Toxic Beauty

Wednesday 19 May 2027

6pm - 7pm 

No.11 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JQ

Tickets £3

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Join us at the Physicians’ Gallery as two speakers - Dr Barbara Lasic and Dr Fabiola Creed – explore two aspects of the dangerous history of cosmetic enhancements.

Barbara will talk about the use of make-up that contained toxic ingredients and Fabiola will talk about the once thought to be ‘healthy’ sunbed trend.

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Dangerous Liaisons : Beauty and Cosmetics 1500-1900

This talk will consider the pursuit of beauty and the perilous and sometimes deadly art of make-up in the Early Modern period. For centuries cosmetics have offered the elusive promise of perfection. Vilified and mocked, yet irresistibly enticing, cosmetic artifice was not just the preserve of wealthy elites and was avidly consumed by very diverse social groups ranging from impoverished courtesans to well-to-do matriarchs, and powerful queens.

The pursuit of beauty was, however, not without its own risks and some of the most sought-after cosmetics contained toxic ingredients like lead, mercury or arsenic.

Dr Barbara Lasic FHEA

Barbara Lasic is Associate Professor in Art and Design History and Research and Knowledge Lead at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. She is a member of the Association for Art History Art Market Steering Group, and sits on the editorial board of the Colnaghi Journal. Barbara’s research has been supported by the Getty Research Institute and her publications offer a wide and interdisciplinary set of contributions on art and design history, the history of collecting and the art market, and museology and curatorial practice.

Prior to her academic career, Barbara worked at the Victoria & Albert Museum as part of the curatorial team involved in the redevelopment of the Europe: 1600-1800 galleries, and she held curatorial positions at the Wellcome Trust and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

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Bronzed then Blamed: Sunbeds, and the Making of a Public Health Problem

The paper historicises how the desire for tanned white skin led to the rise in sunbeds. By analysing the role of the media, medical experts, and socio-political changes, it exposes how sunbed providers, consumers and the 'sunbed tan' itself shifted from 'healthy' to 'harmful' in late twentieth-century Britain. Introduced as a ‘revolutionary’ technology by affluent health and beauty businesses, including gyms, sunbeds symbolised the acme of self-improvement from the 1970s to early 1980s.

Yet, by the 1990s, the machines became a mundane technology associated with working-class people and 'excess' consumerism. Following the rise in skin cancer rates, and subsequent UV research and health campaigns, the media stigmatised 'sunbed addicts'; these young white women and metrosexual men were condemned for being an 'immoral' drain on the NHS. Yet, tanning culture and its ever-evolving technologies remain popular to this day.

Dr Fabiola Creed

Dr Fabiola Creed researches the intersection of commercial industries, ‘health’ technologies, marketing, and public health, with emphasis on patient(-consumer) testimonies, mass-media representation, and stigma in contemporary Britain.

At the University of Glasgow, she has published on several contemporary topics. Her first set of publications examined tanning technologies, including her open-access book The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed: Tanning Culture from Fad to Fear. She then published on maternal (and paternal) mental illness narratives. For the foreseeable future, Fabiola will be historicising the gambling industry’s ‘addictive’ sport sponsorship.

Having worked with the Scottish Government, Fabiola welcomes policy and media enquiries on tanning culture. She is the editor of the Social History of Medicine’s Gazette.

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Free for students (student card required), under 18s (ID card required), accompanying carers and RCPE Fellows or Members.

Please email library@rcpe.ac.uk if you are a student, under 18, accompanying carer, RCPE Fellow or Member and would like to be added to the attendee list.

Refund Information: Please note that a non-refundable 89p booking charge is included in your ticket price is. This is part of the Eventbrite terms and conditions and is not at the discretion of the Physicians’ Gallery.