Skip to main content

Lucy Jane Santos - Four Way Interview

Lucy Jane Santos is an expert in the history of 20th century leisure, health and beauty, with a particular interest in (some might say obsession with) the cultural history of radioactivity. Writes & talks (a lot) about cocktails and radium. Her debut book Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium was published by Icon Books in July 2020.

Why science?

I have always been fascinated by the idea of science especially our daily interactions with and understandings of science – especially in a beauty context. I could spend hours pondering the labels of things on my bathroom shelf. What is 4-t-butylcyclohexanol (as a random example)? Do I really understand what I am putting on my face and spending my money on? Would it change my purchase habits if I did?  

Why this book?

This book came from an accidental discovery – that there was a product called Tho Radia which contained radium and thorium. I found out about it because I actually bought a pot of it – along with a big batch of other products at an auction house several years ago. It got me thinking- what did it promise? why would you buy this? I was hooked but also frustrated as – honourable exceptions like the wonderful website Cosmetics and Skin – I couldn’t find much about it. So, I decide to do the research myself.


I had no idea when I started what secret and surprising histories these products would reveal. From the fake doctor who promised a cure for cancer to the spa towns of Bath and Buxton who offered radium water on tap. There are radium chocolates, breads and meats and, of course, radium toiletries and cosmetics. I say secret histories because they really did take some uncovering – there is a fairly unsurprising reluctance to talk about the radioactive past. To get at these histories I have scoured antique shops, car boot sales and flea markets. I have travelled around Britain, New York and Paris to speak to historians of theatre, music, fashion, cosmetics and medicine.  And I have drunk radium water up the top of a mountain in Austria, had a very embarrassing mix up about the etiquette of nude bathing at a radon bath in the Czech Republic and have met all sorts of fascinating people along the way.

What's next?

I have been working on a side radium project – The Museum of Radium - which catalogues and documents my (ever increasing) collection of radium consumer items. Over the next few months I am going to add fuller descriptions and also put together some mini exhibitions.

What's exciting you at the moment?

I am a trustee of the Art Deco Society UK and we are putting together a series of virtual events over the next six months. We have planned a piano performance, some wonderful speakers and are looking at other ideas to bring some more art deco into people’s lives and to support research and engagement into the subject. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin Five Way Interview

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (born in 1999) is a distinguished composer, concert pianist, music theorist and researcher. Three of his piano CDs have been released in Germany. He started his undergraduate degree at the age of 13 in Kazakhstan, and having completed three musical doctorates in prominent Italian music institutions at the age of 20, he has mastered advanced composition techniques. In 2024 he completed a PhD in music at the University of St Andrews / Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (researching timbre-texture co-ordinate in avant- garde music), and was awarded The Silver Medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians, London. He has held visiting affiliations at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL, and has been lecturing and giving talks internationally since the age of 13. His latest book is Quantum Mechanics and Avant Garde Music . What links quantum physics and avant-garde music? The entire book is devoted to this question. To put it briefly, there are many different link...

Should we question science?

I was surprised recently by something Simon Singh put on X about Sabine Hossenfelder. I have huge admiration for Simon, but I also have a lot of respect for Sabine. She has written two excellent books and has been helpful to me with a number of physics queries - she also had a really interesting blog, and has now become particularly successful with her science videos. This is where I'm afraid she lost me as audience, as I find video a very unsatisfactory medium to take in information - but I know it has mass appeal. This meant I was concerned by Simon's tweet (or whatever we are supposed to call posts on X) saying 'The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder: if you are a fan of SH... then this is worth watching.' He was referencing a video from 'Professor Dave Explains' - I'm not familiar with Professor Dave (aka Dave Farina, who apparently isn't a professor, which is perhaps a bit unfortunate for someone calling out fakes), but his videos are popular and he...

Everything is Predictable - Tom Chivers *****

There's a stereotype of computer users: Mac users are creative and cool, while PC users are businesslike and unimaginative. Less well-known is that the world of statistics has an equivalent division. Bayesians are the Mac users of the stats world, where frequentists are the PC people. This book sets out to show why Bayesians are not just cool, but also mostly right. Tom Chivers does an excellent job of giving us some historical background, then dives into two key aspects of the use of statistics. These are in science, where the standard approach is frequentist and Bayes only creeps into a few specific applications, such as the accuracy of medical tests, and in decision theory where Bayes is dominant. If this all sounds very dry and unexciting, it's quite the reverse. I admit, I love probability and statistics, and I am something of a closet Bayesian*), but Chivers' light and entertaining style means that what could have been the mathematical equivalent of debating angels on...