Beauty Care

Te Ao Hou, October 1956, Page 59

Many Maori women would like to know more about the finer points of facial make-up and beauty care, and the information they want is not always easily found in the usual women's magazines. In order to give Maori women some added confidence in the town environment into which so many are moving. Te Ao Hou is offering here the first of some articles in which beauty care is discussed. In order to see the beauty problems of young Maori women at close range Catherine Wislang visited Pendennis Maori Girls' Hostel, in Wellington, and gave a demonstration in make up to the girls, studying their problems. Beauty Care by Catherine Wislang At Pendennis Girls' Hostel, Wellington. (Photo j. fijn) With many Maori women now living in the cities, or visiting them regularly, the use of lipsticks, rouges and powders as aids to beauty have become very general. This use of cosmetics to improve on natural beauty is of course not new to the Maori. In ancient days, the great variety of ornaments were used: feathers and plumes, anklets, necklaces, flowers, ear pendants. The main odornment of course, was tattoo. Men wore far more ornaments than women and their long hair, carefully dressed and held in place with combs, contrasted strongly with the cropped hair of the women. According to Elsdon Best, there were also cosmetics in the proper sense of the word: red ochre a blue paint obtained from a coloured earth called pukepoto, and a black paint made of powdered charcoal. Only the ochre was in very common use. White clay and a yellow stain made from decayed wood are also mentioned, but must have been rare. These paints were again used far more commonly by men than by women, but young women, according to Best, did use red ochre to some extent and were fond of colouring their cheeks with dabs of blue pukepoto, or any red substance such as the ripe berries of the kokaha. Base of the red paint was a rancid oil. Today, we see that many Maori women have developed an outstanding and artistic sense of colour in clothing. As far as make-up is concerned, it is necessary to remember that matching up one's clothes with the wide variety of modern make-up colourings is very important indeed.