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| Circassian Beauties | ||||
| Females
from the Circassian mountains close to the Black Sea were said to be the
most beautiful, purest, caucasian women in the world. Prized in the
harems of Turkish sultans, the legendary beauty of these women can be
found in literary works dating back to the early 1700s. In the 1860s P.T Barnum popularised the myth by exhibiting his own 'Circassian Beauty' which he claimed he had bought from a slave market in Constantinople (- actually just a local woman whom he instructed to wash her hair with beer to make it frizzy). . An instant crowd-puller, all the circuses and sideshows of the day followed suit. So widespread was the popularity of the 'Circassian Beauty' with her frizzy afro-like hair and milky white skin, that many cosmetic products of the era, from hair dyes to skin lotions, were labeled and advertised as containing 'circassian' ingredients. As the trend for Circassian Beauties died down, the women were utilised in other circus roles as sword-swallowers and snake charmers. |
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