A closer look
Victorian women were so utterly desperate to achieve the perfect fragile romantic look that they literally dripped toxic nightshade extract directly into their unprotected corneas just to force their pupils to massively dilate. The highly dangerous plant, properly known as belladonna, gave them a highly coveted wide-eyed, innocent aesthetic while simultaneously causing terrifying heart palpitations, severe blurred vision, and eventual absolute permanent blindness. You really have to pause and marvel at the deeply cynical nature of historical beauty standards that successfully convinced an entire generation of privileged upper-class ladies to intentionally poison their own eyeballs just to appear marginally more attractive at a fancy dinner party. Botox suddenly seems like a completely reasonable and mild medical procedure!
