We're always seeing retro style on the catwalks, and, just as in fashion, beauty trends come and go. So Beauty Boxes have taken a quick delve into beauty history to find out about some enduring (and sometimes plain bizarre) beauty treatments from the past:

• The Ancient Romans loved attending the spa baths. They used a mixture of warm, hot and cold water plunges, and oil to cleanse the body. (Oil was rubbed in and then scraped off using a 'strigil' instrument.)


• The minerals in the Dead Sea have been used in remedies and beauty treatments since Ancient times. It's thought that the mineral rich waters have special healing properties. (Look out for Dead Sea Spa Magik beauty products on the Beauty Boxes' website soon.)


• Cochineal (made from crushed beetles - yuk!) was used to colour wealthier women's lips and cheeks in 15thC England.


• Grey hair was the in thing for women in Georgian times (18th C). Even younger women would dye their hair grey, or wear wigs and hairpieces - and the hair had to be seriously big.


• Women in the 19th C often tried to get rid of their spots by using extract of violet.


• While influential Victorian society actress and renowned beauty Lillie Langtry favoured (and endorsed) a special brand of skin powder 'Lillie powder' which had a base of talc and lanolin.


• As cinema emerged in the early 20th C, film stars began to inspire beauty, with women wanting to look like 1920s' celebrity 'it' girls Clara Bow and Louise Brooks. In fact, Louise Brook's fabulous sharp stylised fringed bob wouldn't look out of place in a hip bar or club today.

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