We often say that "the hand is a woman's second face", although everyone often focuses on the maintenance of the face, but in fact, the hand is far more damaged than the face, "people are old and old" is this meaning.
For girls in the new era, having slender hands is a dream, but the development of bones is long over, so what to do? The only way to do this is to extend the nails to provide good visuals, and under this appeal, the nail industry has developed in recent years.
But can you imagine, if you rewind the time to the Qing Dynasty hundreds of years ago, you can qualify for a nail salon, it is estimated that only the ladies and ladies living in the harem, why do you say so?
Image: Stills of a child's shoe sewn with jeweled armor
First, the meaning behind a gadget
1. Details in film and television dramas
When we look at the palace drama, we should all find a detail, these emperors' concubines will have long pointed armor on the ring finger or little finger, which is carved with a lot of gems and gold.
If you are a little more careful, you can find in the "Biography of Zhen Huan" and "The Biography of Ruyi" that the armor on their hands of concubines of different origins and different ranks is completely different. Let's talk about a detail, in "Ruyi Zhuan", Hongli chose his wife when he was still a prince, and when Qing Sakura appeared, she had armor on her hand, and the other gege did not.
In the whole play, Ruyi has different armor at different times, the silver carved armor at the beginning, the jewel armor after becoming a concubine, when entering the cold palace, it is taken off, replaced by only cloisonné armor, and later becomes an imperial concubine, which becomes all jewel-encrusted armor.
Image: Ru Yi hand wearing a jewel-encrusted armor still
It is said that she should not be able to wear it when she is in the grid, and she is even less qualified to wear it when she is beaten into the cold palace, and even in life, there are many things to do by herself, which is also very inconvenient to wear armor, so what is the reason why she insists? Many friends may think that it is the heart of beauty, but it is not, this is a symbol of status.
When she appeared on the scene, she was different from others, because she came from the prominent Uranara clan, and her aunt was the queen of the current motherly world, so she was entitled to wear armor anytime and anywhere, even if she fell later, this pride could not be lost.
Throughout the Qing Dynasty, the armor of concubines was actually a symbol of status and status, and they fought hard to protect it.
Image: Ru Yi wears only cloisonné armor stills
2. The evolution of armor
In fact, this special ornament was not invented and used by the Manchu nobles, according to archaeological data, in a tomb in the Han Dynasty, gold armor was unearthed, it is made of light gold sheets from top to bottom, continuously extending upwards in a spiral form, and even adjusting its own length at will.
This is because before the Qing Dynasty, although women had the habit of keeping nails, they generally did not wear armor during the day, and only wore it at night when they slept to prevent accidental nails from breaking.
"Han Feizi" records that during the Warring States period, the close courtiers around The Korean monarch Han Zhaohou all kept long nails, which shows that the earliest nails were not a "patent" for women, but a habit shared by men and women.
The reason is that the Han people have always been deeply influenced by Confucian culture, believing that the body hair and skin are not easily damaged by their parents, and the other is that the ancient ruling class generally did not worry about eating and drinking, and the nails would naturally grow longer and longer, anyway, without labor, it was very beautiful to keep.
Image: Stills of a woman with long fingernails
Second, how difficult it is to keep "good-looking" nails
1. Necessary conditions
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, armor began to spread in the harem, but there was no strict requirement for regulation, and in the Qing Dynasty, there was "armor fever" in the harem, which was actually very accustomed to the clothing characteristics of the Manchurian nobility.
The traditional hair ornaments of the Manchurians are the "flag heads" evolved from the "two heads", the overall is relatively wide, the women wear clothing similar to the qipao, relatively wide, stepping on the bottom of the flower pot under the feet to increase the height of the visual impact, under this aesthetic, if the hand is stretched out is fat, short, it is not very ugly?
Therefore, the armor left in the harem of the Ming Dynasty was used by the Manchus and soon became a trend. But interestingly, the concubines of the Qing Dynasty soon discovered that this gadget was not just as simple as setting off beauty.
Photo: Stills of the traditional costumes of the Manchurians
Women of the level of empresses and noble concubines naturally have no shortage of waiters around them, and there are also a lot of silver to spend, a lot of rewards to enjoy, and they keep their nails in the spirit of how luxurious.
To a relatively low promise, often at such a level, the family background is not strong, there are not many servants around, the monthly salary is also very small, and even from time to time to participate in labor, this time naturally can not keep nails, nor can you wear good-looking armor.
In fact, many female friends should have experienced, leaving nails is not a brisk job, and according to records, the nails of Concubines of the Qing Dynasty are generally about three inches, one inch is equivalent to 3.3 centimeters, which is simply difficult for modern people to do, even if it is hard to stay, once the maintenance is not in place or a careless, the nails will break in an instant, and the difficulty of long-term maintenance can be imagined
Image: Stills of a noble concubine wearing armor in her hand
2. Time-consuming and laborious maintenance
The concubines deliberately kept their nails, they needed to pay attention to maintenance, every night they had to put their hands in warm water to soak, and then slowly correct and repair them with silver pliers after softening, cut into popular styles, and then apply more high-grade flower juice for dyeing.
In order to ensure that the nails show a crystal round state, the concubines also pay attention to their own nutritional supplements, and sometimes develop "health meals" and "health teas" specially used for nail protection. To be honest, to be able to do this, there is no hard power in assets that cannot be played.
With the passage of time, the system and system of harem clothing in the Qing Dynasty gradually improved, and there were strict restrictions and requirements for what kind of armor should be worn by concubines of different ranks, so for women living in the harem, this became a symbol of status.
Like The Late Qing Dynasty's "curtain-down and listening" Tony Lafayette Cixi, her fingernails reached seven or eight inches long when she was the longest, and she didn't know that her daily life was inconvenient.
Image: Stills of the armor worn by Cixi Lafayette
Of course, for other concubines in the harem, it is also a good thing to study how to keep nails on weekdays, and how to maintain nails, after all, most of them were left out in the harem when they were teenagers, which is also to add some fun to boring days.
Article author: Dahui
The entire graphic was produced by the team of the Big Cafe Say History Studio!