CHAVILLE, FRANCE: The Belle Epoque, France's golden era at the turn of the last century, bequeathed Paris elegant landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, but also a more sinister legacy of radioactive floors and backyards which the capital is only now addressing.

When the Franco-Polish Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium in 1898, she set off a craze for the luminescent metal among Parisians, who started using it for everything from alarm clock dials to lipsticks and even water fountains.

"The history of radium started in Paris," said Eric Lanes, head of radioactive decontamination at France's national agency for radioactive waste, ANDRA.

After Curie showed that radium could be used to destroy cancerous cells, people assumed that the new element had miraculous healing properties and started putting it in everything from body lotions to cough syrups.

"Cancerous cells are more sensitive to radiation than healthy ones. Curie understood that," said Lanes. "But some people embarked on businesses more akin to charlatans' tricks."

Curie herself died at 66 from her prolonged, unprotected exposure to radium. Lanes said the clean-up was being undertaken as a precautionary measure under a recent French law requiring that preventative steps be taken in a case of a suspected health risk even in the absence of conclusive scientific evidence.

"We have never found any worrying situations," Lanes said. "We're talking about levels that are too small to create a health impact."
=========================================================================

Home | Stories | Beauty Firms | Timelines | Sources

A Glowing Complexion

The discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898 led to its use, first as a research tool and then later in the development of medical and commercial applications.

[Radium] became involved in the physical system of alpha, beta, and gamma rays and the atomic structure; in the chemical system of atomic weights, emanations, and transmutations; in the medical system of cancer treatments and radon spas; in the commercial system of luminous watches, women’s cosmetics, and medical remedies; in the artistic system of luminous paintings and middle-class American culture; and in the industrial system of radium extractions, the production of luminous paint, and the beauty industry.

Rentetzi (2007, p. 1)

Medical and other uses of radium

Medically, radium was usually injected or taken in pills. It was used to treat a wide range of ailments including hair loss, impotence, atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, rheumatism, gout, sciatica, nephritis and anemia. The use of radium in medicine led to a craze for radium-based products, and radioactivity in general, during the 1920s and 1930s. Commerically, it was added to a wide range of products including wool for babies, water dispensers, chocolate, soda water, male supports, foundation garments, condoms, toothpaste, suppositories, cigarettes, cleaning products, boot polish, fertilisers, luminous paints and cosmetics.

Radior

Based in London, Radior Co. Ltd., marketed a line of radium cosmetics sometime before 1920. Their product range included Night Cream, Rouge, Compact Powder, Vanishing Cream, Talcum Powder, Hair Tonic, Skin Soap, Face Powder in six tints (Blanche, Naturelle, Rachel, Flesh Ochre and Brunette) and assorted pads which could be strapped to the face.

An ever-flowing Fountain of Youth and Beauty has at last been found in the Energy Rays of Radium.
When scientists discovered Radium they hardly dreamed they had unearthed a revolutionary “Beauty Secret.” They know it now. Radium Rays vitalize and energize all living tissue. This Energy has been turned into Beauty’s aid. Each and every ‘Radior’ Toilet Requisite contains a definite qualtity of Actual Radium.

Radior advertisement, 1918

According to the company the product sold well in the Britain, possibly due to the fact that it was taken up and distributed by Boots “in all their five hundred and eighty-five stores” (Advertising, 1920) as well as Harrods, Selfridges and Whiteley’s department stores in London. It was also available in selected stores in some parts of the Commonwealth.

“Radior” Chin straps are guaranteed to contain Radio-active substance and Radium Bromide. If placed on the face where the skin has become wrinkled or tired the radio-active forces immediately take effect on the nerves and tissues. A continuous steady current of energy flows into the skin, and before long the wrinkles have disappeared, the nerves have become strong and energised, and the tired muscles have become braced up and “ready for service.”

Radior advertisement (Sydney Morning Herald, 1915)

The product did less well in America when introduced there. In an interview, a company spokesperson, noted that market research put the cause for poor sales on the reduced use of radium in US medicine and public disbelief that such an expensive material could be used in cosmetic pads. The spokesperson explained that “It is possible to divide and subdivide radium until you can get as small an amount as one sixty-fourth of a cent’s worth. It seems incredible, I know, but chemists are used to these infinitesimal divisions. The radium would still be genuine and would retain all its valuable properties. For this reason and because of its enormous strength we are able to use it in these pads and still sell them at a profit.” (Advertiser, 1920). Radior countered the misconception with a guarantee that radium was present in every product. The good news is that the amount of radium used in each product was low.

Tho-Radium

In the early 1930s, a pharmacist, Alexis Moussali and a Parisian doctor, Alfred Curie, launched a French range of radioactive beauty products, first from the Rues des Capucines and then from 146 Avenue Victor Hugo. Alexis Moussali was probably the brains behind the commercial operation, with Alfred Curie possibly brought either because of his surname – (he was not related to Marie or Pierre Curie) and/or the fact that he was a doctor.
The product range, which included cleansing milk, skin cream, powder, rouge, lipstick and toothpaste, was called Tho-Radia as it contained thorium chloride and radium bromide, both of which were radioactive. The products were relatively expensive for the time, partly due to the cost of the radioactive materials. As with Radior, one hopes that the expense of the ‘active ingredients’ may have resulted in reduced amounts of thorium and radium being used.
The Tho-Radia cream was sold for 15 francs per 155 gram pot; soap, 3 francs per 100 gram bar; powder, 12 francs per 50 gram box; toothpaste, 6 francs per tube. Despite the relatively high price, it sold throughout France from 1933 through to the early 1960s. When tested in the 1960s the products were found to be radioactive (Mould, n.d. p. 3). Fortunately, I can find no indication that Tho-Radia products found a distributor in the English-speaking world.
Like other products of the time, Tho-Radia was advertised as being a scientific method of beauty (Méthod Scientific de Beauté). The ‘benefits’ of radium were highly publicised in the press and therefore well known by the general public in the 1930s. Product advertising shows the face lit from below which makes it look like it is ‘glowing’. What could be more healthy than a glowing complexion?
An associated booklet produced by the company proclaims that the beauty cream:

Elle stimule la vitalité cellulaire active la circulation, raffermit less tissues, élimine la graisse, empêche las deformation des pores, prevenient et guérit dartes, boutons, rougeeurs, defend la peau contre les miasmas et les intemperies de l’épipiderme, evite at supprime les rides, conserve la fraîcheaur et l’éclat du teint.
Translation:
Stimulates cellular vitality, activates circulation, firms skin, eliminates fats, stops enlarged pores forming, stops and cures boils, pimples, redness, pigmentation, protects from the elements, stops ageing and gets rid of wrinkles, conserves the freshness and brightness of the complexion.

(Tho-Radia Dictionary of Beauty, Dictionnaire soins de Beauté)

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

The use of radioactive materials in cosmetics is a good example of the what can go wrong when the beauty industry jumps too quickly on the bandwagon of a scientific advance. This is not a fault that they share alone. Despite this, and other ingredients that would also prove detrimental to health, the role of science in the beauty industry was to increase, not diminish during the century. Even today, when so many are demanding more ‘natural’ products we still look to science to ensure their purity and safety.
April 14th 2009