Renaissance was a very important phase in European history. It was a period of transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. The period between the 14th and seventeenth centuries was marked by the fervor in arts, culture, politics and economy. Now scientists are uncovering the wonder secrets of that era.

The enterprise named the Beautiful Chemistry Project is a joint endeavor of art historian Erin Griffey and her colleagues on the University of Auckland in Latest Zealand. Griffey is somewhat of a beauty connoisseur and her interest in beauty products is what led to the birth of this project.

“I’m certainly one of those individuals who reads the backs of beauty products,” she said.

While working on a book regarding beauty culture in Renaissance Europe, she had an epiphany. After scrutinizing books, cosmetic recipe collections, medical texts, health regimen manuscripts, herbals and pharmacopeias, Griffey noticed that the products utilized in that period weren’t very different from what we see today.

Two examples of some of these products are rosewater and sulfur. While rosewater is utilized in modern skin-hydrating mists, sulfur is utilized in some over-the-counter pimples creams.

But there are two sides to those ancient beauty recipes because the latter also listed bizarre and even dangerous ingredients like bile acids, calves’ hooves, lead and the poisonous bryony plant.

Griffey desired to re-create the recipes to get a greater understanding of them. She collaborated with scientists from the University of Auckland in Latest Zealand and the Beautiful Chemistry Project was conceptualized.

The team began with “sticky recipes” because they found references to them in a large number of sources throughout the Renaissance period. The recipes were rosemary flowers in white wine, myrrh powder with egg white and the velvety covering of newly grown deer antlers with bean flour.

There was a limitation to recreating recipes as there have been no clear instructions within the source material. Thus, it was a strategy of trial and error with chemist Michel Nieuwoudt and her team experimenting with the measurements and procedures while Griffey went through various sources for ingredient types and ratios.

Speaking of the recipe for rosemary flowers in white wine for instance, Griffey said: “We knew we couldn’t re-create it exactly as is. We would not have access to the rosemary plants that grew 500 years ago or the wines and whatever their chemical makeup was.”

But Griffey agreed that their efforts “enabled us to catch up with to an approximation.”

Experimenting on rosemary flowers in round-bottom flasks each crammed with a unique solution- sweet white wine, dry white wine, ethanol in water, or aqua vitae, researchers found the presence of compounds seen in modern skincare products, corresponding to soothing camphor, eucalyptol and the fragrant alcohol linalool.

The research team is yet to experiment with recipes with dangerous ingredients.

In the long term, the researchers wish to perfect their re-creations and get the products to drug store shelves. “I believe people will wish to return to something that’s natural, and it is also appealing for people to think they’re using Renaissance products,” Nieuwoudt said.