10 Bad Ideas That Were Super Popular During The Victorian Era

Spending all your time at the gym may seem like a more modern part of culture, but plenty of middle and upper-class men and women in the Victorian era spent much of their time developing the "Grecian ideal" of the body.

Arsenic was all over the place in the Victorian era. Since it was thought to make skin look younger, it was in many cosmetics of the time. Men also believed taking arsenic pills would increase their libido. Obviously, none if worked and people eventually caught on to how dangerous it can be.

Using electricity to help cure all kinds of ailments, including gout and muscle weakness. For the most part, these patients left with burns.

The idea of a corset is pretty straight forward; reduce the size of the waist. That said, some women took it to extreme levels, trying to create a waist of just 16 inches or less.

Ear piercing was already popular during Victorian times, but some women started also getting their nipples pierced. At the time, it was believed that doing so would help their breasts grow to become rounder and more attractive.

The Prince of Wales got a tattoo on a whim while he was visiting Jerusalem in 1862, and that started a movment among the upper class to get inked. Although, unlike tattoos of today, where you want people to see them, the upper-class kept their tattoos hidden at that time.

Fasting girls were a kind of entertainment that did just what they sound like...or at least they claimed to. They said they were able to survive without eating or drinking, when in reality they had a friend or two who would bring them food every once in a while, when no one else was looking.

Victorian women swooned at pretty much anything. No matter what the occasion, a woman would probably faint (or pretend to faint). It's definitely odd, but women of the time were expected to be dainty, and swooning was a good way to convey that.

Hysteria was really a generic term for any and all emotions that a woman would experience. The cure for hysteria? A "pelvic massage" or as we would call it today, masturbation, but performed by a doctor.

Hydrotherapy was another fake therapy thought to cure all sorts of ailments. Someone would be immersed in freezing or scalding water. It didn't cure anything, but that didn't stop the rich from trying.