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Posted on March 31, 2007 by Michael Usry | Posted under Beauty
Make-up Through the Times
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Who remembers the Egyptians? That was four millenia ago. Cleanliness and appearance were very serious to the people of Egypt. Egyptians had the belief that the appearance was in direct juncture with the health of the spirit. They tried to constantly appear neat and smell pleasant. And with a civilization who values their looks, they are assuredly going to have humans who are going to try and stand out. But the Egyptians, being the inventive culture they were, had cosmetics for reasons that were even more practical than just trying to look great. Mesdemet was the earliest kind of eye shadow- a substance made of copper and lead ore. The dark shades they believed would avert evil eyes from their own. It was also a great cleaner and bug deterrent. Kohl was a dark powder that was applied around the eyes in an oval shape. It was a mixture of lead, ash, ochre, copper, and burnt almonds. A combination of red clay and water was added to the cheekbone area to further enhance their appearance. They would also paint their fingernails colors of orange and yellow with a chemical named henna. As time moved along and societies were exposed to each other more often, the Greeks began to learn more of the various practices of the Egyptians way with cosmetics. Greek women would color themselves a pale color with a base that had lead inside. More than once this ended up being lethal. As the Romans started to adopt the cosmetics practice, the pursuit of beauty became less about functionability and turned into much more unusual routes. The Romans would adorn their nails with a mixture of sheeps blood and heated body fat. An ancient Roman man once said, A woman without paint is like food without salt. A light skin color was the style around the world after the Egyptian civilization disappeared. Only women who were impoverished and had to work out in the field all day with their husbands had rough, sun dired skin. The upper society women obviously did not have to endure physical labor like that therefore they remained out of the sun and had pale skin. Success was often measured by a person's pale skin tone. If you had enough riches, then you did not have to work. So it was very important for some socialites to have a light complexion. To achieve this appearance, ladies (and men also) would use a combination of hydroxide, lead oxide, and carbonate in a powdered form to paint their faces and bodies. Unfortunately, this lead to a sometimes lethal side effect, lead poisoning.To cure this, chemists in the early nineteen hundreds finally discovered a mixture of zinc oxide that made the skin able to breathe and kept people out of that aggravating lead poisoning death. It was so effective that it is still practiced today by cosmetics manufacturers. In the era of King Edward of London, around the turn of the century of 1900, society women with a recreational income would have swanky get togethers and do a bunch of entertaining to display their wealth. It was extremely important for a woman to be the most beautiful lady there, especially if they were the hostess of the gathering. City and exotic lifestyles with factors like dirty air produced by the cities at that time, poor diets, and very little or no exercise aged the women fast. Anti-aging and facial creams to mask the imperfections were heavily relied upon by women in this era. They would also travel to the beauty salon. It was a bit different in the past than it is today. Ladies would go into the back of the salons and hide their faces as they entered. One of the most famous of these discreet beauty salons was the House of Cyclax, that would sell foams and rouges to ladies. Mrs. Henning, who was the owner, sold and invented multiple products for her frenzied consumers who did not want anyone to know that they were getting old. The modern day woman is the benefactor of years of mistakes with a practically infinite choice of products for any look they want to achieve. There are literally thousands of cosmetics producers who create products in this now billion dollar per year industry. Skin Care products sell all year and even in times of depression. So ladies, give thanks to your ancestors and their concern for their personal looks for your own that you have nowadays. There were probably days when they woke up and didn't really feel like going through the hassle of putting on their face either. About The Author: Michael Usry is the author of the online instructional articles "Beauty and Health in Plain English" and a top affiliate of skin care one of the premier women's health websites. |
Tags: MAKE-UP, BEAUTY, SKIN CARE, COSMETICS, PROACTIVE, PROACTIV, PROACTIV ACNE TREATMENT
