History of Make up

A little bit about the history of cosmetics...

Cosmetics were an inherent part of Egyptian hygiene and health, even as early as 10,000 BC. The eye Makeup is the most known and visible sign that this culture used Makeup, but they also used oils and creams for protection from the sun and the harsh dry winds. Scented ointments and oils were not just used to soften and clean the skin, also to mask body odour. They used lots of ingredients that are still used today in  perfumes and body oils for example : Myrrh, thyme, marjoram, chamomile, lavender, lily, peppermint, rosemary, cedar, rose, aloe, olive oil, sesame oil and almond oil. Most of these were also used in the oils for embalming, others just for body lotions and other makeup.
For lips and cheeks they mostly ground down a clay (red ochre) and mixed it with water.
Nails got stained using yellow or orange henna.
The eyes and eyebrows were heavily lined with  khol, a dark coloured powder made of crushed antimony, burnt almonds, lead, oxidised copper, ochre, ash, malachite, chrysocolla (a copper ore, usually blueish green). To frame the eyes in such a dark colour had aesthetic reasons, but also to help prevent sun glare. It was believed that kohl eyeliner could prevent eye infections and restore poor eyesight.

Round about 4000-3100 BC the eye Makeup had changed a bit and also differed in the old, the middle and the new kingdom. The green was originally made from malachite, an oxide of copper. In the Old Kingdom it was applied liberally from the eyebrow to the base of the nose. In the Middle Kingdom, green eye paint continued to be used for the brows and the corners of the eyes, but by the New Kingdom it had been superseded by black. Black eye paint, kohl, was usually made of a sulfide of lead called galena. Its use continued to the Coptic period. By that time, soot was the basis for the black pigment. Both malachite and galena were ground on a palette with either gum and/or water to make a paste. Round-ended sticks made of wood, bronze, haematite, obsidian or glass were used to apply the eye make-up.

Henna was still used as it is still today as a form of hair dye.

Women had boxes with their Makeup and carried it with them to parties. Men also had Makeup boxes, but did not carry them around with them.

Tattoos were known and practised, which was proven by mummies of dancers, concubines and servant girls from the Middle Kingdom, that showed geometric designs and even pictures of the gods.


Nail polish seems to have been originated by the Chinese around 3000 B.C. The Japanese and Italians thought to have been the first ones to actually to use nail polish. The Chinese used a coloured lacquer, made from a combination of gum Arabic, egg whites, gelatin and beeswax. They also used a mixture consisting of mashed rose, orchid and impatien petals combined with alum. This mixture, when applied to nails for a few hours or overnight, leaves a colour ranging from pink to red. The Egyptians used reddish-brown stains derived from the henna plant to colour their nails as well as the tips of their fingers. Today, some people still use henna dyes to draw intricate, temporary designs on their hands in a practice known as Mehndi.

During the Chou Dynasty of 600 B.C., Chinese royalty often chose gold and silver to enhance their nails. A fifteenth-century Ming manuscript cites red and black as the colours chosen by royalty for centuries previous. The Egyptians also used nail colour to signify social order, with shades of red at the top. Queen Nefertiti, wife of the king Akhenaton, coloured her finger and toe nails ruby red and Cleopatra favoured a deep rust red. Women of lower rank who coloured their nails were permitted only pale hues, and no woman dared to flaunt the colour worn by the queen or king. Incas were known for decorating their fingernails with pictures of eagles.

 Around 1500 B.C. records start of Japanese and Chinese citizens using rice powder to whiten their faces.
Very often eyebrows were shaved of and black dye applied to the teeth, which was still quite common about 100 years ago.


The Peak Era of Persian Makeup was between 10,000 and 100 B.C. as archeologist's discovered that men and women applied Makeup and arrayed themselves in ornaments, a trend that was more from religious conviction as for pure beautification.
Several archaeological finds show that Sassanid women were often so attached to their Makeup, that they were burried with it, along with their most worn or favoured ornaments.


to find all these informations i read up in some books, wikipedia  and xtimeline.com