The Cult of Beauty review – delusional, divine, deadly…
Wellcome Collection, LondonFrom wife-grinding windmills to pure gold serums, this riveting show traces humanity’s obsession with beauty through time and cultures with a keen sense of the ludicrous and the shockingWant to look your best? A beauty box, new on the market, offers instant improvements: brow shaper, eyeliner, cheek enhancer, a pair of padded falsies in frothy white lace, plus the full range of available beauty spots. These are shaped like moons, stars or flirty hearts, and can be positioned on the face to indicate degrees of availability, character and even politics. A black spot on the right cheek, near the nose, and you’re an inveterate Tory.The spots in this 19th-century box were made of black silk, unlike the original mouse fur patches, worn by men as well as women across Europe from the 1640s onwards. The fashion for covering your blemishes with “mouches” began to fade with the discovery of a smallpox vaccine in 1796. But you can still buy beauty spots today. It seems t
