How to Be a Renaissance Woman

I always appreciate a book that connects Renaissance history to present-day issues – like the never-ending pressure for women to fit a particular standard of beauty. Like us, Renaissance women obsessed over how they looked, how they smelled, their weight, their hair, their makeup (which somehow makes them seem like people we might have been friends with 500 years ago!).

Burke looks at Renaissance beauty culture through the lens of a historian, using sixteenth-century how-to manuals, poems, letters, diaries, and art to think about the impact of Renaissance ideas about beauty and the enduring connection between cosmetics and gender, misogyny,… show more.

Whilst I have been writing about the history of radioactive elements for the last few years I am actually a beauty historian (and there is lots of cross-over with radium and thorium, being used as an ingredient in cosmetics) so this book was always going to appeal.

But even though I was already interested in the topic what Jill Burke has done is absolutely masterful combining recipes, female artists, artisans, businesswomen, and at the same time unpicking those ideas around beauty that are still with us today. It’s a really important take on a really important subject and well worth… show more.