Ancient Egyptian Make up.

Think Egypt, What comes to your mind? Pharaohs, mummies, goatees, pyramids, bob hairstyles, elaborate make up specially eye make up. Be it a male or a female not one picture of an egyptian is without make up! When I think of Egypt, I am transformed to another time and place where I am standing in front of a pyramid, marvelling at the beauty of it!

Egyptians were big on cleanliness and considered facial or body hair a sign of neglect and uncleanliness. Tweezer with blunt or sharp edges were used to remove hair. Various oils and perfumes were used to protect their skin from the hot climate and counter body odor.They were fond of strong scents and made perfume by extracting scents from flower, fruits and seeds.

They made pomades by soaking layers of flowers in fat. A popular form of pomade was cone shaped and worn on top of the head, which would melt slowly and run down the face and neck of the wearer. These cones were filled as soon as they got empty throughout the evening!

Egyptians were very particular about their eye make up , popular shades of eye make up were black and green. The green color was made of malachite, an oxide of copper. Black kohl was called galena. Both malachite or galena were ground on a pallette with gum or water to make a paste. it was applied with sticks which were round ended and were made up of wood, glass or bronze.

Henna was used to color hair, lips and nails. Tattooing was also practised, some mummies have tattoos on their chest, shoulder and arms.

Human hair wigs were also popular. Ancient egyptians shaved their hair, replacing their natural hair with wigs. These wigs were precious to them and they kept them clean by washing and beautifully scented by placing cinnamon in the box in which wigs were kept. They believed that one needs wigs even after death for the after life and the dead were buried with their wigs!

Coming back to make up, The egyptian were a beauty consious lot! They were quite keen on making themselves beautiful and attractive.There were different dress codes for people of different status. The rich wore more clothes and more make up. The egyptians were using galena, kohl or malachite powder on eyes as early as 4000 BC!

There were sevral reasons the Eygyptians used this eye make up for --:

>It had disinfectant qualities

>As a deterrant to flies

>To protect them from evil eyes

Green malachite eye make up was made by grinding malachite and mixing it with wax. They believed that there was a deep connection malachite had with Horus, the God of sky and sun, so malachite was used to evoke blessings of Horus.

Egypt eye make up--:

Saffron--:Its an expensive yellow color spice which they used as an eyeshadow

Jasper--:Its a mineral which they ground and used as a medicinal eye treatment

Burnt Almond--:They created beautiful eye color with this

For lips and face

Ceruse--: It was used to lighten their face

Fat--: They used goose or bear fat as wax base to hold the pigments

Red ochre--: This clay was used as a rouge

Wine--:The dregs from wine was used on lips as now what you can consider as a lipstick

Chalk--: This was used to whiten the face

Out of these henna and kohl are still being used today!

Kohl application

>Dampen kohl stick with a little bit of water or oil

>Dip the kohl stick in the kohl and gently twist it so that the kohl sticks to it.

>Shake off the extra kohl, we would need just a thin film on the stick

>Apply it to the inner corner of the eye and slide the stick, closing the eye

It gives your eyes a smoky, smudgy, sexy look !

Talking about make up and beauty, who can forget the beautiful and bewitching Cleopatra? She used to bathe in donkeys milk to make her skin soft and glowing!!!