Exploring Medieval Cosmetics: A Study on Trotula's Teachings

The purpose of our project was to examine how accessible it would be to make medieval cosmetics from the Trotula while evaluating the effectiveness of these cosmetics. The Trotula was written in Southern Italy and consisted of a group of three texts describing women’s medicine. The third section of the Trotula focuses mainly on Women’s Cosmetics. The purpose of this section was to teach females how to improve their appearance themselves, except females, did not read these resources. It was not written by a woman, but by a male physician for male physicians. These male physicians wanted to discover “women’s secrets”. Due to the authorship of the Trotula, there were several problems that appeared when trying to replicate these recipes. Male physicians

would not have any interest in replicating these recipes, and even if a woman had access to the Trotula, she might not even be able to read it unless she was a noblewoman. The recipes included in the Trotula were intended for a woman to transform into an ideal Renaissance woman with certain beauty qualities.
I made a "recipe" that involved filling a veil with sweet-smelling ingredients, such as cloves and nutmeg. This recipe seemed to consider the fact that women would rather smell sweet than smell like onions when one “smears the face with onion or quill”. This step was in Trotula recipe #. This detail seems to indicate that either woman were willing to look beautiful at any costs, even if they smelled like an onion, or that male physicians believed a woman would perform this ritual for the sake of beauty. This recipe was put into a veil, which was wrapped around the hair with the purpose of making the hair smell pleasant. Since I am Muslim, I wear a veil on a daily basis and I feel that my tresses could smell more fragrant. However, the cloves and nutmeg had scents that were a little too overpowering for me, causing me to get a headache. Also, the smell seemed to cause people to produce hysterical faces. Overall, I do not feel like it was a successful recipe as it evoked my scalp to start itching. This recipe seemed too harsh for my scalp.
This one recipe allowed for the observation of several problems in other medieval cosmetic recipes from the Trotula.

For example, there was a lack of information regarding the toxicity of ingredients such as the nutmeg. I used enough nutmeg to cover the veil, which came out to be approximately a teaspoon. Thankfully, this dosage is much lower than the dosage of two tablespoons or more that can cause people to have out-of-body sensations, “intense nausea, dizziness, extreme dry mouth, and a lingering slowdown of normal brain function”. The lack of information regarding the toxicity of certain ingredients was not limited to this recipe. Instead, there was a recipe involving the use of ashes without specifying the type of ash needed. Ashes are produced in various locations such as in areas with dead plague-ridden bodies or from volcanoes. Ashes near a plague-ridden body have no medical or cosmetic benefits, but it has numerous toxicants like lead, arsenic, and mercury. However, volcanic ash has medical and cosmetic benefits. In terms of medical benefits, volcanic ash is anti-bacterial and a disinfectant. In terms of cosmetic benefits, volcanic ash is able to synthesize collagen. Not all of the medieval cosmetic recipes were focused on purely cosmetic benefits, but there were some medical benefits included perhaps due to the fact that this is the third section of a book focused on Women’s medicine. for eliminating worms of the face, which causes some people to lose their hair or

for intense scabies on the face goof for any kind of pustules in the face, and for excoriations ought to annoit herself in front of the fire
a proven remedy for fistulaFor example, recipe # has all the cosmetic benefits but concludes with the medical benefits of……