A perfectly white, flawless complexion was once the desire of every woman no doubt in part because it suggested a leisurely wealthy lifestyle and many middle class women soaked flypapers to make an arsenic solution which they would use as a face wash.
By 1920 they no longer had to prepare their own poisonous beauty products – they could buy them over the counter! Ointments like these which made claims to remove freckles contained shockingly high amounts of mercury.