How did the ancients describe beautiful women?
"Book of Songs" has clouds: "sideburns are like clouds, disdain for hair", "Zuo Biography" records: "In the past, there was still a daughter, dark and very beautiful, the light can be seen, the name is called Xuan's wife", "Chen Shu" recorded: "Zhang Guifei's hair is seven feet long, sideburns are black as lacquer, and its light can be seen", different dynasties and different backgrounds, the ancients' criteria for judging beauties involved hair, which shows the importance of having a hair.
In modern times, we can turn our hair into various colors through chemical hair dyes, and without these hair dye creams in ancient times, how can we make gray hair black again?
A pioneer in hair dyeing in archaeological history
There is such a person in history, he was a late middle-aged man, and after coming to power, he promulgated a series of "new" policies, including but not limited to the nationalization of land, the abolition of slavery, the implementation of a planned economy, and the promotion of new measuring tools.
That's right, he is the founder of the new dynasty: Wang Mang, many people firmly believe that he is a time-traveler There is another reason, he once ordered the hunt and killing of Liu Xiu, that is, Liu Xiu, who later established the Eastern Han Dynasty, people think that this is because Wang Mang is through the past to know history, so the first strike is stronger.
In addition to the identity of the suspected traverser, Wang Mang is also the first person to dye his hair recorded in existing history.
Wang Mang succeeded in seizing power at the age of 43 and created a new dynasty, but at the age of 68, there were too many forces in the world that rebelled against him, and seeing that the dynasty he had built with great difficulty was at risk of collapse, Wang Mang decided to show his physical state with a wedding to play a deterrent role.
As the saying goes, life is rare in seventy years, Wang Mang was 68 years old at the time, this age is definitely considered an advanced age in ancient times, although the body is still quite tough, but the hair has long been white, the queen he wants to marry is the daughter of the Duling historian in the court, although the history books do not say how old she was at the time, but according to the average age of women in ancient times, Wang Mang's age is no problem when her father.
If this wedding is placed at the peak of Wang Mang's power, then there will be no problem, who would dare to say more than half a word when the emperor marries a wife? But this is a wedding with a strong political purpose, especially Wang Mang still wants to prove himself to the world, so Wang Mang's image has to be changed.
"Hanshu: The Biography of Wang Mang": "If you want to look at yourself externally, you need to dye your hair." ”
In order to stabilize the rule, Wang Mang actually found a way to dye his gray hair black again, before him, no one had done this, but unfortunately the general trend has been decided, Wang Mang's painstaking efforts to dye his black hair and the wedding held did not play any role, 23 years, Wang Mang was killed when the Green Forest Army invaded Chang'an, at the age of 69.
After Wang Mang dyed his hair, the Yuan Dynasty also effectively imitated hair dyeers, in the period of Kublai Khan, Shi Tianze, the prime minister of the Chinese book in the court, in order to make himself look younger, dyed his white beard black with a potion, once Kublai Khan summoned Shi Tianze, and was very surprised to see his beard turned black, and immediately asked why did your beard become black?
Shi Tianze was waiting for this opportunity, and replied that he had dyed black with medicine, and Kublai Khan didn't know why he wanted to dye black, and asked what he was doing with black? Shi Tianze finally replied that when he looked in the mirror, he found that his beard had turned white, and then he thought that he was not young anymore, and he had not been loyal to His Majesty for a long time, so he dyed his beard black, so as to show my heart to serve His Majesty.
Shi Tianze's answer pleased Kublai Khan, and he was very happy that he had such a courtier.
However, not everyone wants to turn their hair black, there are people who do the opposite in history, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Xu Zhihe, the founding emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty, was the prime minister before becoming the emperor, Xu Zhihe's hair was still black at that time, in his opinion, black hair means that he is relatively young, and his qualifications are shallow, and others may not listen to him, in order to make himself look very old, Xu Zhihe used medicine to turn his beard and sideburns white.
Xu Zhihe's approach was learned by Kou Zhun who had the same idea, Kou Zhun was brilliant when he was young, he was admitted to the Jinshi at the age of 19, and later held various official positions step by step, and he was still very young when he was promoted to prime minister, and his hair was naturally black, he thought that the previous prime minister's hair was white, and he looked very old, so he followed the example of Xu Zhihe in the Southern Tang Dynasty to dye his hair white.
Whether it is dyed white or black, it is always through external means to change the color of one's hair, and the real age cannot be hidden.
Su Dongpo wrote in "The Second Rhyme Wang Tinglao and Zhang Seventeenth and Nineteenth Day to Meet":
"The flowers are not willing to grow old, and the ointment must be dyed to talk about self-deception."
Even Kou Zhun, the prime minister, took the lead in dyeing his hair, which shows the style of dyeing hair in the Song Dynasty, and Su Dongpo thinks that dyeing his hair black with drugs is nothing more than self-deception, and he does not agree with this practice.
The ancients' hair care experience
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that "hair is the flower of the kidneys, hair is the blood", to see a person's physical state, the easiest way is to look at his hair, if the hair is dense and black and shiny, this person is undoubtedly very healthy, on the contrary, the body is not very good, especially in ancient times when you can't cut hair at will, everyone has a long hair, and you can know the state of the person's life by looking at the state of the hair.
Take shampooing as an example, the more the dynasty goes forward, the more attention is paid to etiquette, and hair is naturally the top priority, "Zhou Li" records: "manage people as guests, three days with bath, five days with bath", here "Mu" refers to washing hair, entertaining guests to meet the needs of three days to wash hair, five days to take a bath.
In the Han Dynasty, officials also had a special hair washing leave, which was allowed to have one day off every five days to wash their hair.
Although there are no various shampoos in ancient times, they also have tools for cleaning hair, the most common ones such as rice water, bath beans, pig pancreas, etc. can be used to wash hair, because the hair is relatively long, so the ancients will use a comb to assist when washing their hair, maybe the older generation of people have also used, that is, the grate, the fine gear combed down from the head, will take away some of the dirt, and finally wash it with water.
In order to prevent a series of diseases caused by wet hair, the ancients also had requirements after washing their hair: don't be the wind, don't wet your hair, don't lie down with your head wet, don't blow your hair after washing your hair, don't immediately coil up your loose hair, and don't lie down and sleep before you dry it.
Because hair is related to physical health, Chinese medicine has studied baldness, thinning, yellow hair and other problems.
"Sanitary Easy Prescription" contains the treatment of mustache white pills: "Use red stone grease, Sichuan pepper, cinnabar, cocoon, and frankincense as one or two as the end, and jujube meatballs are as big as tongzi. Hollow, thirty pills under wine. Treating white beard, and prolonging life, it can be taken by all ages".
In addition, the folk also have their own home remedies, such as eating more black sesame seeds, black beans, walnuts, etc., and some people believe that ginger, Sichuan pepper, and raspberry are also effective.
There are also some sayings about how to pluck gray hair, such as plucking gray hair at a specific time on a specific day, if you don't pluck white hair at these times, I'm afraid that gray hair will continue to grow, and some people think that pulling white hair needs to pay attention to the hair mother, that is, the thickest one, if you miss it, other gray hair will grow again.
If it is just a simple shampoo, it obviously cannot meet the needs of the ancients, just like modern people use conditioner, hair mask, hair oil and other hair care products, the ancients also have their own invented hair care products.
It can be divided into three types: hair balm made from different raw materials, hair oil made from flowers, and other hair care products based on animal organs.
There are many types of hair creams, such as plantain oil, deer oil, bamboo oil, tea seed oil, cotton seed oil, etc., which have two main functions, one is to apply it to the hair after shampooing to make the hair smooth and shiny, and the other is to facilitate the shaping of women when they are coiled in a bun.
The choice of hair oil mainly depends on the seasonal flowers and plants, such as orchid, tulip, rose, frangipani, jasmine, osmanthus, etc., when making, the flowers are soaked in oil, placed in a cool place and waiting for complete soaking, and then the petals are taken out, and the rest is the finished hair oil, and there are also flower dew obtained by distillation.
The above hair ointment and hair oil are mainly processed products, and the ancients also directly chose chicken eggs and pig gall as conditioners, and the main method is to add chicken eggs or pig gall bladder when shampooing, so that the hair washed out will not be frizzy.
The ancients had a way to dye their hair
Unlike modern young people who always want to dye their black hair in other colors, the ancients have always regarded black hair as beauty, especially the elderly, and it is their dream to dye their white hair into black hair.
There are three main types of hair dye creams used by the ancients, plants, minerals, and animals.
Plants have "Secret Recipes for Outer Taiwan": "Pick four liters of fine-grained black beans, boil them in four buckets of vinegar syrup water", boil the melanin in the black beans with hot water, and then apply these melanin to the hair to dye the white hair black.
In addition to black beans, lotus seed grass is also a commonly used plant hair dye for ancient people, the stem of lotus seed grass contains black juice, is the main color source of making ointment, generally the lotus seed grass is broken to extract juice, mixed with raw rehmannia juice, and then added pine leaves, angelica, agarwood, tonka and other medicinal materials, soaked for two nights and then added sesame oil, pig bristle fat, cranberry oil, boiled over low heat, until the color of Angelica angelica turns yellow, and finally use a cloth to wring off the juice, pick out the residue, the last liquid is lotus seed grass paste.
After each wash of the hair, apply the lotus seed balm to the hair.
Minerals have the Western Jin Dynasty "Naturalist" records Hu powder lime square: "Hu powder, white lime and so on with water, painted sideburns are not white", this is the earliest recorded recipe for dyeing hair with minerals, in addition to Hu powder and white lime, lead tin, yellow dan, shao powder and light powder also often appear in other mineral hair dye recipes, but it should be noted that these minerals mostly contain heavy metals such as lead, mercury, long-term use is harmful to the body.
Animals have a hundred medicine decoction, its raw material is gallnut, gallic sounds like a plant, but in fact it is an animal, there is a parasite called gallic aphid, its female parasitizes on the tree, the parasitic place will gradually become larger, and finally it is completely wrapped, the female insect lays eggs in it, and the production of hundred medicine decoction needs to be picked before the small worm breaks through the barrier of the package, this is gallnut.
The picked gallnut is dried for later use, the tea leaves are prepared for cooking, the tea leaves are boiled with water, the mashed gallnut is poured until the tea becomes thick, and then the sake lees are added and pounded, and finally the finished product is sealed together with the container and placed in a large vat full of grain bran, waiting for fermentation, and finally pinched into small cakes to dry.
Although the process of making Baiyao decoction is a bit troublesome, the raw materials required are simple, so the price of Baiyao decoction in ancient times is not expensive, and ordinary people can afford it.
As a result, although there were no chemical hair dyes in ancient times, the ancients also had their own pure natural hair dyeing methods.
References:
1. Chinese handicraft 2015-03-01 - "Green Silk Does Not Change Full of Black"
2. Journal of Fashion 2017-04-15 - "Chinese Traditional Hairdressing Concept and Its Cultural Connotation"
3. Inner Mongolia Forestry 2016-09-11——"The History of Hair Dyeing of the Ancients"