Miss Haversham

My understanding from reading 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens was that one of the main characters; Miss Haversham are as follows:

Miss Haversham is introduced into the novel by Pip discovering the lady herself in a large room full of objects which is set in a huge mansion; Satis house. Miss Haversham lives alone. We then find out that she was jilted at the alter from her fiance and from that point onwards her life froze, she stayed in the same clothes, left the same tea party set up in a room of her mansion, she wore one shoe and her life revolves around the moment where she was ditched. She is an old, withered, cold, deteriorated yet rich woman who has a skeleton figure. Her dress is an off white colour with steins making it almost yellow. She's described as being a 'half waxwork, half skeleton'. She doesn't move from her cobbled room. She claims she has 'no heart' in the novel and sets revenge. She becomes against men and feels they deserve to be hurt by women in the future which then Pip gets this revenge from her adopted daughter Estella who she brought up to have no emotion towards men. 

The woman is vengeful, manic and obsessive. If you were to meet her you would be more than afraid. The thought of staying in a room for years and having no change from the point of being ditched is a scary thought. She must have poor personal hygiene, her house a cobbled mess and her emotional mind would be not at rest at all. She seems harmful and extremely scary to me. Here are some brainstormed ideas that I've put together of what I think of Miss Haversham's appearance and personality:

I look forward to learning more about each character interpretations from the TV series, film and the original novel.

Introduction To Victorian Makeup

To open my sketch blog I'm going to be writing about everything seen in the fashions and culture of the Victorian age. Victorian times were between 1837 and 1901 when Victoria lead the throne. Victoria was a massive influence of her people and her trends and opinions mattered very much. 

I've decided to research a little more on what women's trends with style, makeup and skin care was. It's a very interesting subject area which I'm intrigued to find out more. Women were much seen as a gender to stay inside and not to be let out doors if they were wealthier, those of the farmers would be the only exception but would be less fortunate. So the normal English women would have a pale whitened complexion because of this. This became partly a trend because the more pale you were seen could mean you were more well off. Make up/face painting was not something heard of and women that used potions and lotions to whiten their skin were incredibly secretive about it as they were embarrassed about wearing unnatural things to make themselves look more attractive. Women would go as far as making their servants go out to get prescriptions for them so they could take out what was in the tubes of the lotion prescribed and put makeup and facial enhancers into the bottles. To carry the make up items women of the upper class would usually have a bathroom box, this was a discussed box which could be locked, things that you'd typically keep in the bathroom were meant to into these boxes; scissors, plasters etc. but women would use this to store all of their secret rouges, lip tints/lip dyes and skin smoother creams. (Ref:Vintagemakeupguide.com)

Skincare became very important to the Victorians; the facial care was thought as something women would start to have a facial routine to prevent harmful effects and to keep their youth in their complexion. They used careful application of different creams to different areas of the face to keep it well looked after. This has really shaped our skincare of today as the more they were finding out about skincare meant the more it grew overtime. Some examples of skincare used are:

Facial paint (white colour) used by prostitutes and actresses, this was considered 'vulgar' to Queen Victoria.

Blushed cheeks were added to the cheeks using pastes of emollient using rouge, chopped flowers and different steins.

Brunette hair was classed as being classic Victorian, which was complimented with rouge cheeks.

No lipsticks were discovered yet but they did use lip tints and pastes to make their lips appear more red/pink.

A limited/natural look was enforced at the time and 'make up' hadn't been invented yet but they did use products and pastes to enhance their features which was very secretly heard about. This made them look more 'pure' and more 'modest'.

The decade discovered 'creme cetste' which was a mixture of white wax, spermaceti, sweet almond oil and rosewater. (Ref:katetattersall.com)  This supposedly gave a smoothing effect to the skin acting as a moisturiser which also hid blemishes.

Cold creme could also remove makeup on the surface of the skin.

Eyebrows were often well plucked to be very thin for women.

Lashes were trimmed.

They'd daub caster oils on their lids and lashes.

Freckles/blotches and redness was hidden by rice powder dusted onto the skin.

Pearl powder was the most expensive option to cover imperfections but women would still use this.

Beeswax was found good to soften the lips.
Crushed flowers and carmine were both used for the lips too.

Red beet juice and carmine dye was massaged into the cheeks/ lips to give a rosy effect.

Lemon juice and orange juice was used for the eyes as a cleanser.

'Eye paint' was an eyeshadow which were used in the colours black and red to use around the eyes as an eyeliner made from lead teroxide, sulpide, antimoney, cinnsbar, vermilion and other secret ingredients were used for the eye paint. Women would use a very minimal amount to enhance their eyes and lashes but if they were ever asked about it they'd be very offended as they didn't want anyone knowing they were wearing it.

Beeswax and rock powders were used on the lashes to make them appear thicker like a mascara.


I'm excited to find out more and more on how the Victorians would wear makeup and I'm intrigued to find out about all the other secrets within this project to see what an idealistic Victorian women would look like. I find it interesting as when Elizabeth 1 was queen she had very bad skin after using lead on her face and from that she wore white facepaint but from that time, Victorian's were the opposite in thinking that white faces were vulgar and skincare became very important to them.