Dressing up to please yourself seems to be a woman's innate ability. They will show their best side to the world, especially in modern times, makeup is a skill that every woman must master.
But you know what? Not only do modern women like to make up, but in ancient times, women dressed themselves up in pursuit of beauty!
The time when ancient women began to make up can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty thousands of years ago. It has been recorded in Notes of Ancient and Modern Times that the cosmetics used by women in Shang Dynasty were mostly lead powder and cinnabar.
Shang dynasty was a period of extremely low productivity, and people's living standards were generally low. Therefore, most women who can afford cosmetics are businessmen and bureaucrats, while ordinary people can't afford cosmetics or even have never heard of cosmetics. Cosmetics in this period are relatively simple.
In ancient times, women were very strict in protecting their bodies. Except for fingers, only faces can show others their skin outside their clothes. So they can make themselves beautiful by dressing up their faces and caring for their fingers.
The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period are a period in which a hundred schools of thought contend, and countless theories and ideas are in full bloom. These theories and concepts have been deeply rooted in people's hearts for hundreds of years, and had a great influence on the evolution of women's makeup during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
"One white covers all the ugliness" has been affirmed by many people in this period. In order to make the men they like favor themselves, women who are not too bad will put rice flour on their faces to make them whiter and smoother.
It is said that some extreme women will eat a little arsenic every day to make their skin whiter and more tender.
It can also be seen from here that it is a woman's nature to love beauty in both modern and ancient times, so don't tell a woman that she is not good-looking!
Before the Han dynasty, women's makeup was only on their faces, and it was not very detailed. Such as eyebrows, lips and other places do not have specific cosmetics, but simply apply rice flour to the face.
In order to pursue a more beautiful self, they greatly improved their makeup techniques. For example, thrush technology appeared in the Han Dynasty. Zhang Qian went to the Western Regions and brought back many things that the Central Plains didn't have. One of the minerals is called Dai, which hides cyan. After grinding Dai into fine powder with an inkstone, he can draw eyebrows on his eyebrows.
After the unadorned eyebrows are painted, people instantly become much more energetic and their temperament will become particularly comfortable inadvertently. Therefore, this mineral named Dai is the favorite of women in the Han Dynasty.
After the evolution of the Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms and even the Sui Dynasty, the Central Plains ushered in the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, and countless rare and precious resources flooded into the Tang Dynasty. The improvement of national strength and rapid economic development greatly improved the living standards of the people in the Tang Dynasty. In this period, makeup is not only the "privilege" of officials' children, but also ordinary people can afford rouge gouache to dress themselves up. The types and techniques of cosmetics after the Tang Dynasty are similar to those of the Tang Dynasty, so today I mainly introduce the Tang Dynasty!
In the early Tang Dynasty, women in the Tang Dynasty preferred willow eyebrows and moon eyebrows.
Influenced by ancient feudal thoughts, and women's status was inferior to that of men, before the Tang Dynasty, everyone thought that women were weak, which made women in the early Tang Dynasty prefer eyebrow shapes such as arch eyebrows and crescent eyebrows.
Willow eyebrows are sharp at both ends and slightly wider in the middle, just like willow leaves full of spring breath, which makes people feel fresh and lovely.
The moon eyebrows are shaped like arch eyebrows, but the difference is that the middle of the moon eyebrows is wider than arch eyebrows, just like a meniscus. If you laugh, Yuemei will follow the rotation of her eyes and become smart.
Liumei and Yuemei are the two favorite eyebrow shapes of women in the Tang Dynasty, and they are the favorite eyebrow shapes of women after the Tang Dynasty and even in the Qing Dynasty. Of course, Liu Mei is more popular than Yue Mei.
After the development of the early Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty ushered in a prosperous time. No dynasty before the Tang Dynasty can be compared with the prosperity of the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Women in this period no longer regarded weakness as beauty. On the contrary, a plump figure and being as fat as a beautiful woman are what they seek. Thanks to this, wide eyebrows and long eyebrows were popular in the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
Compared with the small and lovely arch eyebrows of women, women in the prosperous Tang Dynasty prefer wide eyebrows and heroic spirit.
Wide eyebrows are thick and dense, and the density of eyebrows is not much worse than that of men. Except for the pointed tail, other parts are extremely dense, giving people a feminine charm.
Eyebrows like distant mountains don't draw, lips like sand don't draw ink. As the name implies, the eyebrows in the distant mountains are as tall and straight as mountain peaks. The eyebrows in the distant mountains are a turning point. Draw some eyebrows downward towards the nose to modify the bridge of the nose and make the nose look more three-dimensional. Wide eyebrows and long eyebrows are not only loved by women in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, but also by many people in modern times.
The eyebrow shape in the late Tang Dynasty was modified on the basis of the early Tang Dynasty and the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and the most typical ones are laurel leaf eyebrow and eight-character eyebrow.
The painted laurel leaf eyebrows are thick and dense, and look like laurel leaves. This eyebrow shape is modified on the basis of wide eyebrows.
Eight-character eyebrows and arch eyebrows are like two opposite eyebrow shapes. The middle and rear part of the figure-of-eight eyebrows are upturned, and the arch eyebrows are downward. The arch eyebrows are thin and long, but the arch eyebrows are short and thick. Eight-character eyebrows are also the type that many men like in ancient times.
Thrush originated in Han Dynasty and flourished in Tang Dynasty. The eyebrow shape in the Tang Dynasty is the most abundant period in the history of China. For women in the Tang Dynasty, eyebrow shape is like eating and drinking water, but it is usually indispensable.
There is another meaning in this, that is, Mrs. Guo is born with beauty, never wears makeup, only draws eyebrows. It can be seen that thrush is particularly important to women in the Tang Dynasty.
By the time of the Tang Dynasty, the makeup technology was almost comprehensive.
There are eight makeup steps in the Tang Dynasty, including powder application, Zhu application, thrush, touching lips, forehead yellow, oblique red, flower shape and face shape, including eyebrow eye from forehead to middle of lips.
Different from eyebrow makeup, eye makeup existed in the Tang Dynasty, but the materials used were relatively simple and technically not as mature as eyebrow makeup. If thrush only takes 20 minutes, then the eye makeup time is at least twice as long as eyebrow makeup, that is, 40 minutes.
Although ancient people did not have mobile phones, computers and other entertainment tools, they had a strong sense of time. If they spend so much time on eye makeup, their day will be occupied a lot, so many women will thrush, but they won't do eye makeup.
Eyebrow makeup reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty, and there are many kinds to choose from, which are more suitable for different people. On the contrary, there are few kinds of eye makeup, which makes many women look bad after using eye makeup, so more people prefer eyebrow makeup.
It is probably said that Wu Jiangxian is good at thrush, so the emperor specially selected snails from Persia and gave them to Wu Jiangxian, and the ladies-in-waiting also competed for it. It can be seen that people prefer eyebrow makeup not only in the Tang Dynasty but also in the Sui Dynasty.
In modern times, there are all kinds of instruments to test whether products are qualified, but in ancient times, there was no such opportunity. Some common cosmetics can be tested for safety, while others can't. Many ancient women don't know whether cosmetics will do harm to human body.
Cosmetics used for eye makeup will inevitably come into contact with eyes. Carelessness can lead to blindness, and some even endanger life, which makes many women prefer "ugliness" to wearing eye makeup. Eyebrow makeup is less harmful to cosmetics, so more people like eyebrow makeup.
For these reasons, eyebrow makeup is more popular than eye makeup, which is why eyebrow makeup is higher than eye makeup in ancient times. In several dynasties after the Tang dynasty, the makeup technology did not break through the makeup technology of the Tang dynasty, so the status of eye makeup has always been lower than that of eyebrow makeup.
If she just turns her head and smiles, there are a hundred spells, and beauty is our favorite, and we all want them.
Since ancient times, we all like beautiful things, whether for people or things.
Beauty has inner beauty and outer beauty. Compared with external beauty, internal beauty has become the mainstream of modern society.
The pursuit of beauty is not excessive, but it is not good to go too far. In fact, beauty is everywhere, and sometimes we just lack a pair of eyes to find beauty!
References:
Ancient and modern notes
Records of sui dynasty