Historical Research into Elizabethan Beauty & Culture

Princess Elizabeth 1546
http://tudorhistory.org/elizabeth/gallery.html

Within the Elizabethan period a pale face for both the male and female gender was considered, as in the Middle Ages, a desirable feature obtainable by only the wealthy. Pink or tanned skin was associated with peasant workers due to long hours spent in the fields under the sun. To enhance these features a white powder comprised of lead was often applied to the face and a small amount of rouge  to the cheek for the purpose of preserving the appearance white skin. Cosmetics were not widely popular during the reign of Mary I however after the coronation of Elizabeth their use quickly accelerated, this advance in cosmetic beauty was influenced mainly by Italian women whose culture had been brought over with royal foreign advisers. In Italy women were renowned for tinting their eyelids, lips, nails and even their teeth. Many also felt that the use of paint was sufficient for enhanced colour application and it was this use of tints and paints, this influence is illustrated within many Renaissance paintings where the hair is curled and tinted with saffron.
The Queens ivory complexion was viewed as the perfect base for contemporary beauty however the means of which the white foundation of the period was created proved highly toxic. The toxic combination of ceruse and white lead ate into the skin while the alabaster powder only worsened the sores. On top of this a rouge created from further lead and a red ochre colourant was added to the cheeks and a lip 'pencil' of alabaster and plaster of Paris was allowed to dry on the lips to create a red lip colourant. In addition to this blue paint was added to the skin over areas of exposed veins to enhance the illusion of the skin being almost transparent, the paler the skin the more beautiful the women. This aspiration for perfection was a daily task within the lives of Elizabethan women, often they would cover their faces with thin layers of egg white in the hopes of maintaining youthful skin (a technique still included in many natural facial treatments to this date) or during the later Elizabethan period it became fashionable to wear a white oval mask held in position by the teeth for the purpose of shielding the skin from the sun.

Book Ref (Key Reading): Beauty and Cosmetics 1550-1950, Sarah Jane Downing, Shire Books, July 2012.
Book Ref: The Artificial Face, A History of Cosmetics', Fenja Gunn, David & Charles, October 1973. 
This book was a thoroughly useful tool within developing my knowledge of Elizabethan beauty and cosmetics, not only does it contain information regarding why and how procedures were carried out but also contains recipes of ingredients to demonstrate how the products themselves were made. This was particularly helpful in aiding the understanding of what it was exactly within Elizabethan cosmetics (such as lead) that caused conditions such as sores, skin erosion and poisoning.