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Sarah Rachel Russell or Leverson or Levison (c.1814 – 12 October 1880) was a female British con artist and felon who lived in the early nineteenth century London, England during the reign of Queen Victoria. She owned and managed her very own beauty salon where she sold goods and services that promised consumers eternal youth and attractiveness, mainly renowned for her "Magnetic Rock Dew" based from the Sahara desert. The promises she gave to her customers was an elaborate plan as a means to make profit and distribute fake products which ultimately harmed them throughout time. She personally guaranteed her clientele everlasting youth as a result of the use of these products, which would later be revealed as consisting of water and bran. Russell's infatuation with marketing and making money dishonestly would eventually lead to her finding other troubling ways to fill her pockets and her arrest and series of trials for fraud. She would later become well known for blackmailing many wives of London's upper class as well. Life Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood Madame Rachel’s childhood took place in the Victorian Era of London, England, specifically the early nineteenth century. She was the cousin of the musician Henry Russell and born into a Jewish family. Growing up around the city’s most poverty ridden and severely overpopulated East End meant that she was one of the less fortunate in terms of having a stable income. To combat her issue of having little to no money, Russell would sell and distribute items in an area of her home city called Wapping. Sarah Rachel Russell's younger years and time into adolescence would kickstart her introduction to way she could bring profit to her household. Her products of purchase would consist of skins of rabbits, dehydrated fish, hawking bottles, and even her used wardrobe in the means of making a quick buck. The hyper fixation and desire of selling goods and services to the public would bleed into her adulthood, however, would consist of disingenuous motives behind her marketing demographic and advertising strategies. Russell’s adulthood years would continuously consist of bringing money into her household. She was married three times, which involved her marriage to an assistant chemist in Manchester and in 1844 to Jacob Moses, who deserted her in 1846 and later drowned when the Royal Charter sank in 1859. She lived with, and took the surname of, Philip Levison. She worked as a clothes dealer and later was briefly jailed for procurement before selling cosmetics and toilet requisites in 1860. Jobs pursued would consist of running and operating a fried fish shop in the Clare Market (now present-day London School of Economics), fortune telling priced at a penny within the Covent Garden’s public houses, and working in the sex work industry by recruiting actresses working for Drury Lane’s theatres to toil in a brothel owned and operated by one of her companions in Long Acre, which is a street located in Westminster in London. Success in the Victorian-era beauty industry Around the 1850’s, Russell begins to expand her marketing horizons by dabbling in the beauty and cosmetics industry. She would curate and sell hair dyes to the public and ultimately led her path towards success in this field of marketing. This accomplishment in sales led to Russell changing her clientele to richer, more lavish individuals now under the title of “cosmetician”. In the year 1863 and now under her new alias as “Madame Rachel”, she bought and opened a salon on Bond Street in the Mayfair District of London. This area had a reputation of being “snobby” or “stuck up” due to the opulent, wealthy citizens that roamed. Being neck deep in an industry where you are a provider of personal goods and services that could benefit a potential customer’s internal, self-perceiving conflict was a perfect front to make an increased, skyrocketing profit. The slogan “Beautiful for Ever” was plastered above the front door across the salon acted as bait to prey on the naivety of women and men seeking to be beautiful and committing to conventional beauty standards during the Victorian Era of England. Cosmetics and beauty experienced an astronomical boom around the 1860’s. During this time in the Victorian Era, it was declared “unladylike” to wear makeup. In fact, wearable cosmetic products used to enhance one’s features were meant to be indulged by those in theatre and the sex work industry. The only way women and men could adhere to conventional beauty standard was to be of nobility status and from pinching one’s cheeks and biting lips to enhance the blood flow to those certain areas of the face, ultimately achieving that flushed, youthful look. A sense of yearning for the day that British citizens didn’t have to solely rely on dangerous, at-home beauty concoctions was strong. Madame Rachel opening the doors of her salon was the solution they needed and desired. The presence that Madame Russell exuded was that of someone who regularly visited areas out of Britain and had knowledge of the exotic products she sold. She dawned lush robes, beautiful jewelry that dripped nicely among her physique, and adorned crystal talismans. One of her pricey goods was called “Magnetic Rock Dew of the Sahara” that had the purpose of wrinkle removal and ranged at a price of $160 in today’s money. According to the product’s description, it offered to increase the rate of youth in the individual that used it and had been used in the country of Morocco for its helping agent. Other commodities that she sold in her salon were called the Circassia Golden Hair Wash which aided in the problem of greying hair. Other sought-after cosmetics included Royal Arabian face cream, Honey of Mount Hymettus soap, Arab Bloom face powder, and various essences, perfumes, creams, and washes Crime and moral conflicts Little did every British consumer that bought and used these products know that there was a dark and harmful secret behind the actual ingredients within them that was dangerous to their health. Harmful ingredients To the eventual dismay of others, Madame Rachel’s products acted as a sort of cocktail-like mixture of toxic chemicals. The most common base in her concoctions would include arsenic, lead carbonate, prussic acid, and corrosive sublimate. Enameling Otherwise known as “enameling of the face”, this cosmetic practice would be used to whiten one’s skin color and came to be due to the high demand of confining to the predominant English beauty standard of being fair-skinned, which resembled a symbol nobility and wealth. The dark secret of these skin-whitening practices through Russell was that it was severely dangerous from copious amounts of arsenic in the mixture she used. Majority of the ingredients were poisonous and caustic and would eventually lead to skin inflammation or sometimes death depending on how regularly the person used it consistently. The sad reality of this demand was that conv.... Discover the Rachel Rappaport popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Rachel Rappaport books.