.

Applying varnish.

All smoothed in.

Once absorbed the varnish felt almost exactly like modern silicone based makeup primers or BB creams.

The recipe claims it whitens and smoothes the skin I would have to say the smoothing part is quite true. The whiteness however is only changed very slightly and it has a slightly chalky pale cast but you can only tell on areas that crease near the wrist. Even on someone of a lighter complexion the effect is not strong. Hypothetically lemon could lighten skin slightly but the sensitization caused might put someone at a greater risk of sun tanning or burning, the lemon though would help reduce the effects of oxidation of the skin after washing so the skin might appear ‘clearer’ and ‘brighter’ like some modern vitamin C serum applications. I think the egg (also used as a common modern face mask ingredient) definitely helps to create a smooth surface and slightly dry out the skin.

Overall this recipe turned out quite well, the fact that this turned out to be almost an eighteenth century equivalent of a makeup primer is interesting.

P.s. The varnish lasted for 2 days unrefrigerated without spoiling or growing mold, really it just started to smell like yogurt.

P.p.s. I found a very similar modern interpretation of this recipe in a book called ‘Jude’s Herbal Home Remedies’ it claims it brightens the skin.