I already mentioned in my American Duchess – Beauty review, that there are many rouge recipes out there and since I personally cannot recommend the recipe they shared in the book, I wanted to share an alternative with you.
All of the ingredients I used are safe to use on your face but the recipe is NOT vegan since I used cochineal.
There are many liquid rouge recipes throughout history but all of them have 2 things in common: some kind of natural dye and a liquid, most of the time alcohol.
My recipe is based on the liquid rouge recipe in Victorian Pharmacy from Jane Eastoe but you can find many recipes in books from the time.
I changed up the recipe a little bit because I spoke to a friend of mine who is a pharmacist. She always gives me tips or helps when I experiment with my 18th and 19th century beauty recipes! (Thank you Nicole!)
To make a LOT of liquid rouge I used:
– 10g E120, thats the colour that‘s made from cochineal! It’s allowed to be used in cosmetics AND food in the EU. I think you can get away with only using 5g since this stuff is extremley potent.
– 150 ml distilled water
– 150 ml Vodka (you need alcohol to preserve it! You possibly could use any clear alcohol)
You start with mixing the powder with the water and bringing it to a boil, You let the mixture cook for about 10 minutes. Then you wait for everything to cool down and finally you add the alcohol as a preservative.
I then filtered the liquid through a coffee filter to make sure that there are no powder clumps in the liquid. (There were non but I wanted to be sure :D)
You can already see how vibrant the colour is!
You can now use your liquid rouge for your cheeks and your lips! I filled the rouge into glass bottles with a roller ball and added a label (not on the picture) because I was going to give them to friends to test it for me. So far everyone liked it and a friend with neurodermatitis applied a little bit on an affected area and she had no problems at all.
I tried many methods of applying the and it works best for me when my skin is still a little bit ‚moist‘ from my daycream. I simply put a few dots on my checks and rub it in. The only downside is, that your finger will be red afterwards and it won’t wash away easily. But after a few hours the rouge on the finger is usually gone.
The rouge gives a lovley natural and rosy colour and I really like it in my modern day life. But you have to be careful not to overblush because it is VERY potent. 😀
