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Oct 5, 2018
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The absurd beauty routine of Princess Sissi, including juices and creams based on snails!
An obsession with gymnastics and gymnastics, strict diets, luxurious and complicated beauty rituals, the fear of aging: am I talking about Victoria Beckham? Absolutely not, I refer to what has been called the most beautiful woman in the world … about 150 years ago: Sissi, the Empress of Austria!
Elisabeth of Bavaria, known as Sissi or Sisi, was one of the most controversial female figures in European history; if you have the movies with Romy Schneider or the romantic cartoon in which he seemed madly in love with Prince Franz, well, forget it, because reality was far away! Theirs was an unhappy marriage, mainly because Sissi was too independent of court life, which was tight. She took refuge in her absurd beauty rituals, which occupied her throughout the day:
Wake up at 5 every morning and invigorating bath in the icy water; immediately began the sessions of exhausting gymnastics in the private gyms that was built in every building. The practice continued on horseback: Sissi was one of the best riders in Europe and could ride for hours, until the poor animals got tired. He also practiced fencing and forced his lady companion to follow her for endless walks in the woods (they also lasted about ten hours). Meals were few, unruly: today it is thought that Sissi was ill with anorexia nervosa, probably a reaction to the constraints of her role as empress, and she was obsessed with weight and physical fitness. It was about 1.72 m high and weighed 45 kg, always keeping a wasp waist of just 50 cm; think that every day they sewed her clothes on her to emphasize her slenderness!
He invented improbable diets: he drank violet tea all day long and purified himself with a beverone made from 5 egg whites and salt. In some periods it seems that he ate only raw meat and milk, in others even juice of juice (hehe other than smoothies detox!); moreover it was weighed and measured up to three times a day.
Every evening he bathed in goat’s milk (he had a personal flock) to keep his skin soft and youthful, a little like Cleopatra immersing himself in donkey’s milk; if he had spent the day on horseback, instead, he preferred olive oil to relax his muscles. Washing the hair was not an easy task and the ritual, which was repeated every four days, lasted a whole day; you’re wondering why … well, her thick hair reached her ankles! They were his great pride and he looked after them very much: for the washing his servants used a mixture of eggs (12) and cognac (a whole bottle) and I imagine that to rinse it was not simple. The daily hairstyles took at least two or three hours and all the hair that fell was presented in a silver bowl to be counted and inspected; as a final touch, personalized jewels and perfumes adorned the crown.
The most absurd beauty rituals were probably the cream made of lard, snails and mallow roots that was prepared by court pharmacists (this is what the facial with snails is inspired by!), Or the strange habit of sleeping with thin slices of veal resting on your face!
Still at night he was clutching his hips with warm bandages soaked in vinegar, thinking that they would help keep his life thin. In reality it also had some nicer concoctions: it would be worth trying the mask with honey and crushed strawberries that it used to soften, exfoliate and illuminate the complexion!
In general Sissi was an unhappy woman, who suffered a lot in her life; she was often ill, even if the problems were supposed to be more of a psychic nature, in fact her condition improved as soon as she left Vienna. Surely her exaggerated beauty rituals are fascinating, especially when one thinks about how modern they were at the time; I think Sissi was born in the wrong era and in the wrong context and probably today would be one of the many underweight models that parade on the catwalk … even if I do not think she would be happier!
