What beauty cult did Empress Elisabeth cultivate? What hair tricks did her hairdresser use?
Sisi cultivated an extreme cult of beauty, which is why she has gone down in history as the fairytale princess of the 19th century. The fame of her beauty lasted around thirty years.
Her flawless complexion and almost floor-length hair, to which she devoted a great deal of care and attention, deserve special mention. She was considered a natural beauty with her chestnut brown hair. She hardly ever used make-up or perfume. Nightly face masks with raw veal and warm olive oil baths kept her skin supple.
She was a slim and tall person, which gave her an elegant appearance. She captivated people with her natural charisma. She hated nothing more than being “ogled” (stared at) by everyone.
She only allowed herself to be portrayed by selected painters. We have Franz Xaver Winterhalter to thank for the famous painting with the diamond stars in her hair from 1867. There are no paintings or photos from her more mature years, as she wanted to maintain the myth of eternal youth and beauty.
The hair cult and the hairdresser’s tricks
Sisi paid a lot of attention to her almost floor-length chestnut brown hair, which took hours of work to pile up into a crown of hair and regularly caused headaches and neck pain.
Over the years, her hair reached the length of her heels. It took a lot of skill to deal with this flood of hair. Washing her hair alone took a whole day and took place every three weeks. The hair was washed with essences of cognac and egg yolk.
Daily hair care took up to three hours and the empress’s mood depended heavily on how her hair turned out. The hairdresser was therefore an important person at court.
Elisabeth’s favorite hairdresser was Fanny Feifalik, who knew how to produce the most beautiful and artistic braided hairstyles in Vienna. She also had a great deal of empathy and worked on Elisabeth’s hair with a few tricks. She secretly made the empress’s combed-out hair disappear under her apron on an adhesive tape and was able to show the empress a hairless comb.
Language courses and gymnastics exercises in the Hofburg
Studying languages during the morning toilet
Elisabeth’s enthusiasm for physical exercise was well known and she could certainly be described as an athlete. Her daily routine included getting up around 6 o’clock in the morning. She took a cold bath and had a massage. This was followed by gymnastics and exercises, a meagre breakfast and hours of hairdressing.
She used her time as a hairdresser to learn various languages, such as Hungarian and Greek. Her Greek teacher was Constantinos Christomanos, who awakened her interest in ancient Greece.
As she grew older, Elisabeth tortured her body even more with hours of exercise on the parallel bars and rings and with dumbbells. The starvation cures became even more extreme in order to remain true to the ideal of youth. She had gymnastics rooms set up in the Hofburg, which can still be visited today.
Austria’s first top model with a wasp waist
Elisabeth was tall by the standards of the time at 172 cm. Her wasp waist was just under 50 cm and she weighed no more than 50 kg throughout her life (excluding her three pregnancies).
Getting dressed was a procedure that could take over three hours. The famous “constricting” took quite a while until the wasp waist was narrow enough. The tight lacing often made Sisi short of breath.
The empress ate relatively little and was known for her starvation diets . She maintained her body weight with an orange diet, egg diet, milk diet, salted raw egg whites instead of lunch and the occasional violet ice cream . Her weight was checked daily and the scales were never allowed to show more than 50 kg.
When it came to fashion , Elisabeth was stylish, natural, elegant, and never overstyled or ostentatious. No lady at the Viennese court at the time could match the beauty and style of the empress. Nowadays, we would describe her as an It girl and fashion icon. She would certainly be an influencer on Instagram.
Tip from Sisi’s Amazing Journey: In the Imperial Apartments of the Hofburg, you can visit the empress’s gymnastics room.
More info: Imperial Apartments – Hofburg Vienna (hofburg-wien.at)What were the names of Empress Elisabeth’s first three children? What happened to the first-born daughter? When was the long-awaited heir to the throne born?
