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Were Regency era beauty standards different from today’s?
Yes and no! I’ll share everything I’ve learned about feminine beauty ideals in this era.
I researched Regency era beauty standards when I was writing my romantic comedy novel Her Time Traveling Duke. My heroine in the book, Rose Novak, is plump, with curly hair. My hero, Henry Leighton-Lyons, is from Regency era England. Because beauty standards vary from time period to time period, I wondered what was considered beautiful in Henry’s time!
Of course, attraction is very personal. At the beginning of the book, Henry is grieving his late wife, who nobody considered a great beauty—nobody, that is, other than Henry.
The hero in my book appreciates my heroine’s generous figure, as many Regency-era gentlemen would. One guide to “ladies of the night” from that era extols the appeal of “a fine plump lady” more than once.
Dame Emma Hamilton was described in one gentleman’s 1801 diary as “fat.” Nonetheless, she was the mistress to none other than the rock star of the era, Horatio Nelson. The Prince of Wales was obsessed with her around this same time, and she was getting lots of wedding proposals from wealthy men.
Lord Byron’s first impressions of his lover Caroline Lamb was that her figure was “too thin to be good, and wanted that roundness which elegance and grace would vainly supply.” On the other hand, Elizabeth Conyngham, the last mistress of George IV, had a generous figure.
In Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Anne feels she has grown too “faded and thin” to recapture Captain Wentworth’s attention. In Emma, Harriet Smith is described in this way: “She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great sweetness…”
But slender women were also admired. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet is described as having a figure that is “light and pleasing.”
I looked at a lot of fashion plates from the era, and in those, the women were usually slim. They often had long necks and sloping shoulders. I came across one comment in a book about how a lady’s shoulders shouldn’t be “too angular.”
In descriptions of women, I came across several positive references to height, such as “tall and genteel” and “tall and elegant.” In Sense and Sensibility, Lady Middleton is described as “tall and striking.” However, I didn’t encounter any derogatory references to short women.
After spending way too much time on this, I’m not convinced that there was a rigid beauty standard for the female figure in the Regency period. In an 1825 book on beauty, the author wrote, “the forms of beauty in the human figure are as infinite as the varieties of human genius…the majestic commanding beauty can no more be compared with the winning enchanting beauty, than the genius of Sir Isaac Newton can be compared with that of Shakespeare.”
In addition to various body types, people in the Regency era admired gracefulness.
They would frequently note the way a lady walked and carried herself.
Regency Beauty Standards for Faces
Eyes
In England in the Regency period, people admired large, sparkling eyes. How ladies were supposed to make their eyes sparkle, I have no idea, except that people often mentioned sparkling eyes in conjunction with liveliness, wit, or intelligence.
Noses
“Greek” noses and straight noses seem to have been admired over snub noses. For instance, in one memoir, a man describes a beautiful princess like this: “lovely eyes, a Greek nose, pouting lips…” In a few texts from the Regency era that discussed ideal features, the authors referenced Greek statues as the ideal.
Mouths
There seems to have been a preference for a “rosebud” type of mouth, with full lips. I came across one comment of a lady’s mouth being “too wide.”
White teeth are often mentioned as a positive attribute in books from the Regency era.
Symmetrical features were held in high regard—as they are in every era, as far as I know.
Regency Beauty Standards for Complexion
In the Regency era, as now, people wanted youthful, smooth complexions. Pale skin and rosy cheeks were admired; one might speak of a “lily and rose complexion,” or “a blooming complexion.”
Regency-era England was, without question, a deeply classist society. Suntans and freckles, associated with the laboring class, were sometimes frowned upon.
In Pride and Prejudice, original mean girl Caroline Bingley says to Mr. Darcy of Elizabeth Bennett, “She is grown so brown and coarse!” She also complains that Elizabeth’s face is too thin, her nose “wants character,” and so on. Mr. Darcy says, no duh, Elizabeth has a tan—she’s been travelling in the summer—and that she’s one of the “handsomest women of his acquaintance.”
Regency-era England was also a profoundly white supremacist society. Nonetheless, admiration of Black women survives in writing from the late 1700s and 1800s.
I couldn’t find information about whether Dido Belle, the natural daughter of Sir John Lindsay, was considered beautiful by her contemporaries, but she was praised for her “amiable disposition and accomplishments.” She is seen here in a detail of a 1778 painting by David Martin.
This is later than the Regency period, but in the mid-1800s, the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (an inspiration for my book An Experienced Mistress) frequently employed Jamaican-born Fanny Eaton. In a letter to the author Ford Madox Ford, the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote admiringly of her features. This is his 1865 drawing of her. (A few years before, the biracial Parisian actress Jeanne Duval, mistress of the poet Charles Baudelaire, was posting for the famous painter Edouard Manet.)
For Queen Victoria’s goddaughter and ward Sarah Forbes Bonetta, I found praise for both her beauty and her intelligence. Unfortunately, at least in one instance, her good looks were positioned as being the exception for Black women.
A newspaper described her on her wedding day as being “prepossessing,” a common synonym then for “attractive.” This 1862 photograph shows her with her husband James Pinson Labulo Davies, a Nigerian businessman, naval lieutenant, and philanthropist.
Regency Era Makeup: The Natural Look
People loved the idea of naturalness in the Regency era, but I imagine that then, as now, men were not great at recognizing when a lady was wearing makeup.
Women bought cosmetics from apothecaries and sometimes ordered them by mail.
To cover up blemishes, freckles, and so on, ladies with fair complexions might use powders with ingredients such as pearl powder (for that dewy look), rice flour, talc, or cornstarch. A lady might keep her face powder in a little round enameled box.
To get that “blooming” complexion, they would use rouge, such as Pears’ Liquid Blooms of Roses.
For that rosebud mouth, women would use a tinted lip balm, such as Rose Lip Salve.
As you might expect, there were all kinds of skin care products and treatments, including lavender water, barley water, dill water, rose water, and something called Denmark wash, made with water, fresh cream, and smashed-up seeds from cucumbers, melons, gourds, and pumpkins.
I was going to do a section on hairstyles, but it’s a big topic, so I think I’ll save that for another post!
Regency Era Beauty Standards Were More Than Skin Deep…
In private letters and society pages of newspapers, people wrote admiringly of wit, of conversation skills in general, and of kindness, politeness, modesty, good manners, elegant taste, intelligence, and accomplishments as part of a lady’s charms. A writer in a ladies’ magazine noted that “pride destroys all symmetry and grace.”
In my book Her Traveling Duke, my modern-day heroine isn’t prideful, but she could never be accused of elegant manners…and my modern-day hero is very taken aback by her lack of propriety.
Did this post tell you anything new about Regency era beauty standards?
Or did it confirm what you’d already heard, or noticed in Jane Austen novels? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
If you appreciated this post, please consider ordering my book Her Time Traveling Duke!
And let me know if you do, so I can thank you! Have a wonderful week!
That was an interesting read, Bryn. Beauty ideals do change. Think of Rubens’ beauties compared with the 60s ideals.
I always enjoy your blog; this one reminded me of one of my favorite historians – Dr Kate Lister (check out her instagram and her podcasts)