Welcome back to Botanical Skincare Secrets, where we blend ancient herbal wisdom with modern skin science—and occasionally take a dramatic detour through the haunted hallways of beauty history. This is Episode 9: Deadly Skincare Part 2, and yes, the tea is still piping hot and mildly toxic.

I’m Eva, founder of The Very Good Goo—your botanical skincare bestie and unofficial historian of beauty’s most unhinged moments. Last week, we exposed the glamorously grotesque past of arsenic face powders and radioactive creams. This week? We’re going deeper, darker, and just a little bit grosser (in the best way).

💄 What’s Inside This Episode:

• Heroin Lip Balm: Yep, this was a thing. In the early 1900s, European beauty brands (and Bayer, the same company that gave us aspirin) were marketing opiate-laced lip salves as calming, chic, and nerve-soothing. Literal heroin—sold in gorgeous tins and nestled between lace gloves and perfume atomizers. Soft lips and emotional sedation? The patriarchy really said, “why not both?”

• Snake Venom Serums: Enter SYN-Ake—a synthetic peptide based on the venom of the temple viper. Marketed as “Botox in a bottle” in the early 2000s, this cult-status ingredient promised to freeze wrinkles with a whisper instead of a jab. But does it work? We unpack the science behind the snakebite chic.

• Nightingale Poop Facials (Uguisu No Fun): Geishas and kabuki actors once swore by this enzyme-rich mask made from sterilised bird droppings. Yes, really. We explore how poop became a prestige beauty treatment and why this ancient Japanese ritual might’ve been an early version of biotech skincare—gross, but weirdly genius.

• Belladonna Eye Drops: This Renaissance-era poison gave women dilated pupils and that soft, dreamy, submissive look men just couldn’t resist (🙄). We get into why beauty ideals often involve actual suffering—and why Belladonna is the ultimate femme fatale plant.

🌪 Themes We Tackle (Because It’s Not Just About the Products):

• The myth of “beauty through pain” and how it still echoes in modern trends like injectables and acid peels

• How colonialism, capitalism, and misogyny have shaped dangerous beauty standards for centuries

• The way glamour has historically been used to mask control, sedation, and harm

• Why we keep romanticizing poison when it’s packaged in pearlescent tins and promises perfection

✨ Whether it’s opiate-laced lip balm or neurotoxic pupil drops, history proves one thing: the beauty industry has always had a dark side. But knowledge is power—and glowier skin. So let’s keep unlearning the BS and choosing skincare that actually loves you back.

📍 Perfect For:

• Lovers of weird beauty history

• Skincare nerds with a dark sense of humour

• Anyone wondering if their serum is gaslighting them

• Listeners seeking real talk on how not to die for pretty

💬 If this episode made you gasp, laugh, cringe, or yell “WTF?!” in public, please leave a review, share with your smartest skincare bestie, and remember: Pain is not a prerequisite for beauty.

🔮 Stay smart, stay skeptical, and don’t die for good skin.

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