Small Home Gazette, Summer 2019

History Brief: Banish Those Freckles!

For centuries, beauty for women has meant having a flawless complexion, leading them to use thick foundation and powder to achieve an even skin tone. And those with freckles went further—using freckle remover products, popular from 1917 to the 1940s, in an attempt to lighten their dots.

Ads for these products used the same advertising strategy: First, make women feel self-conscious about something normal; then, sell something to fix it.

Illustration from a 1926 ad for Othine freckle remover.

A 1924 ad for Stillman’s Freckle Cream leads with “Your Freckles Ruin Your Appearance.” Ads for Othine, “a dainty cream, applied nightly,” promised to “bleach them down.” Another ad for Stillman’s depicted two young women talking. One believes her beau has not yet proposed because of her freckles. Perhaps the most disturbing product was Mercolized Wax Cream. Its 1924 ad promoted “peeling off freckles” by applying a wax at bedtime.

Freckles have divided opinions forever. Often associated with paler skin tones, darker skinned people can have them, too—just depends on your ancestry. Freckles are small areas of the skin that contain more melanin (or skin pigmentation) and darken when exposed to sunlight.

Did you know no two freckles are the same? They’re as unique as snowflakes. Oh, and today you can buy press-on freckle “tattoos” if you have freckle envy.