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Poisonous dye -

Green was not a very easy color to make. Dressmakers would mix yellow and blue dyes to try and make it.

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Deadly pigment -

This was until a chemist named Carl Wilhelm Scheele invented a new green pigment.

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Dressed to kill, literally -

What became known as Scheele’s Green, and later Paris Green, was made by mixing potassium and white arsenic in a solution of copper vitriol.

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It was everywhere -

The new green pigment was used for a variety of things, from wallpaper, to candles, toys, and, of course, fabrics.

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Severe side effects -

Arsenic dyes exploded in popularity, but these seemed to cause a few side effects, including sores, scabs, nausea, colic, diarrhea, and headaches.

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Did wallpaper kill Napoleon? -

It’s speculated that Napoleon was poisoned due to exposure to arsenic-laced wallpaper he had at home.

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Infectious clothes -

Disease would spread through clothes during Victorian times. Soldiers and others would catch diseases carried by clothes made or cleaned by sick people.

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Contagious clothes -

From lice to typhus, fabrics would many times carry diseases and spread them.

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Contagious clothes -

Poor people would also wear second hand clothes, and without being properly disinfected, diseases such as smallpox spread through the fabric.

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Deadly clothes -

The daughter of Victorian Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel died after her riding habit was finished in the house of a seamstress who had used it to cover her husband, who was sick with typhus.

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Dirty streets -

Women’s long skirts also swept through the dirty city streets, where disease would thrive.

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Crinoline hoop skirts -

These may look glamorous in period dramas, but they didn't really combine well with industrial machinery at the time.

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Factories -

Accidents in factories were reported, and the dresses were banned in some of them as a result.

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Transport -

These were also a problem with traveling in carriages and mounting animals.

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Flammable fabrics -

Not only were the popular flowy white cotton garments one of the products sourced from slave-operated plantations, they were also a real danger for those who wore them.

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New fabric -

But it was about to get worse. In 1809, what we now know as tulle was invented. Can it get more flammable than that?

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British dancer -

Reportedly, in 1845, British ballerina Clara Webster died after her dress caught fire at a London theater after her skirt came too close to the lights onstage.

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Fire hazard -

A popular material for nightshirts and undergarments, the fabric was also susceptible to household accidents, such as catching fire from a candle.

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Toxic taxidermy -

Dead birds, such as songbirds, were popular on ladies' hats at the time.

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Toxic taxidermy -

The birds as such were not harmful. The arsenic used by taxidermists, however, was.

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Toxic hats -

If you were an upper-class man in Victorian times, you'd have to wear a hat.

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Toxic hats -

The problem was that many of those hats were made with mercury.

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Toxic hats -

Mercury was used to turn stiff fur from animals such as rabbits and hares into more flexible felt.

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Toxic hats -

Mercury would cause a wide range of harmful effects, including convulsions, abdominal cramps, trembling, paralysis, and reproductive problems, among others.

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Toxic hats -

Some say that the Mad Hatter in 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' portrayed elements of mercury poisoning.

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Deadly beauty routines -

Looking extremely pale was definitely in during Victorian times, so why not apply lead white paint to your face?

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Deadly beauty routines -

One of the most popular cosmetic products was called Laird's Bloom of Youth.

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Deadly beauty routines -

A doctor at the American Medical Association treated three women who used the product and temporarily lost full use of their hands. He described the condition as "lead palsy."

See also: Incredible photos from the Victorian era

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