Nelson & His World

I recently watched the film Persuasion adapted from a Jane Austen Novel. Anne Elliot's father notice that she looks healthy with a colour on her face, not as pale as she usually does. After that he asks her if she used Gowlands Lotion. Does any of you know what that was, and was it used to improve your complexion?

It is raining here, and a Song thrush is singing in the Willow tree in my garden, so beautifully, it is a pleasure to listen to.

Sylvia

There's a link below that gives details of Gowlands lotion.

http://hibiscus-sinensis.com/regency/skincare.htm

In the book, it is the horrible Mrs Clay who is advised by Sir Walter Eliot to use Gowlands Lotion for her freckles. It seems to have been a dangerous concotion.

The Times of 31 August 1790 carries a long advertisement for Gowlands Lotion, sold by Thomas Vincent, 'the real proprietor and successor to Dr Gowland'. This suggests that it was not so much a beauty treatment as a medication - 'Gowland's Wash or Lotion was said to be 'an effectual remedy for all diseases of the skin, whether from scurvy, a surfeit, or any other cause however violent or disfiguring'.