3. Penciled In Blood Vessels
Lead paint alone was not enough to fulfill the white-skinned beauty obsession of women in the middle ages. To truly achieve the pinnacle of fair-skinned beauty, women wanted their skin to look translucent. Any hint of a tan was a signal that one was a peasant who had to work outside in the fields, so skin utterly devoid of pigment was both a racial signifier of good breeding and a sign of the economic ability to leisure indoors while servants took care of you.
Unless one is dying of tuberculosis or some other chronic disease, it isn’t especially normal to be able to see extensive veining in the neck and chest. So, women turned to artificial means to create the translucent appearance so desired. Blue pencils and ink were used to trace along veins and make them more prominent, or sometimes fabricate them entirely if they weren’t visible.
The combination of lead face painting which would have given a completely flat white affect combined with stark blue ink veins must have led to a rather ghastly appearance in modern eyes. The gruesome combination sounds more like Halloween zombie makeup than the height of beauty, but they would likewise likely be scandalized by our colorful highlighters and eyeshadows today.