Cover Photo Courtesy of Instagram.com/chanel.beauty
From the old times up until now, makeup and cosmetics have come a long way. Behind their evolution, lies a story of appreciation in some cultures and depreciation in others, before they actually became the essentials that they are at the present moment. So, let’s trace their journey!
To start, we must go back in time about 6000 years and recall the importance of cosmetics in ancient Egypt, when makeup was considered a sign of wealth that was believed to appeal to the gods. Worn by both men and women, the elaborate eyeliner achieved with kohl became a characteristic of Egyptian art, as well as rouge, white powder to lighten the skin tone, and malachite eyeshadow that represented the gods Horus and Re.
After this glorious start, things went the opposite way from about 627 BCE to 586 BCE, when people of knowledge in certain religions started discouraging the use of cosmetics, and disdain was seen among ancient Romans for other reasons. In fact, Romans developed hygiene products such as bath soaps, deodorants and moisturizers, which were used by men and women, but makeup such as rouge was considered a sign of shamelessness and was even depreciated in the personal writings of Roman doctors and philosophers. This view of cosmetics was rooted in Stoicism, a philosophy that associates true beauty with moral acts, and also prevailed among ancient Greek thinkers – affecting some people's opinion about makeup. This led to the rise of what we call today the “no-makeup makeup”, which revolves around enhancing one’s natural beauty instead of decorating it.
The pattern of embracing and rejecting makeup continued, with it being popular in the Byzantine Empire and in the Renaissance era, which has seen the rise of hair dye. This was until the mid-19th century, when Britain’s Queen Victoria declared it to be vulgar and women started applying it in secret, hence the trend of naturally rosy cheeks.
In the 1920s, makeup became more revolutionary with the rise of highly visible cosmetics such as red lipstick and dark eyeliner, especially in the Anglo-American world. Little by little, cosmetics became productized and advertised again as a mark of wealth and status, until women were convinced to adopt an opposite view, that which considers them a necessity.
Article Written by Mirella Haddad
