Text|Editor: Zhang Qingfeng
The ancients said: A man dies for a confidant, and a woman is a person who pleases herself. It can be seen that women apply grease and powder to dress up, which is a social atmosphere that existed in ancient times.
And not only women, ancient men would also decorate themselves, Guan Yu got the title of "beautiful beard" because of his beautiful beard, and the handsome men in the Song Dynasty would also wear flowers on their heads.
Even because the King of Chu in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period loved to look at the thin waist, not only the palace maids but also the ministers had to manage their bodies, expecting to be favored by the monarch.
In order to become beautiful, the ancients also came up with various methods, tossing from head to toe, and even invented various beauty products early.
The face is coated with lead powder, and the rouge is made of worms
Ancient people were not as scientific as modern people, not only did they see mental illness as a "ghost", but they were also unaware of the dangers of some makeup products.
An idiom in ancient times, "wash away the lead", which directly proves that the "foundation" on the face of the ancients actually contains lead, which is a heavy metal, and lead poisoning will occur if you come into contact with it.
But where did the ancients understand such esoteric chemistry, they only knew that lead powder on the face can make the face whiter, after all, the acquired beauty is always better than the congenital ugliness.
As early as the Shang Dynasty, the ancients had discovered the mystery of lead powder whitening, but the side effects that come with using lead powder are really shocking.
However, fortunately, although the productivity of the ancients was not advanced, the technology was always developing, so the lead powder production technology was developed in the Tang Dynasty, which not only looked better on the face, but also weakened the toxicity.
With fair skin, red lips are naturally indispensable, although these two can achieve good results together, but the lipstick used by the ancients to apply to the mouth, that is, rouge, is really a bit difficult to explain.
In the beginning, the ancients loved to collect the leaves of flowers to make a kind of red rouge paste, and the name of this thing is actually related to the name of the place, called "swallow fat", but it gradually became "rouge" in word of mouth.
The ancients also loved to play homophonic stalks, "lose my Yanzhi Mountain, so that my women have no color", this folk song, the homophones of "Yanzhi" and "rouge" are associated.
But the rouge made of plants is unstable after all, and no matter how beautiful the color is, it is not long-lasting, so in order to find a stable red, some people have set their sights on minerals, which can not change color for thousands of years in Chinese painting.
When it comes to natural red minerals, cinnabar must be indispensable, yes, part of the rouge of the ancients was made of cinnabar, but isn't cinnabar poisonous?
After all, there was no better color to choose from, so some people took risks in order to paint bright red lips, until a small bug was introduced.
In ancient times, there was not only China, since China had special products, foreign countries must also have them, so the ancient people brought "foreign goods" from Mexico and other places when they were in foreign trade.
This foreign product is a small bug, it is called a red beetle, after careful research can make non-toxic and harmless lipstick, although it sounds a little disgusting, but it doesn't take a lot of effort to apply this thing!
Unexpectedly, thousands of years ago, our ancestors had already used foreign goods, and people's yearning for beauty and trend was indeed a kind of productivity.
Although pure natural does not mean that there is no pollution, if it comes to beauty products that do not hurt people, there are still such things, which even appeared in the Han Dynasty.
Rice is used for makeup, and Chinese medicine soup washes the face
Food is a good thing, not only for eating, but also for making wine and drinking, but if it can be used for beauty, don't you think it's a bit nonsense?
But in fact, the ancestors really did just that, not only applying the fine powder of rice mill to the face to replace the lead powder, but even inventing some makeup techniques.
As we all know, rice is not only white, but white rice is ground into powder to paint the face, so can other colors of rice be ground into powder and used for makeup?
The answer is yes, the women of the Han Dynasty ground red rice into powder, and made it into a beauty product similar to the blush we use now, and applied it to the face to make the face look white and red, which is much better than only monotonous white.
Not only makeup, but also the ancients took care of their faces, and at this time they had to use rice again, which is similar to the popular idea of mask cream.
The ancients would first select good quality rice, grind it, mix it with water, mix it into something similar to the raw rice milk used to make rice rolls today, and finally apply it to their faces to nourish their skin.
As we all know, ancient Chinese medicine has developed very well, so does Chinese medicine have any guidance for beauty and beauty?
In "A Thousand Golden Recipes", Sun Simiao once proposed this kind of soap production method, because it needs to use the pancreas of pigs, so it is now called "pancreas" in many local dialects.
"New Cultivation of Tang Materia Medica" also mentions the empress-level maintenance artifact - "Fairy Jade Girl Powder", which is rumored to be Wu Zetian's care for himself.
Although it is impossible to verify whether Wu Zetian really relies on these prescriptions to apply her face, and it is written in the book that she looks old but does not see aging, but the love of beauty of the ancients has indeed been passed down through prescriptions.
Not only to clean the face and body, but also to have a more awesome recipe in the Song Dynasty, "Sun Xian Maiden Balm" can be called the existence of a classic facial cleanser, and it is very powerful when you hear the name.
And the legend of this recipe is even heavier, according to the founder of the Taoist Quanzhen School, Sun Buji, is relying on this recipe to wash his face to make himself radiant, it can be seen that in ancient times, even Taoist priests also paid attention to their appearance.
However, the names of these recipes are strange, and the legends are more like advertising stories, and the credibility is not enough to pack tickets.
It's not enough to care, the ancients also had to draw eyebrows and eye appliqués!
Speaking of eyebrow drawing, the most classic in everyone's hearts is probably "Luo Zidai", after all, the image of this thing in costume dramas is too successful, precious and rare.
Luozidai is a kind of ancient eyebrow pencil, in fact, it has been used for thrush as early as the Sui Dynasty, and even it, like cochineal, is a rare thing from abroad.
Small households can't afford to use snails, but they will also use other things to thrush, such as blackened branches, after all, charcoal is also black!
In addition to these props that toss and turn on the face, the ancients would also use other items to add a beautiful atmosphere to their bodies, achieving the effect of "coming out with BGM".
Incense with gorgeous costumes creates a beautiful atmosphere
If you want to say that the atmosphere is beautiful, you can't go around the incense in the first place.
In ancient times, large families would have maids who would put the clothes to be worn the next day on the shelves, and ignite the spices that the masters loved to use at the bottom, so that they could leave a taste on the clothes.
Smell is also a kind of memory, imagine that a beautiful woman with red lips and white teeth walks past you, and you can still smell her aroma when the wind blows, how can you not be intoxicated?
Incense is not the only way to leave a good smell on the body, firstly, the rouge gouache of the ancients would have some fragrance, and secondly, they would also use things like sachets and balms.
Not only incense, but also smooth and thick hair will also leave a good impression, so the ancients did not toss their hair less, and even paid attention to washing their hair.
Although the living conditions of the ancients were not as good as they are now, they also had various ingenuity, and washing rice and washing hair is one of them, and there are still people using it today.
Not only wash your hair, but also comb your hair, not only apply fragrant hair oil to make your hair look shiny and not easy to messy, the ancients even invented wig bags to cover up the problem of their own lack of hair.
Although many people blindly dream, they think that people can only be "pure natural" if they have no makeup for a lifetime.
But it is human nature to love beauty, and while pursuing beauty appropriately, people will also enhance their own image.
When you see beautiful people, your mood will naturally improve, so why not?