During the Medieval period such was the fashion for pale skin that it was not uncommon to bleed yourself. One of the easiest ways of doing this was by applying leeches. But as Anna McNamee finds out when she meets with Anne Emblem, senior lecturer in cosmetics science and the archaeologist Sally Pointer, leeches were hardly the most extreme measure to which our ancestors have gone.
'The Artifice of Beauty' by Sally Pointer, published by Sutton Publishing Ltd. 2005, ISBN 0-7509-3887-0.
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