Beauty mark

A chiqueador on a lady's temple, Lima, Peru, 1785

Artificial beauty marks became fashionable in sixteenth-century France, and the fashion persisted into the eighteenth century, applied to the face as a form of make-up. They were often in fanciful shapes such as hearts or stars. Besides their decorative value, they could hide smallpox scars or syphilis sores.[2] They could be purchased as silk or velvet patches known as "mouches" (flies). Alexander Pope's 1712 poem The Rape of the Lock mentions such patches as indicators of "secular love":[3]

Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows,
Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.
Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms;
The Fair each moment rises in her Charms,
Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace,
And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face;[4]

The fashion spread to Spain and the Spanish Empire in the eighteenth century, under the name chiqueador.[2]

Natural beauty marks are also often enhanced with color from an eyebrow pencil or pen.[5]

The Monroe piercing has gained popularity in recent years as a flexible way of approximating a beauty mark.

Many female sex symbols, actresses, and other celebrities are known for their beauty marks:[5][6][7]

A Monroe piercing is a lip piercing placed off-center, above the upper lip, meant to resemble Marilyn Monroe's beauty mark

A few male actors are also known for their beauty marks:[5]

• George Hamilton, born 1939

In the conclusion of the book The Silence of the Lambs, the heroine Clarice Starling gains an artificial beauty mark when burnt gunpowder gets lodged in the flesh of her cheek. She retains this mark in the sequel novel Hannibal. This symbolism (along with Dr. Lecter's polydactylism) did not get carried over into the film.

Joan Crawford had a prominent beauty mark in her role as Sadie Thompson in Rain.

• Bindi (decoration)
• Birthmark
• Freckles
• Melanocytic nevus
• Monroe piercing