If the thought of leaving the house without completing your beauty regime or styling your hair brings on a state of anxiety, spare a thought for people from the past, many of whom had to do some pretty strange things in order to maintain their personal appearance…

Plucking painful
High foreheads were considered beautiful in 15th century Northern Europe, where upper class ladies slowly and painfully plucked their hairlines and scraped back their hair.

Wigging out
A good example of the perils of extravagance was seen in the European courts in the 18th century. The huge hairstyles, called coiffures, grew more elaborate until they were three feet in height and adorned with anything from ships to birdhouses. A slight drawback – aside from constant headaches – was that the wigs made snug nests for rats and lice.

Royal regimes
Women struggled to copy Queen Elizabeth I’s pale complexion and red hair with a complicated business of white powder, lead-based rouge and wigs. Some even drew blue veins on their faces with alabaster pencils. Unfortunately, the lead in the cosmetics turned out to be poisonous and ate away the skin.

Walking small
For almost 1,000 years, Chinese women cut and bound their feet to make them smaller and change their shape, causing them to hobble. A woman’s desirability increased the harder she found it to walk.

Diamonds are forever
Jewellery has been produced to adorn the body since early times. The Egyptians made magnificent pieces from gold, while the Greeks mass-produced beads. This love of jewellery continued throughout the ages: in 16th century Europe, it was unacceptable for a woman to be seen without her earrings. In the 1980s there was huge demand for glitzy diamante thanks to famous soap operas Dallas and Dynasty.

Waistful behaviour
The corset was, in the past, designed to ‘train’ the waists of young girls and make them smaller. They were not only uncomfortable to wear and made it hard to breathe, but actually squashed and rearranged the woman’s internal organs.

A head for beauty
It was common practice for ancient Mayans to subject their children to head flattening by binding wooden boards to an infant’s head. The opposite was seen as beautiful in the Congo, where women with elongated heads were prized. Luckily, beauty techniques in the 21st century aren’t quite so bizarre. If you think a career in the beauty industry is the one for you, take at look at some of the ways in..

Make-up artist
Make-up artists prepare hair and make-up for anyone from an actress in period costume to a TV presenter needing to look natural. You may get to travel to locations and meet big stars, but you will need to be on set much earlier than the rest of the crew. You can gain experience in amateur theatre and look for work experience with established artists. You will also need an NVQ Level 2 in Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy.

Hairdresser
There are two main routes into hairdressing – through working full-time and training on-the-job in a salon, or by completing a college course, such as an NVQ in Hairdressing at Levels 1-3. Apprenticeships may also be available.