Sociability and la toilette

Family in an interior about 1750. Etienne Jeaurat.
J. Paul Getty Museum

The well-to-do lady's "toilette" attended by friends, family members, servants and tradesmen is a strong theme in French art and well-attested in reality. No doubt took its cue, however distant,  from the royal levee, and reflected the leisure and ease of a nobility who could confidently expose their private routines to their associates and inferiors.  The aristocratic bedchamber or dressing room could function as semi-public space - see above (and the illustration on the Choiseul snuffbox) .  Earlier habits were easily assimilated later Enlightenment values of domestic intimacy, informality and emotionally charged friendships.  

In art, the toilette as a theme in genre painting was popularised  in the first half of the century by Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752) and  Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743).

Nicolas Lancret, "Lady at her toilette". Sold at Christie's New York in 2006

 Here is Lancret's "Lady at her toilette", identified, almost certainly erroneously, as the society hostess Madame Geoffrin.  The probability is that the piece was intended to represent "Morning" in a conventionalised set of "Times of the Day", similar to the set by Lancret in the National Gallery.

"The Four Times of Day: Morning", Nicolas Lancret, 1739
National Gallery London

This is the corresponding "Morning" scene from the National Gallery. A young woman seated at her toilette pours tea for the visiting abbé, her gown parted to reveal an enticing naked breast. It is hard to decide how risqué this is intended to be; the bare breast is a standard feature of "toilets of Venus" and Lancret was fond of satirising mythological scenes.  Presumably the picture is intended to be amusing rather than censorious.  Exhibited in the Salon of 1739.

Jean-François de Troy, A lady showing a bracelet miniature
to her suitor (c.1734).
 Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

This is the most reproduced of the toilette scenes by Jean-François de Troy: a woman standing half-undressed in her boudoir: as her maid helps her dress, she leans over to show a miniature to the gentleman sitting nearby. Although there is an implied intimacy between the two, the composition is again not sexually charged.  In fact Monsieur seems remarkably unfazed by the sight of those blue silk stays.

Jean-François de Troy, "La toilette pour le bal", 1735.
J. Paul Getty Museum, with its companion "Retour du bal" 

De Troy's most highly regarded pictures were a pair of portraits, again themed on the passage of time, "before" and "after" the ball, which were commissioned by Louis XV's finance minister Germain-Louis de Chauvelin and exhibited in the Salon of 1739.  Again the presence of the opposite sex in the lady's dressing room, albeit suitably agog with admiration, is comfortably accepted.  The emphasis is on the close conspiratorial nature of the group; we are invited to speculate not so much on illicit intimacies as on the pleasurable gallanteries of the ball, to which we, as mere spectators, have not been privy.

The moralists' view -
a bourgeoise gets ready for church
:Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin
 Morning toilette c1741.
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

The sociability of the toilette was never, of course, without its critics; it smacked of social pretension, wilful idleness and conspicuous consumption, to say nothing of the moral ambiguity of appearing in careless deshabille.

From the mid-century criticism gained momentum; as one feels did conscious exploitation of supposed aristocratic insouciance among a widening social spectrum of women themselves.   It seems that the rite of the toilette hardened into a definite two stage process, carefully stage managed, to hide the unsightly dressing and powdering of hair and application of cosmetics. Only the final touches were open to public view.

To male eyes there were clear overtones of flirtation.  A mid-century writer describing the daily life of a woman de bon ton explains that she arises only very late in the morning and then spends the rest of the day at her toilette whilst receiving visitors;  such a lady, he adds, will be scantily clad, "in a state of undress that is more than ordinarily seductive".  (Pierre-Joseph Boudier de Villemert, L'Ami des Femmes (1758), quoted in Posner p.136).  Madame d'Epinay remarked that a lady en négligé will be "less beautiful" than when finely dressed, "but more dangerous....less elegant, but more appealing".  Mercier writing in the 1780s, comments squarely , "the second toilette is nothing but a game invented by coquetry"

François Boucher, The Milliner, 1746
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

François Boucher, Woman fastening her garter
(La toilette), 1742
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

The move towards titillation is evident in the toilet genre scenes of Boucher.  The male admirer disappears entirely from the picture - it is now the spectator who plays the role of voyeur at an exclusively feminine rite.  When the gentleman reappears, as in productions by Boucher's son-in-law Pierre-Antoine Baudouin, the subtext is evident. La Toilette (1765) shows a young woman being laced into her stays by a maid.  A gentleman visitor sits in front of her, his sword pointing at her outstretched leg.  The symbolism is clear and the expressions say it all!

A Woman at Her Toilette, After Pierre-Antoine Baudouin.
Etching and engraving by Nicolas Ponce 1771

References

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, "Dressing to impress: the morning toilette and the fabrication of femininity"
in Paris: life & luxury in the 18th century by Charissa Bremer-David et al. Getty Museum 2011 [Extracts on Google books]

Donald Posner, "The 'Duchesse de Velours' and her daughter: a masterpiece by Nattier and its historical context", Metropolitan Museum Journal (1996), 131-142.

http://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/journals/1/pdf/1512976.pdf.bannered.pdf

"At the Vanity" - Madame Isis' Toilette blog
http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/at%20the%20vanity

"Lady at her toilette" - Jane Austen's world [blog]
http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/an-18th-century-ladys-toilette-hours-of-leisurely-dressing-and-private-affairs/

Here is the very informative notice on Lancret's Toilette de Madame Geoffrin  which accompanied the painting's sale at Christie's New York in 2006
http://www.invaluable.com/catalog/viewLot.cfm?afRedir=true&lotRef=kcbczgj4n1&scp=c&ri=48
(The picture was resold at Sotheby's in Paris  in 2010, with the identification of Mme Geoffrin reinstated..)

Description: A lady at her toilette
oil on canvas
29 7/8 x 22 7/8 in. (76 x 58 cm.) 

A Lady at her toilette is one of Lancret's most successful forays into a genre more closely associated with Jean-François de Troy and later François Boucher, the tableau de mode or fashionable scene from daily life. Lancret's painting meticulously chronicles the morning routine of a wealthy lady of fashion: in a sumptuously appointed Louis XIV-style bedroom, a pretty young matron sits at her dressing table, gazing into a red lacquer mirror, as she applies a mouche to complete the elaborately powdered and rouged maquillage that her maid would have just completed. Indeed, the lengthy ritual is not yet done - she still wears the white peignoir, or powdering mantle, around her shoulders that protects her clothing from falling powder, and her afternoon dress sits on the frame on which it is stored awaiting the return of her maid who will fasten her into it. The servant has presumably shown discretion by stepping away to allow the visiting abbé to share with her lady in confidence the contents of the letter he reads.

Although the painting has traditionally been identified as a depiction of the celebrated patroness of the arts, Marie-Thérèse Rodet, Madame Geoffrin (1699-1777), this is unlikely to be the case. Mme. Geoffrin is not known to have had any association with Lancret and her career as a supporter of the arts was confined to her long widowhood. By her own acknowledgment, she began to collect art only in 1750 - nearly a decade after Lancret's death - and her commissions went to younger generations of French painters, notably Boucher, Hubert Robert, Joseph Vernet and Vien. Furthermore, the pretty, pert model in Lancret's painting bears little resemblance to the known appearance of the sharp-witted but plain, long-faced salonnière. (For her portrait, see C.B. Bailey, Patriotic Taste: Collecting Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris, New Haven & London, 2002, p. 63, fig. 52.)

In subject and style, Lancret's painting is similar to a small copper panel that is one of a series of four allegories of the Times of Day, now in the National Gallery, London. (See M. Tavener Holmes, Nicolas Lancret 1690-1743, New York, 1991, cat. no. 20, pp. 90-3, pl. 20a.) The scene representing Morning is, essentially, a more risqué version of the present painting: in it, a pretty young woman seated at her toilette pours tea for the visiting abbé, who stares in amazement at her breast which has been exposed - inadvertently? - by the opening of her peignoir; observing this comic moment, her maid smiles slyly. In both paintings, Lancret has lavished attention on accurately reproducing the picturesque details of the protagonists' costumes in addition to the furnishings, interiors and accoutrements of fashionable life in contemporary Paris. Following the lead of Jean-François de Troy, who painted similar subjects in 1734 (Rothschild collections, Pregny; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City), it was Lancret who had, by the late 1730s (the period from which both the London and Segoura paintings appear to date), established the fashionable toilette as a legitimate subject for popular genre painting, though it was Boucher who most frequently exploits the theme in genre scenes and portraits throughout the 1740s and 50s.

Although nothing is known of its earliest history, it seems likely that A Lady at her toilette was intended to be understood as an emblem of Morning and, like the copper in London, might have been intended to serve as one in a set of four Times of Day. Since the late seventeenth century, a toilette scene had become the standard representation of Morning in genre depictions of the Times of Day, generally with a depiction of a luncheon for Midday; game playing or sewing indicating Afternoon; and attending or returning from a ball serving to signify Evening. Indeed, in 1746 Boucher created his celebrated toilette scene, The Milliner (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), to represent Morning in a proposed suite of four Times of Day for the Crown Princess Luisa Ulrika of Sweden. Although the prominently placed Boulle wall clock in Lancret's picture is nearly striking noon, it clearly indicates that the scene is still set in the morning hours.

The present painting was originally shaped and was no doubt made as a decoration that was inserted into the boiserie paneling of an unidentified lady's boudoir. The corners were made up at a later date to regularize the format

Provenance: Baronne de Creutzer, Paris, 1877.
with Wildenstein, Paris, 1924

Exhibited: Paris, Château de Bagatelle, La Folie d'Artois, June 1988

Toilette articles

Watteau, Toilet articles chez Gersaint......(1720)

An 18th-century lady might a spent several hours a day in dressing, surrounded by servants and lackeys, or maybe even an audience of carefully chosen visitors.  Such a pivotal activity required its splendid accoutrements in fine materials - lace, porcelain lacquer silver and tortoiseshell - the pinnacle of feminine conspicuous consumption.

Tables and table cloths 

Lace toile, plus silver and crystal 
toilet set with ewer. 
Detail from a painting by
Francois de Troy

In the earlier part of the century, the toilet table itself was of little interest since it was the cloth which covered it, the petite toile, which was all important.  As the century progressed plain linen gave way to white taffeta and embroidered muslin, whilst the most extravagant cloths of all were trimmed entirely with lace.  Almost always, a short flounce would border the top of the table, with a longer flounce or flounces falling to the ground beneath.  In an age when lace was handmade, such a profusion was an unequivocal statement of wealth and luxury.  

Paintings and inventories also record all sorts of additional swathing in richly coloured velvet, taffeta or satin - the rich vibrant coloured textiles hung at the back of mirrors being known simply as la toilette. The table cloth itself, however, was almost invariably white.

 In the second half of the century the vogue for extravagant textile coverings was overtaken by the appearance of purpose-built tables de toilette, which concealed both the mirror and toilet articles behind a decorative façade of gliding and marquetry.  The paraphernalia of cosmetics and equipment, and often pens and writing materials, could now be handily accommodated in a plethora of hinged compartments and drawers. These coiffeuses, with their elaborate decoration and curvy legs, still turn up quite regularly at auction houses:

Vanity sets 

By  the 1760s, cosmetics were growing in popularity so much that vanity table sets began to be heavily advertised, and dressing rooms were built facing north for the best light.

A service de toilette could comprise more than two-dozen pieces, though the mirror was always the main item;  at the time of her death in 1748 Madame de Pompadour owned a vanity set consisting of “two quarrés; two powder boxes; two others for patches; another en peloton, another for roots, of rosewood; a mirror twenty inches high and eighteen wide, matching wood in its frame; two paste pots; two others for pomade; a little cup a saucer of Sèvres porcelain; a goblet and two little bottles of Bohemian glass; a bell of silvered brass" (!).

Although painted or varnished wood was the most common material, an elite owned heavy metal sets of gold, silver and vermeil.  French silver sets are rare - only five examples are known to survive intact; many, like that belonging to Madame de Pompadour, were patriotically melted down to help finance the Seven Years' War.  Lacquer and porcelain  came into vogue in the 1750s - the Wallace collection has a fine green Sèvres service which may have belonged to la Pompadour herself. Lacquered wood in a Japanese style was popularised by Guillaume and Etienne-Simon Martin ("vernis Martin"). 

Sèvres toilet set, Wallace Collection.

This splendid surviving nineteen-piece silver service from the Detroit Institute of Arts
 dates from the 1730s and includes a mirror weighing over twenty-four pounds.

Fine Chinese laquer toilet set - detail from an early 18th century
 portrait by Drouais

Items which might be included in a service de toilette

1.   Boxes for hair powder. Hair powder was bought scented and possibly coloured by the perfumer; small quantities could then be mixed with inexpensive, unscented starch.  Toilette sets usually included a pair of powder containers, suggesting the possibility of varying or mixing scents and shades.  White went out of fashion by the 1770s but coloured powders continued to be worn.  Boxes had airtight seals to keep the powder dry and free from mites. They had to be big enough to contain large quantities of powder required.

2.   Hair powder puffs. Hair powder was applied using a large powder puff (houppe); Puffs of swansdown began to appear in perfumers' inventories from the beginning of the century; by the second half of the century cheaper versions were also available, made of wool, yarn and cats hair.

Pewter hair powder box with puff
Detail from Boucher, Lady applying a beauty patch

3.  Small rectangular whisk (vergette) to dust excessive powder from clothing.

4.  Powder bellows (soufflet en poudre) replaced the puff in the second half of the century. These were more economical but less precise, necessitating the use of masks and cones to protect the face.

5. Ewers for water or toilet waters

6. Boxes for "mouches" 

Gold patch box with brush, c.1730. Images @ Etsy

Gold and enamel example from the 1780s
 which sold for £10,575 in 2002

7. Assorted boxes for soap, sponges, combs, pins, jewellery. These were often called quarrés or carrés de toilette, since they were characteristically square or rectangular.

Casket about 1680-90. Wood, veneered with rosewood, brass, pewter,  
mother-of-pearl and painted horn.
 J.Paul Getty Museum.

Detail of a similar box from Nattier's portrait 
of Madame Marsollier and her daughter, 1749

8. Root boxes (boîtes à racines) for aromatic roots and herbs used to freshen breath and clean the teeth.

6. Pin boxes and pin cushions 

References

This is mostly taken from:  Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, "Dressing to impress: the morning toilette and the fabrication of femininity"

in Paris: life & luxury in the 18th century by Charissa Bremer-David et al. Getty Museum 2011 (Extracts on Google books)

See also: "At the Vanity" - Madame Isis' Toilette blog

http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/at%20the%20vanity

Exhibitions and collections 

"Paris, life & luxury" - Exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, April 26-August 7 2011  http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/paris_lifeluxury/

18th-century toilet articles from the collection of Lyons perfumer Léon Givaudan.  Shown to coincide with an exhibition on "Lyon au 18e" at the Musée Gadagne in 2013.

http://www.leprogres.fr/art-et-culture/2013/02/07/l-art-de-se-maquiller-au-18e-siecle





Here is a cool set of photos of travelling toilet sets and other assorted accessories:
http://www.pinterest.com/litttlebits/cosmetic-box-18th-century/

Some 18th-century cosmetics

A little more on 18th-century cosmetics........


Wearing make-up

Looking pretty despite the rouge......

Marie-Josèphe de Saxe
Unknown artist, Versailles

The heavy white make-up and painted red cheeks of 18th century French aristocrats is, to some extent, a caricature reinforced by film and theatre. Highly exaggerated make-up of this sort was associated primarily with the Court, with Baroque overtones of both artifice and sexual freedom (see the article by Dominique Paquet)  Louis XV decreed that when his daughters came of age they should wear rouge - a custom also imposed upon the foreign born Dauphines, Marie-Josèphe de Saxe and Marie-Antoinette. Make-up functioned in this way as a mark of aristocratic distinction - though niceties easily became muddied under the competing demands of social mobility, blossoming consumerism and changing fashions.  

Make-up was, of course, always intended to enhance the complexion and beautify as well as serve as social statement.  Even early in the century, men (and women) were not immune to the allure of natural beauty.  Significantly, it was said that Madame de Pompadour's heavy make up - defiantly on show in Boucher's famous portrait "à la toilette" -  was a departure from her former more bourgeois habits when she had used only a hint of rouge to highlight her famously creamy white complexion and sparkling eyes. (See Melissa Hyde, p.458).  

Boucher, Madame de Pompadour at her toilette, 1758
Fogg Museum Harvard..

As Morag Martin has demonstrated, the period saw considerable changes both in social conditions, moral attitudes towards cosmetics and commercial context, with the main trend the move towards more simple fashions and a "natural" look by the 1780s. The stark white skin, brilliant red cheeks and black silk patches of Versailles were replaced by the desire for a naturally flushed skin and an open, honest countenance free from artifice.   

A variety of evidence -  beauty manuals and medical treatises, advertisements in journals (which first appear in the 1750s), stories, anecdotes, diaries - testifies to a burgeoning cosmetics industry.  By the second half of the century the emphasis was definitely on  health and skin condition:  rouge to give the impression of healthy complexion;  creams and pomades to whiten and soften the skin, scented waters to care it.  Shop-bought cosmetics also became readily available to a much wider spectrum of women.


Definitions - "Parfum" "Cosmétique" "Fard"

Again according to  Morag Martin,  the literature used the term "Cosmétique" for both makeup and creams, but as distinct from scents and parfumerie.   A subcategory was defined as "fard" - face paint to hide imperfections and give the illusion of colour.  The latter divided into "blanc" and "rouge".


The basics - toilet waters and pomades

In fact, especially when it came to home prepared products, the strict distinction between fragrance and cosmetics is a little artificial. Toilet waters, though primarily employed for their scent, were used in a variety of preparations and, in an age where bathing facilities were scare and suspect, deemed to have health-giving properties in their own right.  Here is an alcohol-based "Hungary water" among a number of recipes from a traditional grimoire,  Le Petit Albert.
http://marie-antoinettequeenoffrance.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/18th-century-cosmetic-recipes.html#.UsKCuvRdUrU

The  second ubiquitous component of cosmetics was pomatum or pomade  -  a thick scented cream, usually containing water, animal fat, almond oil or beeswax and apples. Its primary function was to dress hair, but it was also used as basis of face creams and cleansers that could be applied using the fingers. It could be prepared at home and, by the 1740s, bought in a profusion of different varieties, perfumed with lemon, citron and bergamot as well as the more traditional orange and jasmine. Later in the century it was often sold in the form of solid sticks.


Face paint and whiteners

The dominant aesthetic demanded whiteness of skin to signal respectability and class.  Women took elaborate precautions to shield their skin from the sun.  However the application of heavy make-up came to seem more respectable than naturally white skin. White make-up was none too healthy because predominantly made with metal based compounds, the most expensive of which was ceruse or white chalk of lead (lead carbonate);  bismuth compounds or aluminium sulphate (alum) were also widely used. These were finely powered then blended with oils. 

According to Morag Martin, although "blanc" was "the most suspect cosmetic of all due to its noxious ingredients and ability to mask the wearer's true self", many women justified it as a means to cover blemishes or smallpox scars.  Nonetheless, Catherine Lanoë  - surveyed 15 different beauty manuals, published between 1541 and 1782  -  was surprised to find that recipes using ceruse did not refer to "fard", the term which usually implied heavy "paint".  It might be that that simple white paint or powder was too commonplace to mention, or maybe the term attracted too much opprobrium to be used comfortably.   Surviving recipes, however, often feature creams and washes to whiten the complexion rather than the solid mask of  foundation often assumed in modern recreations.  

The effect was a translucent pallor rather than a layer of opaque white pigment;  some at least of the preparations were certainly intended to be applied in the evening and worn overnight rather than as day make-up.  Earliest recipes emphasised preparations that could be "scrubbed" into the skin to lessen blemishes but in the 18th century the general emphasis was on enhanced whiteness.  By the later part of the century, whilst the dominant white aesthetic remained, washes were prescribed more often, usually as part of the morning toilette. This suggests that a more prominent part was now played by water and washing in beauty routines.


Here are some examples:

1. "Spanish white"
From "Madame Isis":  http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/spanish-white.html
Recreated and worn by Madame Isis:
 http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/making-spanish-white-face-paint.html
This recipe is from the text Abdeker, Or the Art of Preserving Beauty which was directed primarily at perfumers. "Spanish white" is "magistery of bismuth" [a white precipitate of bismuth subnitrate] which in this instance is  blended with a cosmetic oil ("Oil of Ben").  Abdeker states that,  "If it be dissolv'd in Flower-de-Luce Water, it will whiten the face", which is difficult to interpret:   is it just that the pigment could be mixed with toilet water and used as a whitening wash or was it that the cosmetic was pre-prepared with oil for texture and translucency, then applied with the addition of water? Madame Isis had trouble blending with water, but using it neat produced something rather shiny and unpleasantly sticky.

2. An "excellent cosmetic for the face"
http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/excellent-cosmetic-for-face.html
Again from Abdeker. This preparation contains Hartshorn, ceruse, rice powder and Arabic gum, and this time the recipe clearly stipulates dissolving the ingredients in rose-water and using as a wash.

3. Nun's cream
http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.se/2012/09/hannah-glasse-on-pearls.html
From an English source, Hannah Glasse, The art of cooking (1747)
This one is blended with a pomade rather than the water-based washes suggested by Abdeker, the primary ingredient being "pearl-powder" (which could mean bismuth rather than actual pearls). This created a whitening cream.

4. "White paint" according to a German source
http://marquise.de/en/1700/kosmetik_3.shtml
This recipe is clearer; powdered white pigment is mixed with tragacanth water, a kind of gum prepared from a root. It can then be stored in a dried form and mixed with a pomade to actually apply.  The result is a white shiny foundation cream to which rouge easily adheres.

"When the white powder is covered with traganth (?tragacanth) water, stir them well through and through with a glass spoon until it has become a thick paste, and spread it onto a piece of white paper which has been strewn with the white paint before. Separate small amounts of the size of a pea from it, then dry them in a place that is protected from dust and keep them in a box. In order to use them, do as follows. Firstly, prepare a good pomade. Now take the dried pellets of white paint, put some in a small porcelain bowl, pulverize them with a glass spoon and add of the pomade, and mix it well. When you need it, spread some of it evenly on the face, and wipe any surplus away with blotting-paper. This will make the face shiny and enables it to receive the red paint."


Rouges

Red pigment was derived from minerals such as cinnabar (mercuric sulphide, called vermillion) or red lead.  It could also be made, rather more safely and inexpensively, from vegetable matter, such as safflowers (catharme), saffron, gum benzoin (wood resin), sandalwood, and brazilwood.  One of the most expensive dyes was carmine made from cochineal insects found in Latin America.  Dyes were originally combined with vinegar or lemon, precipitated on powder using alum, and then scented with flowers.  They could then be combined with a pomade and rubbed in or, alternatively, mixed with rose water or oil and applied using a brush (as Madame de Pompadour does in the Boucher portrait). Rouge could also be made au crépon, dying a cloth or paper with cochineal that could be moistened and rubbed on the face.  

In the mid century perfumers started selling rouge pre-prepared in pots - by 1781 it is reckoned that Frenchwomen used about two millions pots a year! (?Crickey - not sure where I got that statistic from....) and rouge - called in the Encyclopédie "the terrible vermilion" - was an accessory of almost every woman's dressing table. Thus Charles-Nicolas Cochin, writing about 1750:

"It is well known that rouge is nothing more than the mark of rank or wealth, because it cannot be supposed that anyone has thought to become more beautiful with this terrible crimson patch. It is surprising that such distinction has been attached to a colour so common and inexpensive that even the lowliest grisettes can make this expenditure as abundantly as a person of the highest birth."

Not all men were so hostile; according to Casanova rouge spelled opportunity, an ersatz flush to the cheeks signalling an invitation to love and a promise of erotic abandon (see Melissa Hyde, p.458)

Preparations:

1. Spanish red and carmine red 
http://marquise.de/en/1700/kosmetik_3.shtml
These recipes from the German give details of how to create the base red dyes from Turkish safflower and powdered cochineal.

2. An economical rouge 
 http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.se/2012/10/an-economical-rouge.html 
Another recipe posted by Madame Isis, this time from a 1797 manual. This is really just some advice on how to  apply shop-bought carmine using a pomade:

"Fine Carmine, pulverized and prepared for for this purpose [rouge], is without doubt the best of all Paints, and which the Ladies ought to adopt. In order to use it in an agreeable and frugal manner, procure some fine pomatum, without scent, made with the fat of pork and white wax; take about the bigness of a pea of this pomatum, and lay it upon a piece of white paper; then with the end of a tooth-pick add to it about the bigness of a pin's head of Carmine— mix it gently with your finger, and when you have produced the tone you wish, rub in it a little compressed cotton, and pass it on the face, till the Paint is quite spread and it no longer feels greasy.
Ladies have nothing to fear from this economical Rouge—it neither injures the health or skin, and imitates perfectly the natural colour."
Recreated by Madame Isis, http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.se/2013/01/making-and-wearing-nuns-cream-and.html

2. French Rouge,—Five Shillings per Pot.
 Another recipe from Hannah Glasse.  Rather than blending with a pomade, this suggests adding the carmine to hair powder.  This is quite interesting as face powder per se features very infrequently in these preparations.
http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.se/2012/09/french-rougefive-shillings-per-pot.html

3 . Another rouge for the face
http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.se/2012/08/another-rouge-for-face.html
From the Toilet of Flora (1771)  This one uses brazilwood shavings, alum and red wine to create a dye that can just be rubbed in.

References

Cosmetic ingredients and recipes 

Madame Isis' toilette.  This is a great blog from someone who recreates 18th-century costumes and cosmetics.
http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.co.uk/p/an-incomplete-list-of-ingredients-used.html

"Assistants of beauty : cosmetics in the Rococo and Empire eras". [In  La Couturière Parisienne, blog]
Recipes from:  Johann Bartholomäus Trommdorff. Kallopistria, oder die Kunst der Toilette für die elegante Welt. Erfurt 1805. http://marquise.de/en/1700/kosmetik.shtml 

18th century cosmetic recipes from Le petit Albert
http://marie-antoinettequeenoffrance.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/18th-century-cosmetic-recipes.html#.UsKCuvRdUrU


General works: 

Melissa HYDE, The "Makeup" of the Marquise: Boucher's portrait of Pompadour at her toilette" The Art Bulletin, Vol. 82, No. 3, (Sep., 2000), pp. 453-475.  
http://fsunw9.ferris.edu/~norcrosa/18thcWebsite/articles/Boucher.pdf

Catherine LANOË, "Céruse et cosmétiques sous l’Ancien Régime, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles" [Paper, published 2003]

http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/dossiers/doschim/decouv/couleurs/lanoe.pdf

_____, Extract from La poudre et le fard  (2008) :
https://assets.edenlivres.fr/assets/publications/28839/medias/la-poudre-et-le-fard-extrait.epub

Morag MARTIN, Selling beauty: cosmetics, commerce, and French society, 1750–1830 (2009) [Extracts available on Google Books]

Dominique  PAQUET ''Le fard cache les nuits de folies'' L'EXPRESS - Histoire de la beauté: 4. Les XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.  

http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/4-les-xviie-et-xviiie-siecles_818939.html

Make-up the 18th century way?

Fancy a new look for 2014?   Or is it 1714?   In this handy video clip, make-up expert  Alice Moulinet  advises on how to achieve the perfect maquillage for the 18th-century party season...........

1. You will need:  White foundation, loose white powder,  dark red paint for lips, red blusher. Brushes for powder, foundation and blusher, and for lips and eyeliner.  Eyeliner is used to add the characteristic 18th century "beauty spot". ("la mouche")

2.  For the face:  Use generous amounts of make up.  Take a quantity of white foundation in your hand and apply with the aid of a brush. Use a tapping motion to apply thickly.  Do not hesitate to load your brush as foundation was applied very thickly in the 18th century.  But be careful not to get it in your eyebrows.  Smooth it down and take the edges right up to the roots of your hair using the smallest brush. Now apply the powder.  Then take the red blusher and apply to your cheeks. Use the correct brush and make circular movements in such a way that the rouge remains thick and well-defined.

3.To emphasise the lips:  Take the dark red lip colour and apply several layers using the special brush.  The lips must be well covered to preserve the heavily made-up effect.

4. To finish: apply a beauty spot in the place of your choice, using a small quantity of eye-liner on a fine brush.  Find a suitable spot on your face or cleavage - positioning is significant and symbolic.  Near the eye reflects a passionate woman.  On the lip, a frivolous woman or a coquette.  On the nose, daring and cheeky.  On the forehead, proud.  On the cheek, amorous. On the chest generous and warmhearted.   There is an option for every personality; it is up to you to decide!

http://www.minutefacile.com/beaute-mode/soin-du-visage-et-maquillage/8268-faire-un-maquillage-du-18e-si-cle/#Version-texte