Sarah Rachel Russell

Sarah Rachel Russell or Madame Rachel (died 1880) was a British criminal and con artist in Victorian-era London during the late 19th century. Operating a prominent beauty salon, from which she personally guaranteed her clientele everlasting youth to those who used her fabulous preparations, such as her magnetic rock water dew from the Sahara Desert, which would later be revealed as consisting of water and bran, she would blackmail many wives of London's upper class.

Born to a Jewish theatrical family, she was married to an assistant chemist in Manchester and later to a Jacob Moses who drowned when the Royal Charter sank in 1859. After her third marriage, to a Philip Laverson, she worked as a clothes dealer and later was briefly jailed for procurement before selling cosmetics and toilet requisites in 1860 using a pamphlet entitled Beautiful for Ever.

Using her salon as a front, she was able to blackmail many of her wealthy and prominent members of London's social elite during the 1860s. Among her exaggerated and often fraudulent claims, she offered customers at least sixty preparations, including a personal mixture of face powder (one shade which is still in use today by brunettes).

However, she continued her involvement in prostitution, fraud and blackmail during the 1860s and 70s. Arrested several times during the next several years, she was finally convicted in 1878 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment; however, she died in prison after serving two years.

External links

• Beauty and the whiter-than-white blackmail by Helen Rappaport
• Ladies First: 1800 to 1810

Rurther reading

• Beautiful for Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street - Cosmetician, Con-Artist and Blackmailer by Helen Rappaport, publ. 2010 Long Barn Books

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Name	Russell, Sarah Rachel
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Date of death	1880
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