Madame Rachel

c. 1814 – 1880

Beautician

“Madame Rachel” was a shrewd businesswoman turned notorious fraud who tricked aristocratic ladies into handing over their jewels after visiting her Mayfair beauty salon. At her Arabian-themed shop Rachel, otherwise known as Sarah Rachel Leverson, or Mrs Russell, promised to make Victorian women “Beautiful for Ever” with exorbitantly priced preparations such as one she claimed was made with water from the Sahara desert.

Madame Rachel’s promises of youth and beauty in a society which frowned on cosmetics preyed on women’s vanity. Her customers feared being exposed to their husbands for using her services but many found themselves blackmailed.

In 1868 the case went to trial at the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey, where Madame Rachel defended herself, and the press had a frenzy with anti-semitic cartoons denouncing her. The Times wrote 50 articles about the trial. Rachel was convicted twice, and died in Woking Prison while serving her second jail sentence.

This powerful story was re-told in fiction. Characters based on Madame Rachel made their way into Wilkie Collins’s Armadale in 1866, and The Sorceress of the Strand, the 1902 crime fiction of L.T. Meade serialised in the popular Strand magazine, where the villain was called “Madame Sara”.

Illustration of Madam Rachel from Beautiful For Ever: The True Story of Madame Rachel of Bond Street by Helen Rappaport. Published by Vintage.