- Hi, my beautiful friends. How are you today? I'm so like, hi, how are you? I hope you're doing well. I changed out my background, I know groundbreaking. I went back to the original color. I know. I know. Fantastic, love it, beautiful, wow. My name is Bailey Sarian
and today is Monday, which means it's Murder,
Mystery and Makeup Monday. (theme tune) If you are new here, hi! Every Monday I sit down and I
talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my... (tongue clicks) That wasn't a good one, Heavy on my... (tongue clicks) Okay, we got it, noggin, and I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime, and you like makeup, I would highly suggest that
you hit that subscribe button, I'm here for you every Monday, and I upload on Saturdays as well. But other than that, I think
that's all I have to say. Oh, don't forget to like and subscribe and do all that nonsense. Take a lap, walk around, grab a snack, come on back and, and... Aw damn, I feel like
I was on a roll there. So last week we talked about that very suspicious case, suspish in all sorts of ways. So, you know, someone
just got away with it. Spoiler, sorry. Anyways, today I want to talk about a story that I've been
working on for like a year, which makes it sound like I'm gonna have like some grand storyline, right? No, you see this case, there's not that much
information about this woman, but it's too interesting, and it's too fitting to not talk about it. The case of Giulia Tofana. Have you heard of her? Well, let me tell you if you're ever curious
as to what I'm using, I do link it down in the
description box down below, but other than that I will
just shut my little mouth and get right into it
'cause this chick is crazy. So, she is the most
successful serial killer whose name you've probably never heard of. Let's welcome to the stage Giulia Tofana, I'm sorry, that's set up was
like I was announcing her. Okay, yes, she's the most successful serial killer that, like, is never talked about. Giulia killed hundreds of
men in the 17th century in Italy when she turned
her makeup business into a poison factory. Did I tell you it was fitting, 'cause it kind of is. Well, no, cause I'm not
killing people, nevermind. Giulia was selling a deadly
concoction called Aqua Tofana, which was thought to have been laced with arsenic, lead and belladonna. Which I didn't quite
understand what belladonna was, she doesn't know anything,
oh my God, I know. The belladonna berry juice was
used historically in Italy, you see the women use just a drop of it in each of their eyes
to dilate their pupils. And what this would do is give their eyes like this luminous striking
appearance, so they say. Lead and arsenic were common ingredients for facial powders at the time, and it would lighten the skin. You know, this was again
during the Renaissance when nobody knew any better, okay. They found dilated pupils
to be highly attractive, which you know, nowadays, when you see someone with dilated pupils, you're like, are you okay? You know, kinda. Now again, this took place
during the Renaissance so arranged marriages was still a thing, definitely, okay. Women were often forced
into just marriages by their families without
having any say whatsoever. Once married men had complete control over their wives, over women and just these women were
left completely powerless. They had no say, no control, and they just had to
sit there and take it. Husbands would often beat their wives, and not face any type of
consequence or punishment for that. And would just subject them to all sorts of cruel treatments, again, they couldn't do a damn thing. So, that sucks. It was a world, it was a time when men just ruled over their own families, and even the most aristocratic of daughters were often, were just seen as items to be auctioned
off into loveless marriage. Like, it didn't matter if you
came from money or anything, everybody, every woman, was just an item an accessory, just there. Divorce definitely was not a thing yet, you would never think to
just leave your husband. You wouldn't even bring it up, so don't even think about it. Sit there, look pretty,
smile and be a wife, sounds awful. So what do you do when
you're in these loveless, unhappy, abusive marriages? That you literally like cannot get out of? What's your only option? Well, some would say murder. So who was this Giulia Tofana? Well, one of history's most prolific serial killers still remains a mystery. Yeah, you heard that, right? Okay, look, there's no portraits of her, information about her is very sparse. There, or there was an image going around, a portrait of a young woman, she was holding, I think
it was like a unicorn, and many had said that this was Giulia, that this was a portrait of her. It was proven in fact that it wasn't her, and there are no portraits or no known surviving
portraits of Giulia at all. She's seriously like a big mystery, I tried looking, I've tried, Okay. I was looking, couldn't find much. I mean, it was a long time ago, what do I expect? Giulia Tofana was possibly the daughter of a woman named Thofania d'Adamo, did I nail it? She was executed in July of 1633, and she was executed because she actually murdered her husband. Now Giulia was described
as being very beautiful and she spent a lot of her
time with apothecaries, which are people who prepared and sold medicines and/or drugs. But, she spent a lot of time hanging out with them and learning how
to make her own concoctions, how to make her own medicines,
how to make her own drugs. Giulia found a lot of interest in this and she was good at it too. She would ask a lot of questions, and she started mixing her own potions. Now, some say that Giulia
learned to make her own poison, but then some say that she actually learned how to make poison
from her mother Thofania, who also made poison, and she passed on the
recipe to her daughter before she was executed. But some heavily believed that Giulia actually just learned
how to make it herself. Regardless, a clear
harmless looking liquid, a small four to six drops were "sufficient to destroy a man." is what Giulia made, it
was named Aqua Tofana. Aqua Tofana, Aqua Tofana, Aqua Tofana. It sounds bougie. So, this product, it would appear to be like a typical women's cosmetic product or even a religious healing oil, that no husband, or no
person would suspect of being deadly poison. And, this poison was
in Giulia's possession and she began to sell it, and also her daughter also
helped make and sell it as well. I'm sure you all know this,
like fragrance commercials, God, they're the worst. It's like what is going on? They never make sense, they're always so sexual
and just ridiculous, they never just make sense, right? Anyways, what I'm
getting at is Aqua Tofana sounds like something that would be like those damn Johnny Depp commercials, where he's like just being
weird out in the desert and they're selling a fragrance. that's what it reminds me of. Not the point though. So, first Giulia actually
disguised Aqua Tofana as a powdered makeup. Woman would like, or could
set it on the counter, on their dressing tables
next to their lotions and their beauty related products without raising any type
of suspicion, you know like what the hell is that? Her second disguise was
even more ingenious, she sold Aqua Tofana
hidden in small vials. The vial claimed to be Manna
of Saint Nicholas of Bari a special healing ointment that looked like a devotional object. You're probably asking, well, why is she doing this in the first place? Because Giulia was sympathetic towards like low status women, and most often sold her poison
to women who were trapped in difficult and abusive marriages. She just really wanted to help. She became known as a friend to the troubled wife and you
know, due to word of mouth she was well-known
amongst the fellow ladies. Aqua Tofana provided a quick, discrete solution to their problems. This looks crazy. Now, to be fair, she
did sell her concoction to men as well, but mostly a lot of her customers were
just women, mainly women. And these women would buy it from Giulia and then give it to their husbands, it was their only way out apparently. Now this product, Aqua Tofana, it was popular because it was
almost impossible to detect, and it was a slow action poison
that had two key benefits. It made the symptoms it
produced in its victims resemble those of like, I don't know, an advancing disease, like a flu. Also, it kind of made it look like it was a death from natural causes. And, because it killed slowly, most of the men would put
their affairs in order, or even write a will. Most of the people during this
time were deeply religious, and I'm laughing because look, most of the people were deeply religious, I'm not laughing at that, that's great. Because like this was
a slow working poison, it gave the men time to repent his sins, which was highly believed to guarantee their entry into heaven, which also made the wives feel better. Like, Oh, well at least
he repented his sins, so now he's going to like,
go to heaven when he dies. So kind of like made, you know,
the women just feel better. And plus they wrote a
will now Aqua Tofana, if I say it one more time, this product was also colorless, tasteless and she made it a liquid
versus the powder. That way it was easy for women to mix it in with their water, or
their wine during meals. A lot of the times also
they would eat like soup and they would just put a
couple of drops right in there. Now the symptoms would
actually go unnoticed, the first small dosage would
produce cold like symptoms. And by the third dose, the
victim would feel very ill be throwing up, dehydration, diarrhea and a burning sensation in their stomach. And then by the fourth dosage,
it would kill the victim. So women would just
add a little drop of it into a meal or their drink, and just a tiny bit and just
do it one day at a time, some women would do a shit ton at once, and they would get very ill and die. Women in Italy during that
time had only three ways to make a living, they got married, they begged or they
prostituted themselves. Now I know the word prostitute
is kind of, is frowned upon, it's not, we call it sex workers now but back then it was
considered prostitution, so I'm going to say
prostituted themselves. Women would often die in
childbirth due to complications. A lot of the times women
would have tribes of children. I mean, tons of kids. There was one woman, she
was like super powerful, and she was on her eighth kid
and she died of complications. She came from a very wealthy family, I wanna say her name, but I know I'm gonna say it wrong. She came from a very
powerful family at that time and they were very, very wealthy, so you would think like
even the wealthy people could afford to take care of
their women, and they did not. They often just died after
trying to give birth, or giving birth. Women again were beaten and mistreated and just powerless. And well, some women just
straight up hated their husbands. And a lot of women just feared childbirth because I mean, they could die. Look, their lives seem to
just not be that great, I think we can all agree on that, and they weren't listened
to, they weren't heard. And if you're getting beat all the time it's much better to be considered a widow, which was like, kind of frowned upon. It's a way better option than dying, that's for sure. I think we can all agree on that, but we shouldn't murder people
Bailey, you can't say that. I'm not saying that. So Giulia, her clients were
very protective of her, and her clients would
only recommend Giulia if they knew it was somebody
that could be trusted and someone that was a good friend and nobody would ever, you
know, send someone Giulia's way if they knew like, this
person's shady or whatever. So it was again, all word of mouth. They were really protective of her because if authorities found
out what Giulia was doing what she was selling, not
only would she be murdered but also her client list
would go down with her, so everybody was very quiet
about what was going on. It was like, everyone's
just little secret. Now in order to sell this product Giulia really just needed a front, So what she did was she opened up her own like cosmetics
counter, but not really. 'Cause it was just, she was
selling her own cosmetics to women in Southern Italy. Some women would just come
to her, looking for cosmetics but most of her clients
would be interested in Aqua Tofana. And, if there were any suspicion going on about what Giulia was doing, she could easily be like,
what are you talking about? I'm selling cosmetics, obviously. And this seemed to work for her, because she was doing
this for almost 50 years, yeah, 50 years. Everyone kept their mouth
shut, which is surprising. I'm not saying that women
can't keep their mouth shut, but come on, I mean,
you would think someone would say something right? They were good, they were loyal. Now, poison was women's weapon of choice when they wanted to murder someone in medieval and early modern Europe. Historian Annette Drew-Bear
has argued that Renaissance plays featured women
applying face paint on stage to reference women's false
and poisonous nature. Is that what I'm doing? So, Giulia Tofana wasn't
the only woman associated with poisoning people in the Renaissance, not by a long shot. Giulia and her daughter
though operated very quietly, obviously they went on for
like 50 years in Italy. So, they ended up moving to Naples, and then to Rome where she
continued her booming business there was like a journal
written about this time. And in this journal they said that again it was administered in wine or tea or some other liquid, the husband would feel
weak and then feel ill and that they would call a medical man. And, after the second dose of the poison this weakness became more pronounced. The beautiful wife would
express a lot of anxiety over her husband's illness and a lot of stress, and rarely would she be under suspicion because
of how she was acting. A lot of the women would
be coached on how to act when giving the husbands
his poison, how to do it. So again, they would put
it in the husband's food, they would do one drop
a day, just very slowly. And then when the doctor would come over the doctor would see
the husband and be like, well you have a very simple illness. Let's give you this medicine that will make you feel
a hundred times better. And then the doctor would
be called back again a couple of days later because now the husband is doing worse. The medicine man would be
just completely puzzled, like what the hell is going on? I gave you some, it's a simple illness, I gave you some medicine, like you should be doing way, way better. And, it would leave the
doctors just really confused like what's going on? What did you take? Whatever, so they would
give them more medication, and the next thing you know,
the victim would be dead. Giulia would make sure to tell her clients what to do after the fact. So she would say like, you
need to act a certain way. You need to act like
you're filled with anxiety and stress and sad and everything, right? Put on a show, do it. And then she said, most of
all, like after they die you need to demand a
post-mortem examination, which would result to nothing, they could never trace a thing, and then the widow would
100% be seen as innocent and nobody could blame her. And Giulia made sure
that all of her clients followed through with this, that way none of them
would be under suspicion that they killed the husband, and it was smart. This was again, very long ago and they couldn't trace arsenic or any of that in the body. So, just always left everyone confused as to what was going on, at this time they thought
it was just the flu. Everyone was getting the flu
and dying, wild times, right. Because like people would
stub their toe and die, so, I mean, it was a pretty solid plan. Now it may sound like
Giulia was just handing out her product, like nothing, right. Left and right, here you
take it, you take it. No, she was very, very selective with whom she sold Aqua Tofana to. She made sure that any new clients she took were vouched for, she got like background checks on them, pretty much like asking
who recommended them, and then she would go and
check with that person. Hey, is this person legit? She was doing her homework
to protect herself, to cover her ass. Shit, must I explain more? And then Giulia did a
little bit of a rebranding. on the bottle she actually included directions on how to use it. Now this was to cover her ass again, because on the bottle it would
say a little step-by-step on how to use it which would make it seem
more like a cosmetic product. Like use one to two drops
on the face at night. So Giulia started putting
this little label on there, or even giving the women a little card, and these women would make
sure to leave it on there or leave the card nearby, again to just make sure and prove that this is a beauty product,
this is a cosmetic product. This isn't anything else, like one to two drops at night, leave me alone, you know? And then if the husbands died and these women got
questioned even more intensely then they could be like, look
there's directions on it. I've been using it like so, it wasn't me. And because Aqua Tofana
had belladonna in it which was in a lot of beauty products again that would just further prove that it was indeed a cosmetic product. Belladonna makes my
eyes nice and big, yeah. But, good things can
not last forever Giulia, you know, I don't know, look real talk, I don't know if she's the
good guy or the bad guy here, and I know I'm going to
get a lot of hate for that because of course murder's
awful and never like, nobody, no, just don't do it. Murder, just don't do it. Again, this is during a time
when women had no other choice, they couldn't get divorced, they were gonna die in childbirth. They were gonna be beaten and lived miserable, awful lives, what else were they supposed to do? Giulia is the one over here who just has like a heart of gold and wanted to help these women get out. Do you blame 'em? And I know that sounds awful, but it's, I mean think about it. Nowadays you have so many options to get out of a marriage and whatnot, so you shouldn't murder anybody, but this again, they
didn't have any options. They were gonna die, while men got to go, just do their thing and jack off. Did they jack off, maybe. Anyways, like I was
saying in the 1650s though it all came crashing
down over a bowl of soup. Yes, that's right, a bowl of soup, damage. A lady went to Giulia
to purchase Aqua Tofana, she was new, Giulia did her part, she did her little background
check on this lady, made sure that she's legit. And she, you know she's not
gonna rat her out or anything, she's not cop, but this lady she bought the
product and she takes it home. She's gonna use it on her husband, she wants out of her marriage and she needs to get away from this man. So this woman, she ends up
preparing her husband dinner and they're having a
nice warm bowl of soup. And she takes just two drops and puts it right into her husband's soup. She calls him over honey,
oh my God, soup's ready. And her husband comes over, sits down, he demands for some wine as well, she's like, okay, yeah. So she goes and she gets
some wine and he sits down, now this lady, I mean good for her, she obviously is a good person. She sees her husband reaching for the soup and he's going to slurp it or whatever, he takes a couple of slurps and she ends up yelling at him to stop. And she pretty much gets slapped in the face with guilt and regret. So she yells at her
husband to stop eating, to put it down, put it down ah, and she just kind of freaks out, and she didn't say why to her husband. She's just yelling at him to put down the soup to stop eating it. Of course her husband's like why do you want me to
stop eating the soup? It's kind of weird? It's said that he holds
her down and he beats her, and he demands that she
tells him what's in the soup. Like he has a feeling that
there's something in the soup. What's it, you'd better tell me what's going on with this soup. She confesses. She said that she put poison in it, so, it's over baby, it's over. So this husband is
upset for a good reason, she just tried to kill him, and he ends up dragging her
down to the authorities in Rome. And, authorities to hook this lady up to some kind of torture device to get out any information she had, so, it's not looking good for her. It's a little unclear if
this woman was killed or not, I'm going to say she probably was just based off of their track record. So, she confesses to everything. Word got out that somebody had confessed and it got back to Giulia. Now Giulia was warned, she was like, hey, look soup, it happened. This lady confessed, you need to make a run for it, you need to get out of here because they're going
to come looking for you. So Giulia starts to panic, she knows her fate. She's gonna die, Giulia's gonna die. You're gonna die, Giulia, I'm sorry. Giulia ends up packing her stuff, and she goes looking
for somewhere to stay. And she ends up going to a church and she asked the church for sanctuary, and they granted it to her. Her plan was to stay there
until she could make her escape and not sure where she
was planning to escape but Giulia's just laying
low at this church. So, people are talking though, now people got word about what
this woman said over there, about her arresting and her questioning and now rumors are starting. People are talking, okay. And somehow there was a
major rumor going around that Giulia had poisoned the
water supply throughout Rome. You know how rumors go, it's
one big game of telephone, starts off with one thing and it ends completely
out of control, overblown. She didn't do that, she didn't poison the water supply throughout Rome but everyone believed that she did. So, of course people are livid, and they want Giulia dead, okay. They want her removed, word also got out that Giulia was actually hiding out at a church. A lot of people kind of got together, I picture just a mob of
people with like steak knives, No, I'm sorry, what are those things called? With the forks? Nevermind. Mob of people get together and they storm into the church demanding for Giulia. And they are telling this church, you need to hand her over, give her to us, we're burning this place down. Of course the church is like, sorry girl, we've gotta
give you over, you know? So the church handed over
Giulia to the authorities, they brought her in for questioning, but really I guess they just tortured her until she confessed to
what she had been doing. So Giulia ended up confessing to killing over what she averaged at 600 men between 1633 and 1651, and it was believed that
the number was even higher. Authorities also got her to
name some of her clients, not all of them, obviously 'cause she said she couldn't remember a lot of them, but she did, could give out names. July 1659 Giulia was executed along with her daughter
and three employees. Yeah, remember her daughter, sorry, I kinda like didn't
really mention her much because again there really wasn't
much information about her, but she did have some employees and sadly they all went down with her. Which I kind like just
lightly talked about 600 men, that's a lot of God-damn men. That's, that's wow. Here's the thing, nobody
really knows, okay. This story is said to be true because there is like journals written about it from that era. Again, like there's no paintings of her, there's no portraits of her, there's like nothing to prove
that she was a real person. Really? So what if this is all just BS? (whispers) Aqua Tofana, Aqua Tofana. So Giulia, three of her employees and her daughter were all killed and they were killed in
Rome's Campo de' Fiori. It's a square that was
called "the field of flowers" because it had been kept an open field for a long time in ancient Rome, but eventually had been paved
over and made into a square. It would become a very popular location for hanging people and
burning them at the stake. I looked it up, there's
a lot of Airbnbs now. I could get an Airbnb next to the square where tons of people were hung, murdered, burned at the stake and I could get an Airbnb there. Isn't that nuts? That's wild, come on. History's nuts. Sadly though, okay. So look, they were all murdered. Giulia's body was thrown over the wall into the church that had
offered her sanctuary as a big F-you. Now some of her clients did
indeed also get punished after her confession. A number of clients tried to play dumb and claim that they're Aqua Tofana with simply for cosmetic purposes. And they had no idea, just no idea, that you could kill someone with it. I had no clue, what, that's wild. It was hard to determine, okay, who was like an actual client and who was actually thinking
this was a cosmetic product. But, some of the clients, they were also executed outright while others were bricked into the dungeons of the
Palace of Holy Office. Now it's said there were several
others who were connected, I mean, obviously if there's 600 victims, then there's a lot of people involved, but a lot of them just got away. It's also possible that the number of victims was exaggerated by Giulia because she was being tortured when she was being investigated. And you know, people
will just say whatever you want to make the torture stop. So a lot of people also
believe that she could have just been saying this number to make the authorities happy. Maybe they kept questioning her and pushing her for a bigger number. And once they were satisfied with the number that she gave them they were like, okay,
yeah, that sounds good. 600, you're dead. Some believe that Giulia
was completely innocent that she might well have
simply been a woman dabbling in cosmetics at the time. And she was selling cosmetics, but during that time there
was a literal witch hunt was sweeping through like Europe, and women doing anything was suspish. And a lot of women were just being killed for anything and everything. So there are people out there who believe that Giulia actually wasn't
responsible for all of this, and they killed an
innocent woman, plot twist. Am I right? So long after Giulia's death the legend of Aqua Tofana continued. In 1791, you know the composer Mozart, have you heard of him? So he fell seriously ill, he became convinced that
he had been poisoned and days before his death he said, "I will not last much longer. "I am sure that I have been poisoned. "I cannot rid myself of this idea "that someone has given me Aqua Tofana." Yeah, yeah, He said it, uh uh. Historians believe that he
actually died of a fever from syphilis, or from having
eaten under cooked pork. So it was a bit of a
stretch, but it's possible. His paranoia shared by many who took ill in those days was testimony to continuing terror
inspired by Giulia Tofana. Tofana why'd I say it like that, I don't know. So that's the story of Giulia Tofana and her deli concoction Aqua Tofana. This one really sparked my interest because it's just fascinating. I don't know, we've got history, we've got Mozart. We have poison that looks like something from Alice in Wonderland. Possibly a lot of victims, and you never hear about her. I don't know, I just found it to be
very, very fascinating. I would love to hear
your thoughts down below on Giulia Tofana, do you believe it? I don't know, actually. I'm not going to say it, I was about to say, I
think it's a cool story, but I mean that's a lot of victims Bailey, that's not very cool, Like, shut up. Let me know who you want
me to talk about next week. Other than that, I hope you
have a wonderful day today. You make good choices and please, please please be safe out there. Don't poison anybody
because nowadays you can get out of marriages and whatnot, there's no reason to murder people. Okay, Jeez. I'll be seeing you guys later, bye. (whispers) Aqua Tofana, Aqua Tofana. Sorry, it's just really addicting, Aqua Tofana, Aqua
Tofana, Aqua Tofana, bye!
I love murder mystery and makeup mondays and look forward to it all week! This week the story was especially relevant as it covered Giulia Tofana, the maker of "cosmetics" that were really a front for the poison she was selling to oppressed women in Italy (mostly used to kill abusive husbands). Not a whole lot of info is out there on this woman but Bailey says she was one of the most prolific serial killers you've never heard of. The poison was called "aqua tofana" which Bailey says sounds bougie, and it was often bottled and stored amongst a woman's makeup so as not to raise suspicions. Apparently a few drops were enough to "destroy a man". Aqua Tofana was slow acting and gave the men time to get their affairs in order and repent for their sins. It mimicked a natural death and they got away with selling this stuff for ~50 years.
As always with Bailey Sarian, her makeup at the end of the video looks awesome on top of the story. Lately she's been doing a few more neutral looks than I'm used to seeing from her but I can dig it. She of course throws in that we shouldn't murder people.
...acqua tofana...
Yes!
✅ This
✅Ticks
✅All
✅ My
✅Boxes
in each video I don't think I could like Bailey more and then she says stuff like "They had no choice but to kill their husbands" and I absolutely love her more
Also recently, like yesterday, found out that she's an actual MUA?? Which like, mad respect
Sidenote but Bailey has the perfect voice for a podcast
I would never have discovered Bailey without this sub. She makes my Mondays 100% better honestly.
Absolutely adore Bailey! She is exactly what a beauty community needs: chill, talented and hilarious. I binged her whole play list of MM&MM over the Christmas time. All of those terrible stories hit me hard, by Bailey's charisma and humor definitely help to not take it too personally. Also, her collab with Loud Lacquer...iconic!
Edited because I'm a dumb*** that doesn't know the difference between "liquor" and "lacquer" gee
Shna na Shna......... Shna na shnaaa
I keep finding my self humming this theme song. Love Bailey, she's so real and entertaining.
Cracked up watching this last night. Every time she said “aqua tofana” i cracked up. Love that she has fun with her channel and never takes herself too seriously! Also loved that she did a story that is a little different than her usual content.
I’ve been whispering ~aqua tofanaaa~ to myself since i watched this, she cracks me up. Definitely my favorite BG hands down. Personality is hilarious, she’s stunning, has mad makeup skills, her dog is so cute chefs kiss