Queen Elizabeth I - The ideal Tudor woman

During the Elizabethan era there was a completely different idea to beauty and fashion than today, and Queen Elizabeth was the woman everyone wanted to look like, dress like, to be. Poor people had images of her in their homes. These days there are so many actresses, models, celebrities, different scenes and styles of how different people like to look, but in the Elizabethan times it was only Elizabeth people had to look up to and only one fashion. The paler the skin the better, this showed signs of wealth. Poor people would go out and work hard outside so they had darker skin (Which is the desirable look presently), than the rich people who had people working for them, hence staying inside and having paler skin. It was in fact so desirable to have pale skin that some people, including the Queen would have veins painted onto their skin to make them look so pale that they appeared to be translucent! Rosy pink cheeks and lips were also a common look to accompany the light face, this can also be seen in all of Elizabeths portraits. Of course the red hair was another characteristic Elizabeth is strongly known and remembered for. All of these traits were achieved through use of cosmetics and hair dye which I will be speaking about in my next post.
Elizabeth had over 80 wigs and was very vain. She would have portraits she thought 'ugly' destroyed and insisted they be corrected so that no flaws were ever shown in these paintings. By the age of 28 she had small pox and her skin was ruined, she covered this with a lot of make-up, and as she got older she refused to have mirrors in her room. She spoke a lot of her beauty but when others told her how beautiful she was when she was younger she would say that she was never beautiful.