8 Bizarre Beauty Standards of the Past That You Won’t Believe Were Real

3. Chest Flattening

In the middle ages, there was a widespread belief that to appear “modest”, women could not have large breasts, hips, hands, or feet. Even their lips had to be thin lest it be deemed too “sexual”! To achieve a flat chest, girls would begin binding their upper torsos from a very small age. The practice was so damaging that it even prevented their mammary glands from developing properly!

4. Arsenic Dye

In the Victorian era, a bright green colored dye called “Scheele’s Green” was invented and gained immense popularity. It was used in everything from clothes to house paint. The only downside? It was made with a mixture of arsenic and copper, both incredibly harmful to those who come into contact with them frequently. Since the women wore them literally on their bodies, it would penetrate their skin and eventually killed them slowly.

5. Portuguese Urine Mouthwash

Achieving pearly white teeth seemed to have been as much of an obsession in the past as it is today, but the people of Rome AD 1 took it to a whole other level with urine mouthwash. Urine is rich in ammonia, which was said to help in disinfection and teeth whitening. But the rich Romans didn’t want any old peasant’s urine – it had to be the Portuguese’s because that was considered to be the strongest in the world. Shockingly, it actually worked! In fact, urine remained an active ingredient in mouthwash up until the 18th century.