Making real pearl powder

Seed pearls

Last year I started to make real pearl powder, but at the time I lived at our summerhouse for several weeks as the plumbing was renovated in our apartment, so I made it and then forgot about it. So, finally, here is the result.

I used real pearls, but the small and irregular kind that is called seed pearls. As that was the kind of pearls that apothecary's kept in the 18th century for medical purposes, it seems exceedingly likely that they were used to make pearl powder as well. Nowadays you find seed pearls in hobby stores and I bought the smallest amount possible for my experiment. I put them in a small bottle and poured enough vinegar on top of them to cover them. Here I made a mistake and took apple cider vinegar instead. Though I poured it away and took real vinegar, a slight discolouration remained.

Almost at once flakes of nacre could be seen floating around in the vinegar and the pearls noticeably shrunk over the next couple of days and the holes in them were enlarged and more and more nacre could be seen in the vinegar. Then it stopped, or so I thought. I poured in some more vinegar and nothing seemed to happen for a day or two and then I noticed that the pearls were floating in the vinegar! Upon examination I realised that the pearls were completely hollowed out and only a thin layer of nacre remained! When I pressed down on one it felt like it does when you press down on a boiled pea and I ended up with peal mush on my finger. So I poured everything in a mortle and mushed them all throughoutly, put it all in a bowl and let the vinegar evaporate.

As you can see it behaved quite funnily, climbing up on the walls on the bowl. Good thing, actually, because the discolouration emigrated to the top. Though it looked solid, the pearl powder was really very brittle, so I just broke off the discoloured parts. The surface was a bit shiny in a satiny way, but inside the peal powder was just white. This suprised me a bit as I had expected it to be pearlescent. After reducing it to a powder it became a somewhat satiny white, but I found that when I pressed down on it, pearlescent glints could be seen. It was very subtle and I couldn't manage to capture that on a photo.

At this point I had been able to obtain readymade pearl powder and upon testing I found that the one I had made was virtually impossible to tell apart from the one I had bought. A bit of a relief, actually, because the home made pearl powder is so full of vinegar that I would never put it on my face. I'm really pleased that it turned out to be possibly to make pearl powder yourself, but I won't be doing it again. The bought pearl powder is so close and much better to use (no vinegar) that I will stick to that.

Here you can see how alike the both pearl powders are. I mixed powder with an equal part of water and it turned into a semi-opaque whiteness. You can see the pearlescent glints at all. Alongside is Bismuth and it is very easy to see why the literature says that even if this was called pearl powder as well, it has a completely different look. It is much more shiny, but a lot less white. Almost impossible to see is a version of Nun's cream that I made with real pearl powder. The ratio here is one part powder to two parts pomade and it doesn't show up much at all. It is more visible in reality than on the photo, but it only whitens the skin slightly, though it evens out the skin very well. I think it is quite light-reflecting, even if the nacre isn't visible, it is still there.

The amount of whiteness a pigment leave on the skin is partly due to the pigment, but also on how much you use. Even after brushing my test areas with a powder brush, the pearl powder stayed on quite well, though it is not very opaque. In the future I need to test all my white pigments to see how they compare to each other, but here and now I can just say that I find it interesting that pearl powder, which was the most exclusive white pigment you could buy, doesn't leave a very opaque whiteness.

I still need to mix up pearl powder with liquid and try, but last week I had the opportunity to try the Nun's cream when I made up my friend Anna as part on the entertainment at a big party my 18th century society held. I was allowed to put my stuff on a bona fide 18th century vanity table, which was quite exiting! The Nun's cream did brighten Anna's complexion and she looked slightly paler, but she didn't look overly made up with white makeup. Her rouge is the Economical rouge with Carmine as pigment and the lip paint is pigmented with Alkanet.

I also made Lithia's hair. As it is dyed a bright red, it turns pink when it is powdered with white hair powder. She is also using the Spanish white I made. Her skin is very white naturally, so the makeup just leaves her skin glowing.

I did a try on a Rococo hairdo, which I was semi-pleased with . The front is just brushed back and put up in a top-knot- preferably there would have been curls and a bit more going around here. The back was inspired by a bust of Madame Pompadour and made up in three braids that was pinned to the top knot and the ends curled. Of course I should have made sure that more pictures were taken, but I was too busy having fun.

Hannah Glasse on pearls

You may have noticed that I have mentioned Hanna Glasse and her book The Art of Cooking. It was first published in 1747 and became hugely popular with several re-prints. What is interesting for this blog is that she didn’t just talk about food, but also included several cosmetic ones. What is even more interesting is that she was a middle class woman who wrote a practical book- a book much more likely to be read by a cook than a lady. So in all probability her recipes were for the kind of cosmetics that could be used even for women who didn’t belong to the upper crust of society.

"Die Magd in der Küche" by Justus Juncker, 1767

Mrs. Glasse mentions pearl powder three times in her book, two that are decidedly cosmetic and one that seems a bit more ambiguous, namely with the tantalizing name of Sugar of Pearl:

To make sugar of pearl.

TAKE damask rose water half a pint, one pound of fine sugar, half an ounce of prepared pearl beat to powder, eight leaves of beaten gold; boil them together according to art;  add the pearl and gold leaves when just done, then cast them on a marble,

If you boil water and sugar you get candy, so I wonder if this isn’t some kind of rose-scented hard candy, but why then add pearl and gold? Perhaps is meant to be crushed again and used to decorate desserts. The other two recipes are quite straightforward and also quite simple.

Nun's Cream.

ONE ounce of pearl-powder, twenty drops of oil of Rhodium, and two ounces of fine pomatum; mix all well together.

  

I suspect that this name had more naughty overtones than what we modern people might think- a nun could be used to describe a prostitute. The result ought o be a cream with a pearlescent sheen to it, perhaps not so dissimilar to the Spanish white I tried to make earlier, The Oil of Rhodium (Rosewood oil) is probably just there for scent, but the pearl powder may not be real pearls. As I mentioned in my post on pearls , real pearl powder was a very expensive cosmetics and the cheaper alternative of Bismuth could use the same name. And as Mrs. Glasse was an ordinary woman, it is very likely that she meant Bismuth. The last recipe suggests that was well;

Hannah Glasse

Pearl-Water.

MIX pearl-powder with honey and lavender-water ; and then the pearl-powder will never be discoloured.

I don’t know if real pearls can turn suggest, but I do know that Bismuth can, if exposed to sulphur. Am I too far-fetched if I think that the last recipe can be a way to hopefully prevent that?

I do need to try out the Nun’s Cream though! I love old recipes when they actually mention the proportions of the ingredients!

Pictures sources:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://neilcooksgrigson.blogspot.se/

Oil of Pearls

The Recipe
Put upon a Plate any Quantity you please of Pearls, and pour over them some good distill’d Vinegar. When the Pearls are dissolved, add a small Quantity of Gum Arabic. Keep the solution for Use Wash your face before you bathe it with this Solution, which will soon dry of itself. This is one of the best Secrets that have been invented for rendering the face both white and fair. (Abdeker: or, the art of preserving beauty, p. 76)