In 15th-century Europe, baldness was beauty, baldness was handsomeness.
Whoever has dark and thick hair will be considered poor and uncultured.
Without further ado, today, the lambs have come to talk to their sisters about the strange aristocratic aesthetics in the history of Hong Kong and Hong Kong and the fundamental reasons behind these strange aesthetics!
Europe: Beauty in baldness
European aesthetics still have a lot of merit in the current view.
Whether it is architecture, painting, music, literature, there is so much to say in detail.
However, in the 15th century, that is, in the middle of the Renaissance, the European bald aesthetic was once popular among the nobility.
Famous Renaissance painting - Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Arnolfini
At that time, the circle of noblewomen was popular for "hairless faces".
What do you mean?
That is, there is no hair on the face, no lip hair, no eyelashes, no eyebrows, no broken hair, and even no hairline.
The wider the forehead, the better it looks.
The following kind of face, in Europe at that time, can be described as a big beauty
However, how can you be born as a human being without any hair on your face?
So the noblewomen of Europe tried every means to remove their hair.
Lip hair, eyebrows and hairline are shaved with a razor, and eyelashes are pulled out one by one.
In order to prevent the hair from being shaved off and the hair that grows out is thicker and shinier, the hair removal cream made of arsenic and sulfide also sold wildly in the upper class.
A European noblewoman without a "hairless face" is the equivalent of a contemporary noblewoman without a Hermès bag.
Some nobles would even secretly keep witches in captivity and let them make hair-free ointments for them.
The materials used by witches are also very strange, among them, bat heads, frog blood, and viper tails are the three most popular among witches.
However, although the hair of the noble ladies is a lot bald, how to baldness is also very exquisite.
Among them, the hair removal cream is the first, the razor shaving is the second, and the knife cutting is the third.
It is not to look at the effect, but to look at the financial resources.
At that time, only wealthy noblewomen could afford to use a razor that could be used, and the kind of noblewoman who only had a title and no money in the family could only use a knife.
If you are poorer, you can only let the maid tie her hair wildly tight, appearing to have a high forehead and a high hairline.
Therefore, at that time, European noblewomen also popular hanning hats with tight scalps, who had the highest hats, who had the highest status
Sheep has said before that aesthetics are ultimately cultural refractions.
The same is true of this strange aesthetic of baldness.
In Europe at that time, theocracy was above all else, and the religious status was far greater than that of the royal family.
When religion advocates abstinence, self-cultivation, and vanity, the "ascetic" aesthetic has become what people chase and yearn for.
The first step in the "ascetic" aesthetic is to de-hair and dilute.
Because, the priests believed, the thick hair represented a vigorous desire.
If you have a lot of hair, thick eyebrows, and long eyelashes, then your desire must be very strong, not a good family woman.
And because only the nobles could afford to use hair removal cream and razors, having a hairy face at that time was directly equivalent to slaves and poor people who had no education.
Japan: Black teeth are beautiful
Japanese aesthetics have always been fascinating.
Sometimes it's heartbreakingly beautiful, and sometimes it's so ugly that Takeshi Kitano is ashamed to name names on TV.
There is a saying that the sheep feel that the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games is ugly and ugly to the "black tooth" aesthetic of Japan's Heian period.
After all, the former is only ugly for a month, while the latter is ugly for an era.
"Black teeth" as the name suggests are black teeth.
Although the custom of dyeing teeth originated in the Kofun period, the real popularity of "black teeth" among the nobility was in the Heian period.
In the early days of Japan, there was a custom of marriage, and adult but unmarried women had to have their teeth extracted, and the location of tooth extraction was different in different regions.
Due to the conditions of the time, tooth extraction was easy to kill, especially for nobles who did not produce and work.
Therefore, the nobles of the time thought of replacing tooth extraction with black teeth.
"Black Tooth" also has the title of "Royal Tooth Black".
However, black teeth are not something that anyone can dye casually.
It was only aimed at Japanese aristocratic women and had a tedious and complicated set of rituals
First of all, a married woman with a distinguished status should be selected from among relatives and friends as the "iron pulp relative", and then the "iron pulp relative" will soak the iron filings in strong tea and vinegar to brew the iron paste that can be stained in advance, and finally, choose a zodiac auspicious day and start to lift the pen to dye the teeth.
This dye is two or three months.
During this time, the iron paste will constantly corrode the teeth, causing them to turn black.
When the teeth are completely blackened, the aristocratic woman who received the "stained teeth" can also marry.
The set of teeth dyeing tools that accompanied her black teeth would also become a dowry, and she would enter the door with her.
The heroine who was adopted by the noble Light Clan in "The Tale of Genji" was infected with black teeth after completing the formal adoption procedures.
At that time, the civilian women in Japan did not have the opportunity to dye black teeth.
Because they could not afford the material that stained their teeth with black teeth, the commoner women of the Heian period had a mouth full of white teeth.
However, by the end of the Heian period, men of the samurai class would also show their status by dyeing their teeth.
It is recorded in Li Yangong's "Japanese Examination" of the Ming Dynasty
The sons and nephews of his own clan and the leaders of the tuguan themselves were all soaked in rusty iron and stained with black teeth.
Moreover, the removal of black teeth can make aristocratic women show their status and identify themselves, and there is also a major role, that is, to prevent tooth decay.
Sheep has previously written about the reasons for the messy teeth in Japan, and the aristocratic women of the Heian period were limited by the conditions, and the oral cleanliness was not in place, and it was easy to have various dental diseases.
After the teeth are corroded by iron paste, they can prevent and treat certain dental diseases.
As a result, black teeth were more revered and did not improve until the Meiji period in Japan.
In fact, in addition to the above countries in history, there are many countries with strange aristocratic aesthetics.
Let's say Poland, whose identity determines the length of a shoe
The more aristocratic, the longer the tip of the shoe.
The toe of a commoner's shoe could not exceed 6 inches, and the nobleman could not exceed 24 inches.
If you are a royal family, the tip of the shoe can be as long as you want.
Let's take, for example, Mauritania, West Africa, where fat is the beauty
The fatter the woman, the more beautiful she is.
Families with girls pride themselves on feeding them fat, and if girls are not weighted enough, they may even send them to obesity school.