Tuesday 17 February 2015

Miss Beatrice Sinclair, The English Venus

From The Illustrated London News, 13th February 1915.



Text:

The English Venus

ATTRIBUTES HER BEAUTIFUL SKIN TO VEN-YUSA

THE best authorities on toilet matters unite with the leaders of Society in acknowledging the supreme excellence and novelty of Ven-Yusa Creme de Luxe.

Read what Miss Beatrice Sinclair, known to fame as The English Venus, and well-known writer on beauty and toilet subjects, has to say about Ven-Yusa after critically examining it and comparing its wonderful qualities with the limitations and drawbacks she has experienced with old-style face creams.

41, Seymour Place, Marble Arch, W.
Gentlemen,—You may be interested to hear that I am using your Ven-Yusa Creme de Luxe in preference to all others.  I suppose it is the fact that it is charged with life-giving oxygen that makes Ven-Yusa impart a delightful young feeling to the skin such as I have never experienced before.
By its systematic use the skin texture is rendered peach-like in quality, and a natural beauty of complexion developed.

I also find Ven-Yusa far superior to the old-style face creams, in that it leaves no suspicion of stickiness or greasiness.

Ven-Yusa is evidently free from mineral salts such as alum, that gives a drawing sensation immediately it is applied, which means, of course, that the skin is being stretched and injured, as reaction is bound to set in.

Indeed, this greaseless Ven-Yusa must be most beautifully refined in order to have the singularly agreeable influence it does have on the skin.  It is
most invigorating and delicious, and I think it should form part of every lady's daily toilet.  I have had a fair experience of face creams of all sorts, and in my judgment Ven-Yusa is the perfect skin dressing at last.
Yours, etc.,
Beatrice Sinclair (The English Venus)

The novelty about Ven-Yusa is that it brings direct to the dressing-room and boudoir the rejuvenating and complexion-clearing properties of pure oxygen.  Ven-Yusa thus has an unparalleled beautifying effect on the skin.

Ven-Yusa is prepared from far purer ingredients and by costlier methods than obtain in the production of the old-style toilet creams.  Ven-Yusa is the acme of refinement and novelty, and is based on an intimate study of the human skin.
Ven-Yusa is non-greasy.

[Beatrice Sinclair was called 'The English Venus' because it had been decided that her proportions were exactly the same as those of the Venus de Milo.   The ad for Pears soap below explains it:]


From The Illustrated London News, 13th May 1913.

Some Observations on Venuses, Ancient and Modern

Artists and Connoisseurs the world over maintain that in two or three of the sculptured Venuses of the classic days of Greece and Rome we have represented “the female form divine” in its most perfect shape and symmetry.  We have the Venus of the Capitol at Rome, the Florentine Venus at Florence, and the Venus of Milo in the Louvre at Paris.
The latter is perhaps generally accepted as the finest embodiment extant of the classic Grecian female human figure; and an impression prevails that the world no longer owns living specimens of feminine loveliness that can compare with the Venus of Milo.
Whether or not recent fashions in dress are responsible for drawing close attention to woman’s form or not, it is not for us to say; but it has been very clearly demonstrated that the beauty of the famous sculptured Venuses is still being equalled, if not even surpassed.
And to prove that this is no rash statement we are able to give an instance in support, showing that the measurements of an English lady, Miss Beatrice Sinclair, are so nearly the proportional measurements of the Venus de Milo that the comparative figures here given cannot fail to interest the readers of this journal.
We are indebted to the courtesy of Miss Sinclair for the photograph her reproduced of her. It is a compliment to us that this English Venus is among the users of Pears’ Soap, which has so prominently allied with beauty for a century and a quarter.  The statue did not have that advantage.

So Many Beautiful Women have borne tribute to the beautifying effect of Pears that we are delighted to reciprocate with this public tribute to a living example of British beauty.

A & F Pears

[The entire text of the Pears ad is hand-written. The accompanying photos show the Venus de Milo and Beatrice Sinclair in identical poses (mostly back view).  Miss Sinclair’s lower half is draped in a sheet, and her arms have been painted out of the photo, to match the statue.

There is a table of measurements of the Venus and Miss Sinclair – the measurements of Venus have been scaled to Miss Sinclair’s height (5ft. 4in), I think.  They are mostly identical: e.g. bust 37in., waist 25 in. (26 in for Venus), hips 38 in.  The rest of the table includes measurements for thigh, calf, ankle, knee, upper arm, fore arm, wrist (as well as head and neck). although I have no idea how the leg measurements of the Venus de Milo were taken under all that marble - and measuring her fore-arms and wrists when they are not there must have been even more tricky.]   

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