Cosmetics in Shakespearean and Renaissance Drama

Revised and updated critical survey of the field of cosmetics and adornment studies

This revised edition examines how the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries dramatise the Renaissance preoccupation with cosmetics. Farah Karim-Cooper explores the then-contentious issue of female beauty and identifies a ‘culture of cosmetics’, which finds its visual identity on the early modern stage. She also examines cosmetic recipes and anti-cosmetic literature focusing on their relationship to drama in its representations of gender, race, politics and beauty.

Key Features

Offers a new analysis of the construction of whiteness as a racial signifier Provides an original insight into women’s cosmetic practice through an exploration of ingredients, methods and materials used to create cosmetics and the perception of make up in Shakespeare’s time Includes numerous cosmetic recipes from the early modern period found in printed books and never published in a modern edition