TUTANKHAMEN'S COLD CREAM

Evening Star, Issue 19549, 6 May 1927, Page 8

TUTANKHAMEN'S COLD CREAM

Animal fat was used by ladies and gentlemen of the court of Pharaoh more than 3,000 years ago as we use “ coldcream,” Dr E. E. Free says in his 'Week's Science,’ New York. When the tomb of Tutankhamen was opened, one of the articles f6und in it was a small jar made of carved marble, and containing some kind of cosmetic. This was sent to England, and turned over for examination' to a chemical analyst, Dr A. C. Chapman. His report, written jointly with Mr H. J. Plenderleith, has, recently been published. The, cosmetic material proved not entirely determinable, but what has been learned about it makes it probable ’ that the Pharaohs kept their faces in order by a material not unlike the famous bear’s grease which our_ greatgrandfathers used to keep their hair slick and orderly The report of the analyst finds the Tutankhamen cream to consist of about 90 per cent, of some animal fat mixed with about 10 per sent, of som resinous substance, not unlike the resins of pine or cedar. Bear’s / grease, melted with pine needles or ’■ pine chips to give it a pleasant odor, as was sometimes done, be a fair modei-H equivalent. Of the vegetable oik, fom the palm nut or the olive, often supposed ■to have been thhe basis of ancient cosmetics, there seems to be po sign in tha Egyptian material,.