Liquid Rouge, c.1772-1784

Another receipt from The American Duchess Guide to Beauty [adapted from The Toilet of Flora]: liquid rouge. Out of respect for the modern authors I will not be repeating the whole recipe, but the original is well in the public domain for anyone interested in looking it up themselves.

A different shade of red.

As usual, I scaled the recipe down further, using the usual 4 Tbsp = 1 oz approximation for the powdered materials. If anyone's interested in trying it on 1/8 scale as I did, use 3/4 tsp where an ingredient calls for "1oz" and 3/8 tsp for those calling for "1/2 oz". This is a weight to volume conversion, but it appears to work.

This shade of pink is the exact color
I turn when contemplating sunlight.

With different coloring agents, this rouge produced a more orange-red shade (which also looks more blood-red in the jar), than the cochineal-carmine rouges I've otherwise attempted. The final product does have the much-vaunted "transparency" when applied; it also has a very light color saturation, and closely matches my actual skin-tones when blushing/exerting oneself/venturing into sunlight. The picture above makes it appear more subdued than it is in person. Careful layering would be needed for a more dramatic coloring, but I could see this rouge making a more "natural" effect than most of the others. There were some solid particles to deal with, even after two weeks of waiting, but I was able to let the rouge dry and then gently brush the residue off. A faint stain remained on my hand even after washing; further experiments in water-stability will be needed.

In another difference from the 19th century, I found it interesting that the Toilet of Flora recipes were called "carmines" instead of "rouges".  They also all use brazilwood dust for the coloring, where the later rouges favor cochineal (or carmine, which is defined in the 19th century sources as refined cochineal). More intriguingly, recipe #250 for "the Turkish method of preparing carmine" mentions that cochineal or "red sanders" (red sandalwood, perhaps?) can be used in place of the brazilwood. Within fifty years, this will be entirely supplanted by cochineal derivatives.