02x02 - Looks That k*ll

[bunniefuu]

[light intriguing music]

- Did you know there was a
time when fixing your smile

was like playing with dynamite?

- Your teeth could
explode in your mouth.

Of the most unpleasant
things that I could think

of happening to a person,
that's way up there.

- Or when your daily
supplement drained

the life out of you.

[air whooshing]

- There's no such
thing as safe arsenic.

That's like saying friendly
swarm of m*rder hornets.

- Or when stylish new pajamas
set the world on fire.

- So people would go to bed

and they would just catch
up like Roman candles.

As with many of these things,
it's two steps forward,

one step back with a body
count in the middle of it.

- These are the things we
used to do for fun, for money,

or maybe outta boredom
that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous?

Certainly.

Deadly?

Occasionally.

But boy, wasn't it exciting?

[dramatic music fades]

[light intriguing music]

Having a full head
of healthy hair

has always been stylish,

and that was never more true
than in the 1960s and '70s,

and men who were balding

would do just about
anything to cover it up.

- Jim Morrison has
long flowing locks.

The Beatles are
growing their hair out.

My gosh does even a musical
on Broadway called "Hair."

- You did not wanna be the
bald guy in the singles bar.

You wanted to have that
full head of rich hair,

so if God didn't give you that,

you were gonna do
whatever you could

to make it look like you did.

-[Adam] There was nothing
subtle about it,

but men felt they
needed to have a thick,

luscious mane of
hair on their heads.

The idea of having a hairpiece
is much more widely accepted.

- [Henry] In the '60s and '70s,

men are buying hair
pieces like never before

and some of the
most famous heads

in Hollywood are
crowned in fake hair.

The problem is,
toupees at the time

are often unruly and unreliable.

- Any good toupee was made
from real human hair woven

into a flesh colored mesh,

and it was attached
using a form of cement,

which had its own
problems because

the toupee would get hot.

- It's like you're gluin'
this thing to your head

and if you start to
sweat, maybe it falls off.

- These things are
super expensive

and because they're
prone to flyin' off,

you gotta worry about
getting laughed at

after spendin' a fortune.

- [Negin] There were running
jokes about it

on "The Carol Burnett Show,"

on "Match Game."

This became like a big
part of joke culture.

- [Henry] But a breakthrough
from World w*r II

is about to be repurposed
for the human head.

- Scientists during the
Second World w*r realize

that plastic can be extruded

and spun out like a fine thread

that can be woven into a rope

for parachute cables
and parachute scraps.

So now the technology exists

to take plastic and turn it
into gossamer thin strands,

strands very much like
the hairs on our head.

- [Martin] Instead of using an
adhesive

to make your toupee
stay on your head,

they would stitch these clumps

of synthetic hair
into your scalp.

-[Hakeem] Synthetic hair
transplants

weren't the very first
type of hair transplant.

Prior to that there were
natural hair transplants

where they would take hair
from the back of your head

and replant it in the
front of your head.

Incredibly painful process.

So, with the synthetic hair,
you're not moving hair,

you're actually adding
new stuff to the head.

- [Martin] You can style it, you
can put products in it.

You don't have to worry

about it getting
blown off in the wind.

You can go swimming
with it on your head.

It looks like the better
solution than the toupee.

- [Henry] By 1979,
there are 30 clinics

in America implanting
synthetic hair

into thousands of heads,

but customers are getting a
lot more than a new hairline.

- Stitching bundles of
plastic hair into human heads.

What could go wrong?

- It's essentially like
plugging fishing line

into your head.

- [Martin] The material that is
producing it contains

an ingredient list that's
a little bit alarming.

-[Adam] People are willingly
putting

within a few inches of their
brain, petroleum, limestone,

natural gas and ammonia.

Why on earth would
you want that sewed

into your head in bundles?

-[Hakeem] The body knows
somethin's not right

and the immune system reacts
to this synthetic hair.

It can result in inflamed
scalps and massive pain.

The body rejects the fibers

and in some cases pushed
them right back out.

- [Negin] In order to stop the
infection from spreading,

some people have to get
part of their scalp removed

and one patient even finds
a needle in his head.

- [Jason] So by 1983,


of synthetic hair implants
have been identified.

- [Martin] Because of this,

the FDA bans the
synthetic hair implant

as a medical device.

It's the first time

that the FDA ever
banned a medical device.

- So we know that some
people spared no expense

to have more hair,

but what if you
had too much hair?

-[Kavitha] In the 1920s, it's
really the first time

in America that
women are allowed

to bear their legs and arms.

- [Negin] So they need to just
get rid of all of this hair

that we used to traditionally
cover up with clothes.

- [Henry] The grooming
industry explodes

with new razors,
creams, and powders,

targeting body hair as an enemy

that must be rooted
out at any cost.

- It's a post Darwin age

and the idea of evolution
has really taken hold.

There's this almost
subliminal message

that says body hair is
kind of a throwback.

It almost makes you seem
primitive and unhygienic.

- [Dan] Add to the time, talked
about hair in this brutal way,

like you need not be
embarrassed by it.

It's disfiguring,
it must be banished.

- [Negin] People have really
put their brains

to this issue developing
new ways to get rid of hair,

and they've come up with
some very sadistic solutions.

- [Dan] So, there's hair
removal creams.

Those will have things
like sulfur in them,

which actually can give
you chemical burns.

There are even gloves
that are sandpaper gloves

that they used to
rub the hair off.

- [Henry] And then in 1924,

German American Dr.
Albert C. Geyser

gets a bright idea.

- Dr. Geyser is a successful
doctor in New York

and he sees this burgeoning
hair removal fashion trend

and sees an opportunity.

He harnesses a technology he's
very familiar with, x-rays.

- [Lance] One of the things
that Dr. Geyser notices

that wherever you use x-rays,

the hair tends to go away.

- [Adam] To him, hair loss isn't
a bug in the system,

it's a feature.

And in 1924, he launches
the Tricho system.

-[Dan] It's this metal tube,
it's got a hole in it,

and what you do is you
line up whatever part

of your body is too hairy.

So, say it's your armpit
or your chin or whatever,

you put it up against that hole

and x-rays inside
the machine hit you

and eventually your
hair just falls out.

- [Henry] By 1925,
Geyser leases Tricho

to 75 other businesses

and treats 200,000
formally hairy clients.

- Unlike today
where you need a ton

of safety training
to work with x-rays,

there is no
certification needed.

So, anybody who owns
a salon can order one

of these things and then just
start booking appointments.

- Wherever unwanted hair pops
up, it's going to get zapped.

- [Dan] So, people are
getting bombarded

with radiation all over
their bodies, their cheeks,

their armpits, their
sensitive areas,

and the people zapping 'em have
no idea what they're doing.

Salons are treating this
like it's a hair dryer.

- But each time
you're doing that,

you're getting 12
times the radiation

you would get if you just
went in a hospital today

and no one's
wearin' a lead vest.

- [Kavitha] People at this time

do not really understand
x-ray technology,

so you have people exposing
parts of their body

to full x-ray blasts for
several minutes at a time.

- And after 15 x-rays,
the hair is gone.

- [Dan] The Tricho system
isn't this pain-free,

cosmetic wonder system
that makes you look better.

It's just a ray g*n sh**ting
electromagnetic radiation

at your face.

- So people begin
seeing real problems.

- [Lance] In 1930, an
article is published

in "The Journal of the
American Medical Association."

It talks about a person.

She was a client of
the Tricho system

and still two years later,
she's got burns on her face

and it shows that
there's a risk.

And "The Journal" notes that
she's the 20th case of people

who use the system who are
showing these symptoms.

- [Kavitha] Dr. Geyser is hit
with a series of lawsuits,

and soon he has no choice
but to shutter his business.

- [Henry] After the
lawsuits ends his business,

Dr. Geyser is hit with something

even more serious and ironic.

- When Dr. Geyser
passes away in 1940,

he's got cancer
that he developed

from using his own machine.

- These days, unwanted
hair is handled with lasers

or electrolysis and x-rays.

They're performed by
a trained technician,

not the person who
also waxes your legs.

- In the lifelong
pursuit of looking good,

one of the hardest
phases is adolescence.

Acne, growth spurts,
bad haircuts.

It's a gauntlet
of embarrassments,

and perhaps the most
traumatic rite of passage?

Braces.

Right here When I was 13.

- [Jason] We all know that
few humans are born

with perfect straight teeth.

For generations, school
children across this country

have been forced to
shut their mouths

on school picture day.

- [Hakeem] Modern
orthodontia has been

around since the
early 20th century,

but braces in the fifties and
sixties were super expensive.

It was something
like the equivalent

of $16,000 in today's money,

so most families
couldn't afford it.

- It was the number one thing

you heard parents
complaining about.

"Oh God, what if this
kid needs braces?"

Like, you never even
heard about college.

It was like, how am I gonna
afford braces on this kid?

- [Henry] But in the 1970s,

a new corporate perk changes
teenage smiles across America.

- [Austin] In the 1970s,
employers decide

that they can't give
their employees a raise,

but they can provide
something else.

Dental insurance.

- [Hakeem] With insurance
braces are now

in reach for a lot more kids

and before you know it,

it seems like just about
everybody's got a metal mouth.

- [Jason] Like a lot of kids in
America, I wore braces.

Braces become a part of the
universal teen experience.

- [Negin] Everyone had braces.

Everyone ended up
having retainers.

Everyone threw their retainers
in a garbage can at one point

and then had to go retrieve
them from a garbage can.

- [Henry] And if you had
the old railroad tracks

to fix your smile, it
came at a painful price.

- These early braces are
pretty much a t*rture device.

They are metal brackets attached

to individual teeth
connected by stiff wires,

which your orthodontist
tightens to loosen

and twist your teeth.

- [Austin] First you have the
trauma of the installation,

then you get the
pleasure of the pain

of the regular tightening,

and finally you get to
walk around class all day

with food stuck in your teeth.

- [Henry] It's slow t*rture,
but it's what you can't see

or feel that's even
more dangerous.

- When the early
pioneers are trying

to figure out what
materials to use,

one metal that gets
used a lot is cadmium.

Cadmium's awesome because
it has a low melting point

so you can use it to easily melt

and then harden to
attach things together.

- Cadmium is the same stuff
that they use in batteries.

Think about putting a battery
in your mouth for three

to four years and just
sucking on in the entire time.

You're causing liver
problems, bone problems.

So, it's solving a cosmetic
issue for the most part

and creating really serious
lifelong health issues.

- [Henry] Well, what
happens when you are the kid

who has the kind of teeth

where metal in your
mouth isn't enough?

Dentists create a new
humiliation for you.

- An overbite and
your teeth go over

is when the upper jaw grows
quicker than the lower jaw.

- Overbites create
this Bugs Bunny effect

that junior high
bullies really revel in.

- [Austin] In 1953,
an orthodontist

improves a contraption

to correct this
called the face-bow.

This is the birth of the
much made fun of headgear.

- [Jason] Finding out
you were gonna

have to get headgear
was a nightmare.

Now you've got the braces,

then you've got sort of these
things come up and attach.

And I remember one
kid in my class,

he had like the blue
straps around his head,

so he literally had
this medical appliance.

It's like, ah, he's not
gettin' a date to the dance.

He's the headgear guy.

-[Austin] By the mid 1980s,
orthodontists are prescribing

millions of these
headgear appliances.

They're everywhere and it sort

of feels like a
social experiment.

- [Dan] Anybody who was
unlucky enough to have

to wear headgear when
they were growing up knows

that they got
relentlessly teased.

But the one thing that was worse

than the teasing was the
way these things could fail.

- [Austin] The danger of this
apparatus is it's held together

by firmly pulled rubber bands.

- These rubber bands are tight

and strong enough to move
teeth embedded in your skull.

That's a lot of tension.

- If you turn your neck the
wrong way or if you sneeze,

they could let loose and turn
the face bow into a crossbow.

- Now, if you're lucky,

you just get smacked in
the back of the head.

But if you're not lucky,

you get a sharp metal
wire in your eye.

Plus that wire by the way
is coated in your saliva

and so it's full of bacteria

and you're bound to
get an infection,

if you don't go blind.

-[Hakeem] In 1985, a teen turned
over in their sleep,

their head gear dislodged from
their mouth and stabbed them

in the eye causing
permanent vision damage.

- [Dan] You gotta remember too,

this is long before the age
of anti-bullying campaign,

so it is just open
season in school.

So, if you have bad teeth
or if you have braces,

or God forbid, if
you have headgear,

you just gotta take it.

-[Brian] To make yourself a
stinky mouth social pariah

through your most
formative years,

I think I'd rather take
the the crooked teeth.

- [Henry] By the 2000s, safer
metals are used in braces

and headgear gets less medieval,

- So they basically make
them with breakaway straps

so that if anything's
gonna pop off,

it's not gonna hit
you in the eye.

- If you think braces were
bad when you were a kid,

wait till you hear
what people did

to get perfect
teeth 200 years ago.

- [Rutledge] Today, dentures
are seen as something

that only older
people would wear,

but back in the day it
was kind of something

that everybody was doing.

- In the 1800s, there's really
no sense of dental hygiene,

so a lot of people are
having tooth issues.

- [Rutledge] Most dentures are
made out of ivory,

so they're very expensive

and essentially only
really for the wealthy.

- [Henry] Ivory is so costly,

people will go to any lengths

to find denture alternatives.

- [Lance] It's June of 1815 on
the b*ttlefield at Waterloo.

Napoleon is on his rise.

This is the big battle between
he and the coalition forces.

Around 40,000 people die

and looters take
anything that's of value.

One of the things that was
of value was the men's teeth,

because they can be
turned into dentures,

so much so that dentures
for years afterwards

were referred to
as Waterloo teeth.

- [Rutledge] It's really gross.

There's gotta be a line.

They said George
Washington had wooden teeth

and then some
people said he might

have actually had a
horse tooth or two.

I don't know whether
teeth from a horse

or a dead soldier
would be better.

Neither seem like a good idea.

- [Henry] The cadaver
dentures look lifelike,

but they're death for
your health and wellbeing.

- [Lance] The problem with
using the human teeth

is because they're not
soaked into the bone anymore,

they do slowly get more brittle.

They start to break off.

- So if you've ever wondered
if a dead guy's teeth

can still get cavities,
the answer is yes.

- [Lance] The dead guy's tooth
that you've been chewing with,

breaks loose and you swallow
along with your beef,

you swallow the
dead guy's tooth.

There's nothing good about that.

- [Henry] Dentists
search for a way

to hold false teeth
in place more firmly,

and in the late 1800s,

the industrial revolution
gives them the answer.

- In 1868, an inventor
named John Wesley Hyatt

came up with something
called celluloid.

- It can be melted and
formed in different shapes.

You can color it.

So, celluloid quickly
becomes the go-to material

for making people's dentures.

But it turns out that
these celluloid dentures

have a drawback.

The base material,
nitrous cellulose,

is what gunpowder is made from.

- [Rutledge] Say you're
chewing something

and your teeth
happen to brush up

against each other just right,

it is possible your teeth
could explode in your mouth.

Of the most unpleasant
things that I could think

of happening to a person,
that's way up there.

- [Lance] In 1875, "The New
York Times" writes

an article about the risk,

and they call it
"expl*sive teeth,"

and that tells everybody, maybe
this isn't such a good idea.

- [Rutledge] Celluloid
teeth are replaced

in the 1930s by acrylic teeth.

Thank goodness.

Today, dentures are
thoroughly tested.

They are not made from
dead people's teeth

and they don't have a
gunpowder component.

- Thanks to modern medicine,

losing all your teeth is no
longer a normal part of life

and neither is borrowing
somebody else's.

- There was a time when
having a starched collar

was a must for men, and if you
didn't, you weren't stylish.

But if it was too stiff,

well, that was a whole
other fashion emergency.

- [Austin] Keeping your crisp
collar clean in the 1800s

is a difficult job.

In the city streets,
horses kick up dust.

There's mud everywhere,

and most men only own two
or three shirts at a time.

- And so, in a moment
of great ingenuity

or perhaps uncontrolled rage,
this woman in Troy, New York,

Hannah Montague is so sick

of washing her husband's
shirts all the time

just to get the collar
clean that she cuts it off.

So now she can just
wash that piece,

takes basically no time
and then reattach it

to the shirt each day.

I mean, it's such a great idea.

- [Negin] So a local businessman
takes her idea

and decides to market
a detachable collar.

It reattaches the
shirt with studs

and it seems like a no brainer.

- [Bryant] The detachable collar
is not only easier to clean,

it's easier to get
stiffer and higher,

and this was a
symbol of propriety

and dignity and brands are
trying to outdo each other.

It escalates to the point
that there are collars

that are three inches high

that go like right
under your chin.

- One company, Arrow,

they have an ad campaign
starting the Arrow collar man,

and this guy is
such a heart throb

that women are actually
writing him letters.

- [Henry] But then wearing

this sexy new status
symbol takes a turn.

- In 1888, a shocking story

is printed in "The
New York Times."

There's a man found
in a park bench.

He's leaning forward, his
face is completely black.

It looks like he's
been strangled.

- [Austin] After a night of
drinking,

he attempts to stumble home,

takes a rest on a park bench,

passes out and leans forward.

The police
investigation determines

that he was strangled to
death by his own collar.

- [Brian] This collar was
k*lling people,

like Kujo around your neck,

but still people
wore the collars.

- [Jason] You see more
and more examples

of men being found strangled
by their own collar.

So, the media ever
desirous of trying

to come up with catchy names,

they call these
collars father K*llers.

- [Henry] Despite
the choking hazards,

detachable collars are popular
well into the 20th century.

- [Brian] I think
that the people

that kept wearing the
collars were confident

in their ability to wear a
shirt collar without dying,

and I think that's the least
we can expect from ourselves.

- [Austin] Eventually, what
dooms the detachable collar

is the change in fashions
and new technologies.

After World w*r I,
a more casual look

is embraced and you've
got time saving devices

like washing machines,

which make doing your
laundry less of a chore.

- [Natalia] It just shows you
how powerful fashion is.

People are still choosing
to risk getting asphyxiated

than miss out on
the latest trend.

- Who knew that in
the 1800s dressing up

could actually k*ll you.

And in the 1950s, dressing down
could be equally dangerous.

- [Lance] Today your pajamas
are for comfort.

They're not for style.

But in the post w*r era,

it becomes sort of a
thing where it's glamour.

You want to look fashionable
inside your house.

That is the new trend, then
that means fashionable pajamas.

- [Hakeem] In 1953,
there is a young man

in Chicago who takes this idea

of lounging to the extreme.

His name is Hugh Hefner
of "Playboy Magazine."

- [Brian] The guy
made the wearing

of pajamas acceptable
in society.

I mean, if I can live
my life in silk pajamas

with a smoking jacket,

why have society have we decided

that this is the way to go?

We should all be in
pajamas right now.

- [Henry] Besides
being more fashionable,

there's something else driving
the pajama boom in the 1950s.

The fabric itself.

- In the 1930s, 90%
of American silk

actually comes from Japan.

So that completely stops when
World w*r II hits the country.

So Americans need another fabric

to make pajamas out of,
and the answer is rayon.

Rayon is a synthetic fabric

that's spun from wood
pulp and mimics silk.

It's actually initially
known as artificial silk.

- Rayon looks like silk,
it feels like silk,

and it's available at
a fraction of the cost.

- [Henry] By the early 1950s,

the rayon industry does
$100,000,000 in annual sales

and millions of Americans
are wearing it to bed.

But as rayon rises, it collides
with another booming trend.

[match strikes]

-[Hakeem] In the 1950s,
smoking is very common.


smokers, 30% of women.

They do it from the
time they wake up

to the time they go to sleep.

- [Lance] And rayon essentially
is a form of paper

and it burns like paper.

- So, people would go to bed,

they'd get in with
their wife or husband,

they'd light up a cigarette,

and then the ashes or
the burnt tip would fall

and they would just catch
up like Roman candles.

- [Lance] After this happens a
lot, rayon gets a reputation.

They start to call
it flaming pajamas.

- [Henry] By the mid 1970s,

regulators come down hard
on flammable sleepwear.

Pajamas must now
be fire resistant.

- They don't outlaw
rayon pajamas,

that would k*ll
the whole industry.

Instead, they figure out
a way around the danger.

- [Brian] Let's douse
these pajamas

in a flame retardant
chemical called tris.

It worked so well
that they're like,

"Man, let's make pajammies

for the kids now
with this stuff."

- In the 1970s, they
start advertising pajamas

with big labels like fire
resistant or fire retardant.

And it might seem
strange to like,

really play up the fire
retardancy of your clothes,

but if you're a person
who grew up in the 1950s

with your pajamas catching
on fire all the time,

it's actually quite
a necessary thing.

- [Brian] The only
problem with tris is,

it soaks into your
skin and kills you.

- [Hakeem] So there's this UC
Berkeley scientist

named Arlene Blum.

She discovers that the chemical

that these companies are
putting on rayon garments

to make them flame retardant

is closely related to a chemical

used in pesticides that
causes cancer and infertility.

- [Brian] So as with many of
these things,

it's two steps forward,

one step back with a body
count in the middle of it.

- [Kavitha] After
research comes out,

federal regulators immediately

ban tris treated kids sleepwear,

and then soon after that,

they end up seizing all the
sleepwear around the country.

- These days, pajamas are
made from safer materials

like cotton and polyester.

It's one less thing
keeping us up at night.

- If it means looking better,

people often turn a blind
eye to their own safety.

But in the 1800s,

if you wanted to
look really great,

it could cost you
two blind eyes.

- [Lance] In the 19th century,

there's a thing
called the Grand Tour.

It is a classical tour of
Europe for wealthy young men.

- [Kavitha] Charles Dickens
and Mark Twain

and even the
Vanderbilts all do it.

You start in France and
then you go to Switzerland

and then it ends in Italy.

Many of these men write poetry

and odes to the Italian
women's beautiful dark eyes,

and they call them bella
donnas or beautiful women.

- [Negin] So, the men come
home from a tour

and they have developed a taste

for this dark sultry
look, these dark eyes,

and the women are like, well,
we've gotta deliver, right?

So, pharmacies start
selling something

called the belladonna eye drop.

- [Jason] One drop of this
belladonna eye drop in each eye,

your eyes become inky and
dark and infinitely appealing.

- [Henry] By the mid 1800s,
apothecaries in London, Paris,

and New York are selling
belladonna eyedrops

over the counter.

- These eyedrops
dilate your pupils,

so they don't actually
change the color of the iris,

they just open up the pupil

so it looks like you
have these big dark eyes.

- [Lance] The problem is the
berry they're using

to make these eyedrops is
actually a form of nightshade,

which is a well-known poison.

The Romans poison their
arrows with nightshade

to make them extra deadly.

- [Hakeem] So, even
though people know

that nightshade is dangerous,

it's the 1890s.

There's no regulators out there.

You can just walk out in the
forest and grab some berries

and make some eyedrops and
have women feelin' beautiful.

- [Lance] The thing
about belladonna

is that it's such
a powerful poison

that you use belladonna eyedrops

and they're going to dilate
your pupil sometimes for weeks.

- To protect your vision,

if you stare at the sun
or something bright,

your pupils are
going to close down.

But if you use
belladonna eyedrops,

it's stopping that process.

- So, your eyes are beautiful,

they're just not
functioning properly.

- This will be like
driving down the road

and bein' hit with somebody's
high beams the entire time.

- [Jason] Women who use
these eyedrops start

to experience headaches
and dizziness.

They start getting really sick.

They start having blurry vision,

and in the most severe cases,

some women actually
start to go blind.

- Ultimately, the nightshade
family are neuro toxins

and they do damage to pretty
much every system in the body.

So, eyedrops with chronic use

can cause blindness,
coma, even death.

- [Henry] Regulation
takes belladonna

off the shelves in 1938,

but the name lives on.

- [Kavitha] Today, when you
go to the eye doctor

and they give you those drops

that are meant to
dilate your pupils,

that's actually a synthetic form

of nightshade named
after these women.

- I think it's a
strange rebranding

of fundamentally a poison,

but I guess it's
like a little joke

you can share next time
you're at the eye doctor.

- If you think eyedrops
in the 1800s were risky,

you won't believe what people
were doing to their skin.

- [Austin] Beginning
in the 1800s,

cities are expanding rapidly,

but sanitation is non-existent.

This is a environment
rife for tuberculosis.

- It becomes a popular
look to have pale skin,

and that pale skin provides a
powerful contrast to red lips,

and that becomes the look

and that's brought to
you by tuberculosis.

- [Kavitha] Oddly enough,
the palor,

the fainting, the vulnerability,

these all play into

an already established
ideal of femininity.

- [Jason] So, cosmetics
manufacturers,

they're gonna figure out
how to sell you things

that are gonna make
you look that way.

- [Henry] Chemists realize
they can help women

get that pale and
vulnerable look

without all the baggage
of tuberculosis.

- The beauty in fashion industry

is trying to really
capitalize on this

and they make this thing

that makes you look pale
called complexion wafers.

- [Jason] Complexion wafers
come in a little box

and you can chew them up, sort
of like Flintstone vitamins

and the promise is you chew few

of these a day and you'll
have porcelain like skin.

- [Negin] So, women start
taking these wafers.

The wildest thing is
they actually work.

- [Henry] By the 1890s
complexion wafers

are a bestseller.

They're commonly found
on women's dressers

next to eyeshadow and rouge.

- [Kavitha] The complexion
wafers really do work,

but that's because
the key ingredient

is a rat poison called arsenic.

Of course, it's gonna make you
pale, it's poison [laughs].

- [Jason] The wafers at one
point are so popular

they even make it into
the Sears catalog.

Imagine, they're
between the trousers

and the wheelbarrows.

- If you take a closer look

at the advertising
for these products,

the manufacturers
use words like,

"Safe for everyday consumption."

They're making a point
that this isn't dangerous.

- [Dan] Thing is by the


that arsenic's bad for you,

and yet people keep
popping these wafers

and nobody is stopping
it from being sold.

I mean, it says arsenic
right on the label.

It's called Dr. Campbell's
Safe Arsenic Complexion Wafers.

There's no such thing
as safe arsenic.

That's like saying friendly
swarm of m*rder hornets.

- [Negin] What the arsenic is
doing is k*lling

your red blood cells,

which is to say like,
k*lling your life force.

- [Dan] Arsenic doesn't just
attack your blood vessels,

it also attacks
your nervous system.

So you get these worse
symptoms like you get jittery,

you get really weak,

and over time some people
end up getting cancer,

and even dying.

- Who knew that
achieving a deathly look

just involve actually trying
to slowly k*ll yourself.

- [Kavitha] By 1931, the
government actually seizes

the final remaining units

of Dr. Campbell's Safe
Arsenic Complexion Wafers

and charges the company
with false advertising

because it's the falsest of
advertising.

- Once modern science arrived,

looking like death warmed over

was suddenly out of fashion.

- Remember watching old
movies set in the 1800s

like "Gone with the Wind,"

where the women had parasols

and wide skirts and tiny waists?

They looked elegant,

but dressing that
way had a down side.

- [Natalia] For all of
American history,

women have been
trying to transform

their bodies to meet the latest,

most fashionable shape.

Very often that means
getting a slimmer waist.

- [Negin] Today, it's
through GLP-1s.

In the '80s and '90s there
were like diet pills,

but back in the
day it was corsets.

- [Natalia] A corset is a
cone shaped harness

that is wrapped
around your body,

and is laced as
tight as possible

through a process
called tight leasing.

- Not only does it show
off feminine curves,

it shows that you've
got a restraint.

It shows that you're in control.

It shows that you are
disciplined enough

to wear effectively
a t*rture device.

- By the 1860s, the
industrialization

of steel brings
corsets to the masses.

- [Henry] Steel
corsets can squeeze

the width of an average
woman's waist down

a whopping six to eight inches,

and nearly every woman in Europe

and North America wears one.

- This obsession with a small
waist gets really intense.

Children are wearing them,

even pregnant women
are wearing them.

One French dancer attracts
people with her 14 inch waist.

- For comparison, 14
inches in circumference

is about the size of
a miniature dachshund.

This is a very
hazardous fashion trend.

- Extreme lacing can exert


Your heart and your lungs just
can't expand against that.

- [Negin] Turns out you
can't smush

your organs into
different places

because then your body
starts breaking down.

- [Henry] Beginning
in the 1870s,

doctors notice a string
of mysterious deaths

in young corseted women.

- [Natalia] The pressure is so
intense that it can twist

the ribs until they're folded

over each other like shingles.

- [Rebecca] To inhale, you have
to expand your lungs,

and the corset is preventing
you, literally from breathing.

It was such a common problem

that doctors called the
condition death by corset.

- [Henry] By the turn
of the 20th century,

experts are finally
calling for a ban

and eventually women's fashion
tosses the corset aside.

- By the early 20th century,
the new woman is arriving.

This is a woman who is
riding bicycles in bloomers,

who is advocating for suffrage,

who is a few years
from being a flapper

with rising hem lines
and short skirts,

and she's not about to
be bound up by a corset.

- Believe it or not, corsets
were only half the equation

for achieving that Scarlett
O'Hara look in the 1800s.

Below the waist, there was
even more trouble brewing.

- [Lance] Before the 1800s,

to achieve this fashionable
billowing skirt look

that was so popular, you
had to layer petty coats.

Petty coats are
essentially underskirts

and you had to
have four or five.

- [Kavitha] That achieves
that shape,

but it's obviously really hot

and it adds a lot of weight,

in some cases up to 20
pounds of extra weight.

- [Rutledge] There's this
breakthrough

in the 1800s called crinoline,

and it's like a cage
that will hold up a dress

to give it this big
beautiful sort of flowing

and very opulent and fancy look.

- [Henry] By 1860,
crinoline factories

turn out thousands every day.

Steel crinolines cause skirts

to balloon 50% on average
from four feet across,


across, 18 feet around.

- [Kavitha] Imagine you have the
steel cage around you

that's the size of a
small car essentially.

They just keep getting
bigger and bigger.

- [Negin] That is the same
shape and size

as the capsule that John
Glenn took into orbit.

- [Lance] It's funny that we
would go to a fashion trend

that makes our fashion
larger than our hallways

and our doorways.

They seem ridiculous.

- [Henry] But beyond
their absurd size,

these skirts pose a
more serious problem.

- There's no electricity
yet, so everywhere you turn,

there's an open flame.

- [Rutledge] If you think about
how big these

dresses really are,

you can't see the
edges of everything,

you don't have mirrors on
where you can see the back.

Suddenly you're just
having a nice conversation

with a boy from the town over

and your whole dress is on fire.

- [Lance] By the middle 19th
century,


alone from crinoline fires.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
the famous poet,

crinoline fire kills his wife.

Two sisters of the
writer Oscar Wilde die

in crinoline fires.

- [Rutledge] You'd think after
the first one or two,

people would be
like, "I don't know.

These things catch
fire pretty easily."

No, no.


this dangerous fire hazard.

- [Henry] It's only
changing lifestyles

that eventually brings an end

to gargantuan crinoline skirts.

- [Rutledge] Crinoline is
eventually replaced

by the bustle,

which is really just
kind of giving more

of a shape to the rear.

- [Kavitha] Now, women can still
make a big statement

and they don't have to burn
the room down to do it.

- In the '40s, some women
ditch the skirt entirely

joining the w*r effort with
a radical new look, pants.

- Do you remember when
nobody talked about sunscreen

and people would do
just about anything

for a deep, golden tan?

And if the sun couldn't do it
fast enough the normal way,

well, somebody was bound to
come up with an abnormal way.

- [Natalia] Post World w*r II
America is a time

of expanded prosperity,

especially in the growing
middle and upper classes.

You get new status symbols

like the ability to enjoy
leisure time, vacation,

and so a tan becomes a symbol

that you can afford to
enjoy life's spoils.

- [Negin] So, people like
John F. Kennedy

are out there like
symbols of youthfulness

and he's like sailing
in the open waters

with this beautiful tan, and
people wanna look like that.

- [Henry] But most people
can't afford to jet off

to the tropics for
a quick tan tuneup.

And German engineer Friedrich
Wolf sees an opportunity.

- [Natalia] Friedrich Wolf
becomes the father

of the fake bake.

He realizes that UV lights,
which had been used in medicine

for therapeutic reasons can
also be used to tan the skin.

And so, Wolf invents something

that makes tanning available
year round and inside.

[sunbeds humming]

The sunbed.

This new innovation pops
up in malls, gyms, salons.

They're everywhere.

- [Jason] The big flex becomes
the off season power tan.

If you can walk through the
office or go to your PTA meeting

and you're sporting this power
tan in the middle of winter,

that's the status symbol.

- [Negin] It works 20 minutes
at the local strip mall

and you come out looking

like you were at
the French Riviera.

- [Henry] In the '80s,
indoor tanning becomes

the fastest growing
business in America,

soaring 300% in five years,

but doctors are less sunny on
the future of tanning beds.

- Almost immediately studies
come out linking UV radiation

to wrinkles burns melanoma.

- People now realize that
the sun was dangerous

and now the thing is
they thought was safer,

the tanning bed
is also dangerous,

but they still want their tan.

- [Henry] Tanning
beds aren't as hot,

but no doctor could predict

what they would
come up with next.

- [Jason] Advertisements
start to roll out,

promising you a rich dark tan,

one that requires
no time in the sun

and you're gonna look good.

You're gonna have a
tan all year round.

It's a tan in a pill.

- [Henry] Tanning pills seem
like the perfect solution

for getting bronzed,

without burning off your skin.

By the mid 1980s,
they are selling out

at health stores across America.

- [Lance] When tanning
pills come out,

they are not regulated as if
they are a pharmaceutical,

so everybody assumes
that these are safe.

- [Natalia] However,
there's an unexpected

effect of these pills.

The result is not quite
what people are looking for.

Instead of that
French Riviera bronze,

it's more like
Halloween pumpkin.

- It turns out that the
pills aren't some kind

of synthetic super chemical
that people created.

It's a naturally
occurring chemical,

which is related
to betacarotene,

the chemical in
carrots, for example.

- [Brian] It's the same stuff
that will make a shrimp

and a flamingo pink.

Now, when you think
of a healthy tan,

does your mind ever go to
flamingos, shrimp, or carrots?

No way.

- [Lance] Each of these
pills is gonna contain

about 30 milligrams

and you're taking
four of those a day.

It's like you're eating
a huge amount of carrots,

but you'd have to eat 10
to 15 pounds of carrots

to do the equivalent
of these little pills.

Of course people
are turning orange.

- [Henry] But your
embarrassing color

is the least of your problems.

- [Lance] When you have so much
of something in your system

that your system's not
used to, it goes somewhere.

One of the places it tends
to go is into your eyeballs.

It crystallizes
inside your retinas.

So people see blurred
vision and sparkling.

- The most serious
problem with the pigment

is that it stops the
growth of bone marrow,

which produces red
and white blood cells.

In one case, this doctor sees
this really sick 20-year-old

who's been taking these pills

and she's got
bruises all over her.

Her skin is this kind
of sickly orange.

- [Lancee] And unfortunately,
she dies a few weeks later.

Finally, the FDA does step in.

It bans the sale of these
pills and the fad goes away.

- The sun is free,

but you could just go
outside for 15 minutes

and the sun will do
what it's been doing

since the beginning of earth,

which is make you look
good and healthy and tan.

These people were like, "Nah,
modern chemicals will get it."

- Remembering the ways we
tried to look our best,

whether it was
plastic hair implants

or collars that choked us

or even exploding teeth,

the shortcuts we took weren't
always easy on the eyes,

but despite the perils,

that's what made our
hazardous history

a sight to behold.

[dramatic music fades]