How did we as people get to the point where we spend billions annually on cosmetics and it became the social standard for women to wear make-up everyday Surely a lady way back in history did not just wake up one morning and make the decision to put on eyelashes, lipstick, eyeliner, base, and rouge all at once. As you probably guessed, it was a combination of thousands of years and a lot of mistakes.

Do you remember the Egyptians? That was over four thousand years ago. Cleanliness and looks were terribly meaningful to the people of Egypt. Egyptians had the belief that the appearance was in direct juncture with the health of the spirit. They strived to always look and smell good. And with a civilization who values their appearance, you are invariably going to have members who are going to try and stand out. The Egyptians, being the cutting edge culture they were, implemented cosmetics for reasons that were even more practical than just trying to look good.

Mesdemet was the earliest kind of eye shadow- a substance made of copper and lead ore. The dark shades they believed would ward off evil eyes from their own. It was also a great cleaner and bug deterrent. Kohl was a dark mixture that was applied around the eyes in an oval shape. Kohl was a combination of lead, ash, ochre, copper, and burnt almonds. To further enhance their appearance, they would apply a mixture of water and red clay to the cheekbone area. They would also paint their nails shades of orange and yellow with a chemical named henna.

As civilizations started to interact with each other more often, the art of cosmetics was picked up by the Greeks from the Egyptians. Greek women would color themselves a pale shade with a base that contained lead in it. This ended up being fatal on more than one occasion. As the Romans started to pick up the make-up practice, the pursuit of beauty became much less about functionability and took a turn into much more unusual routes. The Romans would decorate their nails with a combination of sheeps blood and cooked body fat. An old Roman citizen once stated, A woman without paint is like food without salt.

A white skin color was the style around the world after the Egyptian civilization faded. A dark, sun-dried face was associated with being a pleb who worked out in the field all day beside her man. The upper society women obviously did not participate in manual labor like that therefore they remained inside and had white faces.

A white, pale skin color was also a symbol of wealth. A person did not have to labor if they had enough wealth. So a white skin hue was very critical to some people. To get this look, ladies (and men as well) would use a combination of hydroxide, lead oxide, and carbonate in a powdered form to put on their faces and skin. Unfortunately, this caused a sometimes deadly side effect, lead poisoning.To cure this, chemists in the early nineteen hundreds at last created a mixture of zinc oxide that did not block the skin from being able to breathe and kept people out of that irritating lead poisoning death. It worked so well that it is still used today by cosmetics makers.

Lavish and glamorous parties were thrown by city women with throw away wealth in the King Edward era of London. It was extremely important for a woman to be the most attractive lady there, especially if they were the hostess of the gathering. City and aristocratic lifestyles with factors like dirty air produced by the cities at that time, unhealthy diets, and very little or no exercise aged the women quickly. Anti-aging and facial creams to hide the imperfections were heavily depended upon by women in this time. Regular trips to the salon were also a regular part of the day. It was a bit different back then than it is in the present. Ladies would sneak into the back of the salons and cover their faces as they entered. One of the most famous of these secret beauty parlors was the House of Cyclax, that would sell creams and rouges to ladies. Mrs. Henning, the owner, sold and invented multiple products for her desperate customers who did not want anybody to know that they were getting

old.

The modern day woman is the benefactor of years of mistakes with a practically infinite choice of products for any look they want to get. The cosmetics business has become a billion dollar industry with literally thousands of competing companies. Cosmetic products sell year round and even in times of depression. So ladies, give thanks to your ancestors and their concern for their own looks for yours that you have nowadays. They probably didn't feel like putting on their face some mornings either.