Finding creative ways to ingest or absorb toxic metals was all the rage for thousands of years. In 6,500 BC, you could wear poisonous lead around your neck as jewelry. Five full millenia later, you could get lead poisoning from lead dishes or cups, from smearing lead makeup all over you face, or from drinking wine that was sweetened with—I kid you not—lead acetate, or lead sugar. Ancient Rome ran its drinking water through lead pipes, and the only reason that didn't kill them all was because mineral deposits would form on the pipes, shielding the water from the lead.
Almost two thousand years after that, white people were powdering their hair and their wigs with lead powders, apparently because wearing a white wig was the only possible way to make yourself look whiter once you're wearing a waistcoat, ruffled shirt, breeches, tights, and big buckles on your shoes. Basically, the best way for a white person to be hot 300 years ago was to liberally apply white lead powder to your face, hair, lungs, and blood stream. The toxic lead levels in your blood would give you gout and make you crazy, but you'd be hot.
Lead poisoning is no longer popular within white society; in fact, ingesting lead in the form of old paint chips is considered somewhat gauche.
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