History

The wearing of artificial beauty marks trace back to the Roman Empire; it was believed that the Goddess of beauty, Venus, had a single beauty mark that accentuated her beauty.^[3] As such, beauty patches became a recognizable symbol of beauty designed to highlight the pale, unblemished skin of the wearer.^[4] In Europe, mouches (French, 'flies'), became fashionable in sixteenth-century France, and the fashion persisted into the eighteenth century. When the fashion spread to Spain and the Spanish Empire they were called a chiqueador.^[5]

A chiqueador on a lady's temple, detail of "Retrato de María Rosa de Rivera" by Pedro José Diaz, Lima, Peru, 1785

An example of a patch box from the early eighteenth-century, made of silver.

A mouche was generally made of paper, silk or velvet and was applied to the face as a form of make-up. They were kept in a patch box, or boîte à mouches ('box of flies'), and were often fanciful shapes such as hearts or stars. Patch boxes were often ornate, silver boxes, and formed an essential part of a woman's boudoir. Fashion prints from the late seventeenth century show women with an increasing number of beauty marks in a variety of sizes and shapes, placed on the cheeks, chins, and forehead.

Besides their decorative value, the patches could hide smallpox scars or syphilis sores, as well as acne.^[5] In 1668, the English diarist Samuel Pepys recorded attending the theatre and witnessing Barbara Villiers, one of the King's mistresses "called to one of her women… for a little patch off her face, and put it into her mouth and wetted it, and so clapped it upon her own by the side of her mouth, I suppose she feeling a pimple rising there."^[6] Contemporary satire or beauty manuals like R. Smith's A Wonder of Wonders: or, a Metamorphosis of fair Faces voluntarily transformed into foul Visages attested the wearing of patches could "turn botches into beauty."^[3]

By the eighteenth-century, the wearing of patches also adopted social and political meaning. The placement or shape of a patch could reveal information about then wearer's relationship status, sexual availability, or political affiliations.

Alexander Pope's 1712 poem The Rape of the Lock mentions such patches as indicators of "secular love":^[7]

Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows,

Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.

Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms;

The Fair each moment rises in her Charms,

Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace,

And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face;

Criticism of the beauty patch

Moral commentators in the early modern period increasingly expressed concern about the wearing of beauty patches, and linked it to sexual immorality and prostitution. The British diarist and intellectual John Evelyn referred to the wearing of patches, and make-up more general, as a "most ignominious thing."^[8] Other commentators saw the wearing of a black patch as a physical symbol of the wearers black morals, or soul, commonly attributing the wearing of patches to signs of the wearer's vanity.^[9] However, despite moral outcry, patches continued to be worn by men and women of diverse social ranks.

Contemporary beauty patches

The Monroe piercing has gained popularity in recent years as a flexible way of approximating a beauty mark. Natural beauty marks are also often enhanced with color from an eyebrow pencil or pen.^[10] Modern day acne patches can also be considered a new form of the beauty patch, turning a physical imperfection into a fashionable accessory. This is particularly true for new styles of pimple patches that come in fashionable shapes and colors, including stars, hearts, and clouds.