Skin care has been around for as long as humans could notice that their skin needs attention. Oils were found as far as in stone age to be used to care for the skin conditioning. Ancient Egypt is considered the cradle of cosmetics. Both sexes didn’t limit just to a baths, but thy have used essential oils, tinctures and light vegetable oils to moisturise, add radiance and soften their skin. The have coloured their lips and cheeks in various shades of red extracted from the natural sources, – mainly plants, and minerals.Their eyeliners and eyebrows were drawn with stibium, and to deepen their eyelids they have used fine grinded minerals often dispersed in tallow.
Beauty was important not only for hygienic reasons, but also considered a respect to the gods in all cultures (Egypt, antiquity, Europe).
Today we know that some of those ancient beauty treatments included many poisonous preparations, and “suffering for beauty” once meant physical suffer in a very literal way. Use of stibium (antimony), lead based foundations, and other often lethal salts and minerals lead to a serious health problems.
“Egyptian customs were exported to Greece and Rome. Indeed, the word “cosmetic” is derived from the Greek Kosmetos (Koσµετóσ), which means “adornment” or “ornament”. The Hellenes established canons for beauty, such as the Venus de Milo, an icon of the cult of body shape. In Greece and Rome, the body was depilated as a sign of youth. At night, ointments composed of cypress, cedar, and incense resins were applied. The face was treated with lead acetate (white lead) and cinnabar (Hg) [15]. Perfumes were obtained from oriental essences and rose water. Dioscorides (ca. 40–90 AD (Anno Domini or After Christ)) named rosemary libanotis coronaria (pre-linnean nomenclature) that is, having the property of toning the fatigued body (external use) [17]. In Rome, figs (Ficus carica L.) became very popular after the conquest of Carthage. They were mixed with banana (Musa L.), oats (Avena L.), and rose water to obtain a facial cream. Olive oil was used to clean the body, in general, and to combat wrinkles [2]. White lead (cerusa) was used as a face bleach, while red lead (minio) was used as a face blush. The invention of the Frigus crepito, a predecessor of the current cold cream, a skin protector (rose water, almond oil, and beeswax), is attributed to Galen (1[–ca. 216 AD) [3].”
The addition of toiletries was an essential part of the funeral rituals. The first examples were found in graves from the predynastic period (4300-3000 BC). In Egypt, the idea arose to preserve the beauty of the dead or the integrity of the body shell and to preserve its perfection for life in the hereafter. Over the centuries this custom became the increasingly perfect and still admired preservation of the corpse through embalming.
Medical papyri provide information about the state of skin care in Pharaonic times. The most extensive of these papyri is the “Papyrus Ebers”. It says, for example: “One unit each of gum from terebinth (pistachio tree), wax, fresh behen oil and cyprus grass are finely ground, put in sap and rubbed daily on the face.” It removes the wrinkles on the face. Behen oil is a vegetable oil made from the seeds of the horseradish tree (Moringa oleifera), which is still grown in some Arab countries today. It is believed to contain natural antioxidants. Against dry skin, the papyrus recommends “mix bile from beef, oil, gum and ostrich egg flour, dilute with plant sap and wash your face with it every day”.
Nefertiti, wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten (around 1370 BC), and Cleopatra (around 47 BC) valued the juice of the aloe vera to maintain their beauty. It is also said that Cleopatra bathed extensively in warmed donkey milk to keep her skin supple. The recipe for a nourishing, wrinkle-preventing face mask made from donkey milk, honey and flour has been passed down from the Roman Empress Poppaea Sabina (around AD 62).
In the centuries that followed, physical care initially faded into the background. It was not until the 11th century that the early medical reports of the doctor Galen, who had lived in Rome from 153-2011, were rediscovered. They formed the basis of medicine and body care up to the Renaissance (transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age, between 1400 and 1600).
In the late Middle Ages, cosmetics and medicine were separated into two separate areas. Henri de Mondeville (1260-1320), doctor of surgery and anatomy and teacher of anatomy in Montpellier (F), made a distinction in his textbook on surgery at the beginning of the 14th century between pathological changes in the skin that require medical treatment and beautifying ones Skin treatments for which cosmetics are responsible. That was the first step, documented in writing, to distinguish between the disciplines of cosmetics and dermatology.
Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762-1836), doctor and professor in Jena and Berlin, is considered one of the pioneers in the field of “modern cosmetics”. In his writings he describes medical cosmetics as “skin culture”, as a means of extending life. However, at this point in time, cosmetics were still far from being scientifically serious, and there was still a lot of mystery attached to them. She was permeated by magical and superstitious practices and was close to the mysterious doctrine of alchemy.
From around the 50s of the 20th century, care cosmetics underwent another decisive change: active ingredients, auxiliary substances and basic principles were increasingly researched scientifically, their effects on and in the skin understood and documented. Today modern skin care cosmetic products not only contribute to the beauty, but also to keeping the skin organ healthy.
Suffering for beauty has ancient roots (NBC News)
