Wonderful Things To Come....

When I first started LBCC Historical, it came at a time of personal change..  It was either throw yourself into your dream career or start looking for a job. I wasn’t sure how the general public would react to working with and offering historical and historically based recipes. I was hoping that after some gentle prodding our apothecary and cosmetics would spark interest in the public.  Previously, it wasn’t really talked about save a few brave souls. It was time to bring it mainstream.

YEP! It seems like a long time ago!

I wasn’t even sure we could reproduce the exact historical recipe and have product that people would want. I mean lets face it- when we started this journey LARD in your hair was frowned upon. We have all come a long way in our understanding of how beneficial these historically natural ingredients are for us- I had nothing to worry about after all. Now that we have been at it for a few years, it’s time to review and upgrade things a bit. We have gone through the shop and decided that we will be discontinuing some of our first items, because we can now replicate those according to the exact recipe.

We have 3 different types of historical products in the store.

1.      Historically Accurate

2.      Historically Accurate+1

3.      Historically Based

We care greatly about historical accuracy and try to provide accurate products, which isn’t always easy. But we are proud to say that well over half our recipes are unaltered and those that are, we have specified what we have done. We never take away from the recipe. If we need to add something it is usually a consistency issue or a shelf life issue. We will now be listing these at the top of the description. Previously we went into detail about what we added, and we still will, but this will make it easy and clear for everyone to understand.

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What does this mean:

1.   Historically Accurate-  Obviously this means we haven’t changed anything.  Nothing has changed. This is the majority of the recipes already in the shop.

A Natural Tint For The Lips 1857 Godey's Ladies Book

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2.   Historically Accurate+1 – This refers to adding 1 historical ingredient.  The reason for this isn’t because we don’t want to be as historically accurate as we can. It’s because usually it’s a consistency issue or a shelf life issue and when you are making the product at home ( like many did) it’s one thing.. but if you have a pharmacists, or apothecary, making it for their shop and it has to hold up on the shelf, that is another thing. We only will add historically appropriate ingredients which is why we are calling this Historically Accurate + 1. It happened all the time historically. I even have original books with the original pencil scratchings, changing things around or adding something more for stability. ( See Below)

Did you know, that one problem with cold creams historically was that there really was no agent to keep the fat and water bound together, so after it warmed up it had a tendency to separate or to become thin. Cold Creams had a very short life which is why when they were purchased, they came in little containers- like ours in the shop, vs the large ones the stores sell today. By the end of the 19^th century 2 major advances in cold creams happened. Borax, and Petroleum.  We will soon have a 1920’s petroleum cold cream for you to try.

To counter this issue, a pharmacist would change the amounts of beeswax or add specific types of gums that would help with the consistency and shelf life.  At home, women who made these recipes would change or add things as well. We see examples of this with early personal recipe books. “ Mama’s lip salve” for example, these were recipes, which were passed down and changed as needed. 

Westminster City Archives: The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies

https://lostcookbook.wordpress.com/author/cookinguphistory/

"Receipt for a Lip Salve – Mammas Way

Take a pint & half of claret, a qr of a pd of currants, 1 pd of butter without salt, 4 or 5 ounces of Virgins Wax & 2 ounces of ye root Alkanet, otherwise call’d Alcony.  This last with ye wine & currants must be boyl’d a pritty while. Afterwards, ye butter & wax being put in, must be boyl’d a little, then strain all into a bason. If, when cold, you find it too soft, add more wax. If too hard, add more butter. When it tis cold, ye top must be taken of & melted by it self & strain’d into little cups for use. If you have a mind to sweeten it, strain it with orange flower water or what else you think fit."

We still do this in our shop when we need to because of a shelf life issue, consistency, or because a specific ingredient ( like spermaceti) is no longer available. So these still are completely historical in every way. We are thinking as a pharmacist or chemist and even a housewife of that time.

This is an example from my personal collection. This is a book on perfume recipes and it was previously owned by a pharmacist. I found it fascinating to look at his markings and changes.

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     3. Historically Based: These are the ones, which we took many historical recipes and combined them together, or we took part of the recipe and combined it with modern/ and or historical ingredients to make it better. These are the recipes which had potential, but for whatever reason we couldn’t or didn’t want to reproduce the exact recipe, maybe you don’t want lead on your skin, or maybe by adding coconut oil and making sure all our ingredients are organic.. we make the recipe 100% more awesome and our ancestors would be proud.

Shakespeare's Love Balm- This salve is taken from, “A Winters Tale,” and combined with ingredients used by famous courtesans throughout history. 

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We serve people from all walks of life, - not just the historically minded. Some just want a really unique gift while others need something for their living history and reenactments. Still others are museums, and some don’t even care about the historical accuracy, they just want a great natural product. We also have a lot of customers who are just interested in makeup and different natural cosmetics. Many of us whether historically minded or modern-ly minded want to stay away from icky chemicals and get back to nature. We love the fact that we can offer a wide range of historical and historically based products that our ancestors used and now people are finding their way back to these great recipes. By offering a wide array, we can serve everyone and educate at the same time, which is important to us.

 As our business and customer base expands, we will continue to offer both historical recipes that have and have not been altered.

 Some Wonderful Changes Are Happening: 

I thought I’d take this time to fill you in on our upgrades and such.

1.   We care about accuracy so much, that the first few recipes we ever made and maybe even a few “historically Inspired” ones which we feel aren’t accurate or good enough will be saying goodbye and we will be replacing these with new absolutely 100% authentic historical recipes. This is how we prefer to roll -As accurately as we can..while running a business that caters to everyone while finding recipes, that help, heal, and are good for you.

2.    My Apothecary Lab, Office, & Shipping Area are all getting completely redone. YEAH!!

3.   We now have one of those sketchy white-working vans.  It won’t look so sketchy when our huge logo is on it. That will be put on as soon as we get warmer weather. So now you will be able to see us as we drive to events. Make sure to honk and wave!

4.    We are getting a front expansion for our marquis tent. Which will make your shopping experience nicer, shadier, cooler, or warmer depending on the weather and we will have a bit more space.

5.    We are currently working on getting reproduced 18^th century cosmetic brushes, toothbrushes, and even reproduced toilette boxes.

6.   We will also be offering a new line of wooden pomatum and salve jars.

7.   We are diligently working on improving bottles for you as well. We started already with some of the authentic rouges, but we will be continuing to replace bottles and containers, as we find more historical ones to offer and/or we find ones that seal properly unlike some of our cork woes.

8.   We have new product lines coming out which include the Civil War, the 1920’s , Victorian, as well as more authentic 18^th century rouges and such.

9.   We just got the newest GoPro- which I hope will solve my video problems and help us make better, crisper, and clearer high quality videos for you. We are always open to suggestions for what you want to see. Let is know!

10.     Credit Cards? Previously we were only taking them with the phone which as everyone knows doesn’t always work the best, we now have a large tablet with a different carrier which promises to get us a good connection in the places we need it. This will make it easier and faster for you when you see us in person. I won’t have to walk a mile now to get a signal. (Happy Dance)

11.     We have also been invited to some Civil War events this year, so maybe you will see us there!

New and exciting things in progress!!
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To sum everything up! We have wonderful things happening and are so thankful that you have supported us ( me) in my journey. Even though we are upgrading a lot we continued to stay devoted to historical accuracy and any time we can keep a recipe original we do and any time we can toss out a old recipe from the shop for one more historical, we will. But please remember as much as we love history, we want to continue bringing you quality products from history even if we have to make it better by adding a historical ingredient. We are devoted to keeping you in the loop and offering top quality naturally organic, and historical products, so you can live safer and better lives without the chemicals. Our Ancestors had a few things right.. even if lead wasn’t one of them  :)

The Dark Side Of Selling Beauty Products In The 18th Century & How Things Have Not Changed

       I recently had a specific issue come up regarding a 

                                 seller/store on Amazon.

What was happening without my knowledge was this: Said person stole my photos and listings of my products and put them in their store on Amazon- listing only 1 available.  If a customer had purchased the listing, the store seller would then have purchased from my shop and changed his address to the address of the customer- thus making me the unaware drop shipper. The prices of my products were inflated at least 3 times the original price. This also involved many other Etsy stores, mine was not the only one affected. I am thankful for those that caught it and notified me.

 It has since been taken care of, but who is to say it won’t happen again. Even though I continuously get many requests every week to wholesale- I have not yet taken the plunge. So this means I am the only one selling my products or products of the like.

 My first reaction when this was brought to my attention was forgetting to breathe…. I was in shock. After said shock, I went into action to see what needed to happen to stop this Amazon store. During this whole issue, my mind kept telling me this is the same issues cosmetic sellers in the 18^th century faced – you are just experiencing it in a different era.

      Advertisement: "Lady Friz at her Toilet . In an hour or two she will be handsome enough. - sold by 
           W. Humphrey N. 227 Strand"

Selling Beauty in the 18^th century wasn’t an easy task. Beauty products had become so popular, that it created a vast market with sellers competing for clients, to be the “best” and to come up with recipes that cured everything or made anything it was applied to “beautiful” or at least “feel beautiful”. To be able to say you sell to royalty was the tip-top and if you could get that far and have the crown incorporated into your advertisements, then you had no problem getting business. But there was a darker side of the trade which involved, stealing and copying.

Those selling beauty used various methods to stand out promising satisfaction, or putting instructions on the package. We have documentation from letters that shows just how concerned with customer satisfaction the makers and sellers of cosmetics were. Mme. Sadous a manufacture of rouge wanted to make sure her products were properly applied and satisfaction was had, so she would many times be seen at her customers homes, demonstrating her products.[1] Others like Mr. Maille would advertise that his rouge could travel across the ocean and not run- even in the hottest weather. [2] Others guaranteed their rouge would last for 10 years. One cosmetic maker went over the top and promised to receive no money until his clients were satisfied. 

 By 1742, fixed prices started appearing in the advertising of beauty to reassure clients of quality. This meant no more bartering. Now, a customer would know how much a pot of rouge cost from a specific manufacture. The price also told the “quality” of the rouge. Now customers knew what to expect when they arrived in the shop. It is documented that Mr. Collin sold his jars of rouge at different prices depending on the quality of the packaging. So the wealthy and the poor could have the same rouge- the difference being whether it was sold in a porcelain container for 24 livres   ( 1 Gold Coin or roughly $96.00 modern US dollars) or plain crockery for 6 livres. ( 1 Silver Coin or roughly $24.00 modern US dollars)[3]

The use of homemade cosmetics was so widespread that those who had actual storefronts needed to make their products seem “better” than their homemade counterparts. They used advertising and started naming their products after culturally recognized symbols that promoted taste and beauty. [4]With that said it is important to note that manufactures stayed away from political issues and those in primary positions. So you would never have cologne named Eau de Marie Antoinette. Think instead of a rouge named, “La Fleur De La Jeunesse” or “The Bloom of Youth”.

With all this, the fear and reality of being copied was mainstream- so much so that in advertising business’s would warn clients’ to beware of falsifications.  Widow Dupre’ who sold rouge for the Queen and her court warned the public that, “There is sold daily in Paris and the provinces rouge marked and numbered as coming from my factory that can only harm my favorably established reputation, seeing that these different sellers or makers falsify my rouge or make it themselves with harmful ingredients.” She tried to combat the counterfeiting by signing her packages.[5] This attempt to authenticate products is even seen in this 1906 “Harmless Toilet Powder” container in my personal collection.

LaBlanche Face Powder. Ben levy Co. 1906. Personal collection of LBCC Historical

 Other makers started signing and sealing all their containers being well aware of the danger they were put in if their cosmetics were sold under false pretenses. Some counterfeiters were stealing and selling a specific cosmetic brand or placing counterfeit labels on lower quality and even harmful cosmetics, telling the purchaser it was from a reputable merchant and making away with a good sum of money. Another way of trying to rebuttal the counterfeiters, reputable cosmetic sellers numbered and limited the sale of specific products.

One gentleman who made and sold eau de Cologne (which has a fascinating history- maybe for another blog post) promised his clients that his Cologne would only be sold by one specific outlet in Paris. [6]Mme Josse made it clear “ that she has authorized no one either in Paris nor in the provinces to distribute her rouge, which would only be sold in her store.” Eventually she changed her mind and by 1781 she had set up one authorized Parisian outlet. [7] After this little incident with Amazon, I can sympathize with these historical sellers. It’s something that has been around for centuries and I am sure it won’t stop anytime soon.

Advertisement: Printed for Robt. Sayer, Printseller in Fleet Street 1760 (Lewis Walpole Library)

                                                                                                             

So in the light of the situation, I am going to take the advice of those in the 18^th century. 

I will always keep you alert if I am made aware of those trying to counterfeit my products. I feel like I’m being a bit like Mme. Josse here, but I have authorized no one to distribute my historical products. Therefore, the only place as of now you will find my products is in my ETSY store, or if we are traveling and have set up shop. If you should see someone selling products that resemble mine in any way, be warned, they are counterfeit. If such time arrives in-which I choose to authorize other outlets, I promise to keep you, my customers informed.

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[1] Journal des dames 20 Dec 1815

[2] Ruscelii, Secrets du Seigneur Alexis Piedmontais, 569.

[3] Goulin, Medecin des homes 411, 412.

[4] Selling Beauty, Martin, 67.

[5] Oldendorff, Traite’ anatomique, 25.

[6] Selling Beauty, Martin, 67.

[7] Dupont fe L’ain, Etudes medicales sur les quatre ages de la vie, 170.

Giveaway 1896 Lemon German Lip Salve

Giveaway Ends April 28th 2014

Click Here to Enter our GIVEAWAY!

Click on our banner and share it to be entered!

Introducing the newest Edition to our SHOP!  This is an original recipe from 1896. When I saw the title of the recipe, I knew I had to make it

  GERMAN LIP SALVE.

The book that this recipe came out of was dated 1896, but the recipes were a compilation of much older recipes. Unfortunately, they didn't give the history of those recipes or where the originals came from- just that these were tried and true recipes that have stood the test of time. I have actually made a few from this recipe book. They will come out soon and we will do a giveaway for those too :)

The ingredient list in this German Lip Salve is completely different than the 1772 honey lip salve in the shop- another reason I wanted to give this one a go.  Cocoa Butter has been around for ages. In the 18th century I even came across a recipe book pretty much saying- if you can get cocoa butter, use it.

"A great quantity of fubftance refembling Butter is extracted from the Cocoa Tree, which is excellent to mollify and nourish the fkin, and has long been ufed for this purpose amongst the Spanifh Creolian women." Toilet De Flora 1772 203.

Ingredients: 

Cocoa Butter is an amazing moisturizer for chapped skin, dry hands, and even stretch marks and wrinkles. It has tons of natural antioxidants which makes it the perfect vegetable fat for salves and ointments. Plus, it's healing properties have been known for centuries. Almond oil is another ingredient that has been around forever. Did you know that the almond is considered to be one of the earliest domesticated tree nuts? Almond oil is rich in Vit. A, B, and E and helps maintain moisture levels in your skin. It is even said that it will help with under eye circles and skin rashes. Essential lemon oil also has lots of vitamins. It is a huge booster for your bodies immune system. It is always refreshing and rejuvenates dull skin, so mix this in with organic bees wax which is antibacterial and locks in moisture and 

you have a winning authentic Victorian lip balm.  

I'm not entirely sure why they called it 'German'. My guess was that the very first original source it came from was German. I plan to continue to dig into the history behind this lovely little moisturizing lip balm and I'll keep you updated. What I found in this specific recipe book from 1896 was that some of the much older recipes- like those from Cleopatra and such- used much of the original recipe but added certain Victorian elements to them. That is a topic for a  post all on its own.

Take a look for it in my Shop and if you want to enter to win a free one, hop on over to our fan page Here - click on the banner and share it with your friends. 

The Art of Replicating Historical Recipes

1772 Orange Flower Cold Cream- Toilet De Flora

              The Art of Replicating Historical Recipes

Having a historical recipe doesn’t mean we can just copy it - like we would to make chocolate chip cookies! YUM!

I thought I’d take this first blog post to list some important aspects I have learned over the years of reading and replicating these recipes.

Things that can’t be over looked:

1     -  Making sure that if there are translations they are  translated correctly?

2     - Good to Remember -Just because the ingredients are listed one right after another doesn’t mean that is the order in which they are added.

3     - Do the ingredients have another name? Many of our names for things today were different in years past.

4    - What is the description of the listed ingredients? Sometimes I need to do a lot of researching to even begin to figure out what a specific ingredient is. Let’s start with something easy…. Lets say I am reproducing an 18^th century recipe that calls for spermaceti. 
Here are some questions I ask myself.

-  What is it?

-   Is it available on today’s market? If not what do I replace it with?

-   Is it safe?

-  What was its purpose historically?

-  What is its composition scientifically?

All these questions have to be asked, researched, and figured out before I can proceed. I do this for each “ingredient” listed.
so..lets say I'm researching spermaceti - 

 Spermaceti

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/559400/spermaceti

 “Spermaceti, a wax, liquid at body temperature, obtained from the head of a sperm whale 

(Above) Spermaceti- Solid Form

(Above) Spermaceti- Liquid Form

Spermaceti was used chiefly in ointments, cosmetic creams, fine wax candles, pomades, and textile finishing; later it was used for industrial lubricants. The substance was named in the mistaken belief that it was the coagulated semen of the whale… The spermaceti was separated from the oil by chilling in a process whalers called wintering; it congealed as a white crystalline, waxy solid. Chemically, pure spermaceti consists principally of cetyl palmitate and other esters of fatty acids with fatty alcohols and melts at about 44 °C (111 °F).

whaling in the 18th century, drawing from Cook expedition

So now we know a bit about spermaceti.  Did you know it is illegal now? Sperm whales are listed under the Endangered Species Act since 1970. In fact not to long ago, a man found a whole hoard of Spermaceti oil in the basement of the school where he worked. He started selling it on Ebay for 40.00 per oz. Needless to say he was caught and fined $2,000.00.

I obviously have to cross THAT off my “available” list. Next question: What can I use as a substitute?

When I have to change something out, I try and stay as close to the same chemical compound as I can. A good substitute for whale oil is Jojoba esters (solid form) or Jojoba Oil ( liquid form) - which is more common. It carries much of the same chemical composition and some even say it has additional superior traits to that of sperm oil.  Bonus for us!!

Jojoba Oil

So while I am able to keep much of the historical recipes genuine and not have to substitute out or replace anything, there are some cases in which I do and spermaceti is the most common. I always try as hard as I can to have the substituted ingredient be available from the same historical dates as the recipe - sometimes it works and other times it doesn't. So far I have been pretty successful at it.

                         More Questions that we need to ask.

5.     What’s missing?

 Historical recipes are funny. They were written in code most of the time so that not just anyone could reproduce them. This is even true for the Victorian books that have (at home) recipes. 

Recipe Books In My Personal Collection

The authors assumed that you had the “missing” knowledge needed in order to make the recipe work. If you didn’t have that knowledge - good luck. While some recipes are pretty straight forward, most aren’t. It is a good thing I hate instructions-  because there are rarely if ever any "how-tos" or guidelines. You just need to know and have the necessary knowledge.

6.   Measurements…. Conversions… OH MY

As we all know measurements and their descriptive names have changed throughout history. It seems pretty straightforward but let me tell you from experience, not all measurements are commonly known and/or may be misleading from how we think today. I could go on and on about this. But I’ll stop here.

READY!?!

Our recipe is in English, and we now know what we are substituting. We have figured out any and all historical names with the “new” updated ingredient names and what each ingredient does ( what it heals, what the cautions are… etc)- now we are ready to work on the measurements. After we get those figured out. We will compute everything to see if any ingredients or methods of preparation were left out of the recipe in order to “make things work properly”. Lots of recipes have many steps to complete or prepare ahead of time. For example if you are making a tincture- it can take months before that specific portion of the recipe is finished- just for one ingredient.  Next, we will gather all our ingredients, our notes, and see if we calculated things correctly the first time. If it doesn’t turn out.. it’s back to the “DRAWING BOARD” as they say..

This was a 1772 Pomatum for the face that I was working on. First try I failed and had to go back and recalculate everything. 2nd time I had everything figured out!

What does this all boil down too?

It comes down to knowledge and research… and more research… and a lot of math…and conversions (that is probably the one thing I dislike the most) and yet I am completely fascinated by the amount of knowledge and the know-how our ancestors had. I love “cracking” the historical recipe “codes” and searching down ingredients and when all of those things come together perfectly – I reproduce historical apothecary and cosmetic recipes. So I hope you will enjoy this blog and follow along as I share my adventures in the historical apothecary and cosmetic world!!

I try to be as meticulous and detail oriented in everything I do from research to the final stages in order to make sure all my products are accurate representations of history.  I also have some great videos on Youtube to help assist you with your new historical products. You can also check out my awesome Etsy shop.

www.litttlebits.etsy.com.