#WackyWednesday: History’s strangest trends
If you like to keep up to date with the latest trends, be careful you don't go too far in trying to keep up with the newest "fashions".
As each year passes, trends come and go with people doing their utmost to stay up to date with the newest “in thing”.
While the older generation might mock the newest trends youngsters follow, there have been odder trends that were once followed. Here are five of the weirdest trends followed by people.
1. Black Teeth
In early Tudor England, sugar was not readily available and could only be afforded by the rich. Queen Elizabeth I had a sweet tooth of note and with money readily at hand, she consumed so much sweets that her teeth were apparently black and decayed. Despite this, for a brief period in England, woman puposefully blackened their teeth to prove they had enough money to buy sugar.
2. Hobble skirts
“Hobbling” is a term for tying an animal’s legs together to prevent it from running away. In the early 20th century, the hobble skirt attempted to do the same to women and was designed specifically to slow women down and prevent them from taking large steps.
3. Powdered wigs
Powdered wigs from the bygone days bring about images of royalty and class, but many people are not familiar with their tie to syphilis. In Epidemics and And History: Disease, Power and Imperialism, author Sheldon J. Watts explains many of those in the upper and middle classes had the disease, which produced some horrendous smells and baldness.
To cover the smell, many people wore wigs made of goat, horse, or human hair. The wigs were powdered in scents like lavender and orange, to cover the stink coming from down below. The trend caught on when Louis XIV, who also had syphilis, started wearing them.
4. Lard wigs
During 18th century Europe, nobility enjoyed rather large wigs. The wigs were constructed out of wooden frames with hair draped over. The hair was glued in place on the wood frame with a paste made from lard.
While the lard worked rather well, it did have one drawback in that it attracted rats, who would often nest inside the hairpieces while they were not being worn.
5. Crocodile dung baths
While many different animal products and byproducts have been claimed to work wonders on the skin, the ancient Greeks and Romans might have gone too far in the search of beauty.
They used a special ingredient in their mud baths: crocodile excrement. Full-body bathtubs were filled with a mixture of earth and freshly-harvested crocodile faeces, which was also used to make anti-aging face masks.
