Sarah Rachel Russell
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Sarah Rachel Russell or Madame Rachel (d. 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 married an assistant chemist in Manchester and later to a Jacob Moses who drowned when the Royal Charter sank in 1859. After her third marraige 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 Londobn'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 used today by brunettes).
However, she would would continue 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.
