EGYPTIAN QUEENS COSMETIC SECRETS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 153, 26 December 1936, Page 16

EGYPTIAN QUEENS COSMETIC SECRETS

POWDER AND PAINT

Beauty is health; health is beauty. The good red blood of health reveals itself in red lips and rosy cheeks, writes "Tellurion," in the "Leader." These signs of health are therefore facts of beauty, particularly of the beauty of women. And since ail women seek to be beautiful, and Nature or circumstances have sometimes denied them colour, they have in all ages called up the arts for assistance. The use of cosmetics (from a Greek word meaning "those things which adorn") is possibly as old as civilisation itself. Still, those of us who -ire in the calms of the fifties may look back upon a youth when the use of such aids to beauty was severely frowned upon as conceit and wickedness. lIAIR, EYES, AND SKIN. Even the common reference books of those days were stiff and unbending, thus: "At all times the use of cosmetics is to be discouraged." This was the swing of the pendulum towards Puritan ideas. Nowadays the pendulum has moved full-swing in the opposite direction. Cosmetics, aids for beauty of hair, eyes, and skin, are not for high ladies only, but for all. And this phase, like most things that we consider so new. is. as we have said, an old one. The tombs of the earliest British folk contained, among I the treasures buried with their owners, I pots of rouge. The tombs of Egyptian ! queens reveal similar secrets of the boudoir, and so do the latest discoveries in the tombs of Mesopotamian lands, the birthplace of our civilisation. ' • , Six thousand years ago Queen Shushad. of the land of Ur. made herself more beautiful by blackening her eyelashes with special preparations. Six' thousand years ago the Aurignacian belles of Western Europe owned ivory boxes in which they kept their rouge and powders, and even today the aboriginal men of Central Australia take special pleasure in; powdering their dusky faces with a black spore powder of a stalked puffball—a fungus called Podaxom. LEAD IN GREASE PAINT. We have, of course, moved onwards —assuming that it is an onward movement. . In these latter days the cosmetic bill of the women of the United States is £1,000,000 a day. There is now a much wider variety of cosmetics used, and they are much more universally applied. The whole world, figuratively and literally, bends itself to the supply of powders and perfumes. Sometimes, in this movement, there is a mischance. Recently an English actress became very ill, so that she had to cease her work. Her illness was serious and puzzling. She showed, for instance, certain definite symptoms of the peculiar upset of the human system that is called lead poisoning! But how should a London actress acquire lead poisoning, a disease usually associated with the mining, smelting, and working of lead? By a very fine piece of work the two doctors in charge of the case 'traced the source of the trouble. It was due to a grease paint, one of the cosmetic necessities of the stage. While most grease paints are quite harmless, the particular type used by this acress contained 42 per cent, of lead oxide. So ill was the actress that a blood transfusion was necessary to set her on her feet. . Thenceforward her recovery was satisfactory and complete. This leads us to consider, -cry briefly, the number of details to be attended, to in the preparation of simple cosmetics. DFXICATE TOUCH OF COLOUR. Face powder, for instance, of which there are numberless kinds on the market, should be made mainly of a type of kaolin (clay) that has been electrically refined; a little powdered soapstone is added to give "slip"; some magnesium stearate increases the sticking powers; zinc oxide imparts whiteness. To all this a delicate touch of | colour may be added, and a suspicion

of perfume. And so the mines and laboratories of the world contribute to "the making of a face powder. Rouge is somewhat more complex. Grease paints are different again. Under the artificial lights of stage and screen these have become widespread in use. Most of us know of them only from the use of.lipstick. The colours of grease paints are mainly obtained from oxides of iron and manganese— red, yellow, and brown. Zinc oxide, kaolin, chalk, and talc are used for the body of the paint. Fats and waxes are added for firmness, . and for softness vegetable oils, suet, and tallow. A delicate balance is needed concerning colour and temperature, and the specifications require that the lipstick must be "proof against osculation." The desire for red lips and rosy cheeks has given rise to a great industry.