This 1800s London Scamstress Would Have Made Millions on Instagram
The Maintenance Phase pod would get a kick out of this woman
Hi friends! Happy Wednesday. I had an entirely different newsletter prepared for you today but switched subjects after I listened to an insane podcast over the weekend. My dear friend Kimya came over for dinner on Friday and mentioned a podcast she thought I’d like called “Sweet Bobby.” It details a real-life, intensely elaborate catfishing scam. This is not your run-of-the-mill “I Facetuned my dating profile picture” scam. It’s a scam that is beyond psychologically fucked up (sorry for cursing, Dad!). Even more so than Colleen Hoover’s “Verity.” I woke up Monday morning and decided to give the podcast a listen, expecting it to keep me entertained throughout the week as it’s only six episodes. Instead, I sailed through the first five episodes in a day. As a result, I quickly switched this week’s newsletter to highlight a female scammer story about a rogue cosmetics saleswoman in 1800’s London. Meet Madame Rachel aka Sarah Rachel Russell.
Sarah Rachel Russell
Remember Mother Gothel in the movie Tangled? For those who haven’t seen, which you really should, she is Rapunzel’s evil fake mother who attempts to stay young(ish) and beautiful forever through a bit of magic involving a song and Rapunzel’s hair. I swear, it works within the context of the movie. Suffice it to say Mother Gothel would have been our con woman’s number one disciple.
Sarah Rachel Russell did what she had to do to make a buck. She had a pretty rough time financially as her husband’s just kept dying. To clarify, she didn’t kill them, it was just 1800’s London aka germ city. To stay afloat, she sold clothes and furs, told fortunes, ran a fried fish shop, and even tried to recruit hard on their luck actresses to work at a brothel. But, just like every scammer with a dream, she was still plotting her get rich quick scheme. Her Theranos, if you will. That all changed when she started selling hair dyes. Russell was both making and selling the dyes and became successful enough to eventually open her own store in the fancy pants part of town. As with any good scamstress, she played the part by becoming Madame Rachel, dripping in jewels and Dumbledore-esque robes, to give her a more dignified mystique for the clientele. She preyed on rich women by selling them obscenely priced cosmetics, elixirs, and perfumes claiming they were “exotic” beauty secrets. One of her products was literally called “Magnetic Rock Dew of the Sahara”, which she claimed prevented wrinkles. It was $160 a pop… IN THE 1800S!
You might be thinking, “okay, whatever, if these rich women want to blow their money on Armenian beauty washes and skin lightening treatments, that’s their own deal.” And as someone who has bought a fair share of beauty products promising much more than they delivered, I agree with you. The issue is that Madame Rachel was claiming her products were exotic when she actually should have said toxic. Many of her elixirs and beauty regimens used lead and arsenic as the main ingredients. I guess when she said her clients would be “beautiful forever” she should have clarified “forever” was a lot shorter than they thought as they were all slowly dying from arsenic poisoning.
Eventually, some of her clients got wise. Especially those who had been blackmailed because they couldn’t pay her exorbitant prices upfront and were extorted into selling her their valuables to pay their debt. She was prosecuted twice for fraud and died while serving her second jail sentence in 1880. If you’re ever in London, you can check out where her shop used to be on New Bond Street.
If you’re interested in reading about other female scammers, this book kept popping up in my searches. I haven’t read it, but it sounds interesting!
Burn the Good Candles
I saw this tweet and I think this is the energy we should all be bringing into the New Year. Just don’t splurge on Magnetic Rock Dew of the Sahara.
That’s all, folks! See you next week!
Citations
“The Victorian Influencer Who Peddled Poisonous Beauty Elixirs” Atlas Obscura
“Beautiful For Ever: The True Story of Madame Rachel of Bond Street” Helen Rappaport