Milk bath Milk bath A milk bath is a bath taken in milk instead of water. Often other scents such as honey, rose, lavender and essential oils are added. Milk baths use lactic acid, an alpha hydroxy acid, to dissolve the proteins which hold together dead skin cells. There are legends that Cleopatra bathed in donkey milk daily for her complexion. These legends have not been confirmed and some historians believe that Roman Empress Poppaea set this bathing fashion after Cleopatra's death. Queens Catherine Parr and later Elizabeth I of England used milk baths to make their skin appear more youthful and
Cleopatra IV of Egypt Auletes and Ptolemy of Cyprus, although an unnamed concubine could be the mother of these two men as well. In c. 115 BC Cleopatra III forced Cleopatra IV and Ptolemy IX to divorce. She replaced Cleopatra IV with her sister Cleopatra Selene. After her forced divorce, Cleopatra IV fled Egypt and went to Cyprus, where she married Antiochus IX Cyzicenus and brought him the army of his half brother Seleucid King Antiochus VIII Grypus of Syria, which she had convinced to follow her. Grypus fought Cyzicenus and eventually chased him to Antioch. Grypus was married to Cleopatra IV's sister Tryphaena.