OTMA - smoking, make up and clothes

[RealAnastasia]

They DID wear makeup....But makeup was very light back then. You may easily notice it when you watch pics of older women. The fashion back then was to use very light makeup, to give the impression of "the natural thing". It was exactly the opposite as the 1960's fashion, when the makeup was really heavy...I personnally dislikes it. I rather like the more natural fashion of the 1900 and nowadays.

RealAnastasia.

[moonlight_tsarina]

I also like the way they wore their makeup, it was so nice and fresh faced looking.

[Tania]

Thank goodness it was not used widely by them, or others. First for many of the families, it was frowned on i believe, by most as that used by those on the stage, or in theatrics. But to get back to the makeup itself, i believe it had a base of lead in it, which was not good for any person's skin, or health.

Tatiana+

[hellokitty2121]

I think that they most likely DID wear some make up.
However I don't think that there was all that much lead in late 19th/early 20th century cosmetics.
BUT--I may well be wrong...

[Abby]

I don't think I've seen this pic before...just ran across it on Ebay. It almost looks to me like Anastasia is raising a cigarette to her mouth.

[aussiechick12]

Thanks Abby! I hadn't seen that picture before, it does look like Anastasia is doing that though!

Another picture of the grandduchesses smoking:

[Romanov_fan]

Yes, they did smoke. And perhaps if we have lived back then and been ignorant of the effects of smoking on health,we might have have had different attitudes than today. It is possible. Really, the damage that smoking can cause to health is fairly recent knowledge, and back then the whole issue of smoking was completely different in reputation than today.

[Georgiy]

It doesn't look a thing like Anastasia is smoking in that first picture. It does however look like Tatiana might be having a puff!

[Katherine_The_O.K.]

I could of sworn I read something somewhere that said Alexandra disapproved of her daughters' smoking....and I'm fairly certain that it wasn't considered a very 'lady-like' thing to do until the 40's, when companies first started marketing it to women...am I wrong?

[Romanov_fan]

Yes, it wasn't considered ladylike for women to smoke in public anyway. Women did in private though more than we might think given the stereotype of the typical Victorian/ Edwardian woman. By the '20s women did smoke in public though( at least the flappers), and it became more accepted for women to smoke in public.

[Georgiy]

If Alexandra did disapprove, it would be the pot calling the kettle black as Alexandra smoked too. However, I think I know where you might have got the idea she disapproved. In one of the photo books, it has a picture and it says (something along the lines of) Anastasia is pretending to smoke. She couldn't have been really smoking as the Tsarina's parasol is present and the Tsarina would never have allowed her daughters to smoke. Which as it turns out is pure speculation on the authors behalf as all 4 girls and the Empress smoked.

[Sarushka]

I'm not too much of an expert on this subject. Just visit here and down at the "Few things people don't know about Anya!" part.

I'd take any info from that site with a grain of salt. She got the part about smoking right, but doesn't know, for example, that "Anya" is NOT a nickname for Anastasia, and that Rasputin's prophetic note to the Romanovs was a forgery. She also believes that the movie character of Vladimir was based on Lenin!  Too bad, because if the she had her facts straight, it was a nifty idea to compare history's facts with the movie's fiction.

A cool thing, though, is this recording of Lenin's voice: http://members.tripod.com/~Pharaoh30/index-8.html

[ferngully]

its not like they smoked all the time, they figured that every so often wouldn't hurt. i know someone who smokes occasionally, when he is stressed, maybe it was like that? you don't always get addicted on your first puff

[granduchess_leah]

hey i heard of anastasia smokin and i think she properly did along with her older sisters but the one that really gets to me is marie.

[Tania]

Katherine, your correct.

Tatiana+