A WOMAN'S CROWNING GLORY

Long, thick hair was very important to the ideal of female beauty in the later 1800s in Western society. Women and girls usually did not cut their hair at all, so hair-care products were very important.

At the same time, cosmetics, which probably account for the majority of beauty product ads today, were not used by most women. Make-up had been more common in the 1700s and were to come back into fashion in the early 1900s, but during the time that most trade cards were produced, their use was considered faintly immoral.

Catalogue information for this card

Given this, are you surprised to see nudity on an advertisement from the supposedly prudish Victorian era?

What makes the bare women's torsos on this card socially acceptable?