The 13 Most Bizarre Beauty Treatments Women Have Ever Used By Sonja Holbrook  [2 more lists]

There is a little-known practice found in Ethiopian salons. Women are given a 45 minute massage head to toe, using butter as the massaging medium. Butter is also applied everywhere, from toe to scalp. Plastic bags are put over the hands and feet, and the guest is given a large chunk of butter to spread over her lady parts.

Then she is led to a room with a long row of toilets and smoke holes.

The woman sits on the toilet with her legs as far apart as possible, with her hoo-ha positioned over the smoke hole. Three heavy blankets are thrown over her so that no smoke escapes. And she?ll sit like that until all of the butter is melted, and she has become a giant steaming yam.

The idea is to tighten up the vaginal muscles post-pregnancy, and perhaps your partner prefers butter on their muffins. No word on cost, except some modesty, dignity and several tubs of Blue Bonnet.

This one's a little more ancient.

When Marc Antony wooed Cleopatra, when Julius Cesar made a speech, when Ben Hur rode his mighty chariot, they all participated in a sacred ritual that continues today: they gargled. While that deserves a mighty huzzah, bear in mind they weren't swishing Scope.

To improve the color of their teeth and freshen their breath, Romans imported and swilled Portuguese urine. Apparently, the Portuguese pH was much more divine and manly than mellow Roman yellow. While obviously unpleasant, urine contains several compounds like ammonia and urea that actually kill germs and help fight the gum disease gingivitis. No price listed, but I'd imagine you can just hop down to Portugal and swap a box of donuts for a bottle of urine.

Urine is 95% water, with the other 5% comprising of salts, minerals and nitrogen. Hmmm... perhaps the Romans were hoping to blast the plaque off their teeth, as urine was also used to make gunpowder.

Either way, I wouldn't recommend swishing your pee around in your mouth - even if it is free. There's a reason your body expels it.

Source: http://www.mentalfloss.com

Ambergris – sounds like my mom’s fruit salad on Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, the truth is a lot less sweet.

“Gris” is a solid waxy substance originating in the intestine of the sperm whale. When the sperm whale has a bowel moment, the ambergris is usually expelled through the rectum. The chunks float onto the surface of the sea, where the sun sterilizes and cooks them. Ambergris floats and washes ashore most frequently on the coasts of China, Japan, Africa, the Americas and on tropical islands such as the Bahamas.

In Eastern cultures, ambergris is used for medicines and potions and as a spice; in the West it was used to stabilize the scent of fine perfumes.

No word on the cost of whale vomit or diarrhea – free to the natives, the cost of airfare to the rest of us. Please excuse me while I go check the contents of my perfume bottles.

Similar to the idea and nutrients of pig placenta, EMK Placental has brewed up an entire range of products from post-natal tissue—including facial masks, eye gels, and hair serums—that celebs like Jennifer Lopez, Eva Longoria and Madonna are rumored to partake in.

The cost for your basic face cream starts at $90 and goes up from there. Source: EMKPlacental.com (If you want to save money, try lowyat.net. Their cost is 20 MR (Malaysian ringgit) or $6 USD per packet.)

Simulated viper?s venom may be a little less au natural than anything else on this list, but it's by no means any less mind-boggling.

When Cleopatra played patty-fingers with her pet asp, she may have been on to something. Sure she died instantly, but at least she died wrinkle-free, right?

Planet has come out with an anti-aging cream that has active snake venom in the list of ingredients, thereby freezing muscles without the permanent paralysis (and death) that comes with it.

Syn-Ake is the key ingredient of UltraLuxe 9, an anti-aging potion by the amazingly-named Beverly Hills dermatologist Sonya Dakar, whose A-list clientele includes Drew Barrymore, Fergie, Ben Kingsley, and Gwyneth Paltrow.

The $185-per-ounce cream works by blocking the neurotransmitters that tell muscles to contract -- just not on a level that leaves you completely paralyzed. This is considered a budget-friendly alternative to Botox, with the same results.

Though, let's be honest, a truer budget-friendly alternative would be 8 glasses of water per day and SPF-30. I know, I know.

NEXT ITEM.

Yeah, I looked at this picture and envisioned a big, burly executioner in a torture chamber, somewhere around the 15th century. But no, this is an actual breakthrough (pun completely intended) in skin rejuvenation.

The concept is simple: the pin-pricks puncture the skin just enough to break it, and reveal the new skin underneath. In comparison to chemical peels and dermabrasion, this spiky roller can actually break down and diminish scars and skin blemishes.

The idea being that you penetrate the skin just enough so that the natural healing process begins. The MTS Roller is unique because it produces maximum results without expensive equipment and without removing too many skin layers; treatments are comparatively inexpensive and pose minimal risks.

The starter kit is $180, but you can contact your local spa center to find out if they practice this method – of course, they’ll have their own costs.

This process began very early, usually between the ages of three and eleven. A girl's foot was still developing, thus the tissue was still pliable.
First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood; this was intended to soften the foot and aid the binding.

Then, the toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent in-growth, followed by a foot massage. Cotton bandages, ten feet long and two inches wide, were prepared by soaking them in the blood and herb mixture. The toes on each foot were curled under, then pressed with great force downwards and squeezed into the sole of the foot until the toes broke. The broken toes were then held tightly against the sole of the foot.

The foot was then drawn down straight with the leg and the arch forcibly broken. At each pass, the binding was tightened, pulling the ball of the foot and the heel close together, causing the broken foot to fold at the arch, and pressing the toes underneath. When the binding was completed, the end of the binding cloth was sewn tightly to prevent the girl from loosening it.

As the wet bandages dried they constricted, making the binding even tighter. The girl was required to walk on her broken and bound feet, so that her own body weight would help press and crush her feet into the desired shape. Girls whose toes were more fleshy would sometimes have shards of glass inserted within the binding between her toes to cause infection deliberately, thereby forcing the toes to fall off. I'm not sure I've ever wanted to fit into a size 6 THAT bad. Source: wikipedia