[2] It was formerly used as an ingredient for lead paint and a cosmetic called Venetian ceruse, because of its opacity and the satiny smooth mixture it made with dryable oils.

[7] What is commonly known today as the "Dutch method" for the preparation of white lead was described as early as Theophrastus of Eresos[9] (ca.

[10] Clifford Dyer Holley quotes from Theophrastus' History of Stones[11] as follows, in his book The Lead and Zinc Pigments.

Lead is placed in earthen vessels over sharp vinegar, and after it has acquired some thickness of a sort of rust, which it commonly does in about ten days, they open the vessels and scrape it off, as it were, in a sort of foulness; they then place the lead over vinegar again, repeating over and over again the same method of scraping it till it has wholly dissolved.

[12]Later descriptions of the Dutch process involved casting metallic lead as thin buckles and corroded with acetic acid in the presence of carbon dioxide.

[14] Critics argue that substitutes like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are more reactive, become brittle, and can flake off.

[18] In the eighteenth century, white lead paints were routinely used to repaint the hulls and floors of Royal Navy vessels, to waterproof the timbers and limit infestation by shipworm.