Cosmetics in ancient Rome
It is incredibly interesting for me to read, look for and combing the history of cosmetics, understand how the tastes and routines have changed in the fact of beauty in the various eras, and be able to share information and curiosities through this blog.
In Rome, for example in the monarchical and republican times, the costumes were pretty strict, men and women had to demonstrate pitifulness and seriousness even giving himself a simple and at austere image.
Everything changed in the imperial age, when Roman women saw the wonderful blond hair of the prisoners brought by Gaul and turned their look radically. Being blondes became synonymous with great charm... Men prefer blondes is not a cliché of the 1950s of the last century as can be deduced... Furthermore the use of cosmetics and makeup, although officially malicious, showed the belonging to the highest social classes, since it was a great expenditure of money and energies for the laborious beauty routine of the time, a real tour de force!
The matrix could have numerous slaves involved in makeup and wig: it started on long bathrooms where they were used, if not the precious donkey milk made famous by Poppea, very fine crete or bean flour to exfoliate the skin, continued with The depilation carried out with resin paste or pumice stone, and then the make-up, freshly prepared from specialized slaves, said cosmetae. The eyebrows were darkened and elongated with the help of a thin stick on which coal was placed or lead mine, the eyes surrounded with a compound made of abpressed ants, the skin of the face had to be white, so it was colored with a Composed of clay and blame. Minio is used for the mouth, and real lipsticks were produced.
An interesting detail are the "active ingredients" of the imperial age cosmetics: APIs drowned in honey, ants, clan and sheep's fat, deer and deer marrow, dried snails and even Toro Testicles!
To lighten the hair then we went from the golden dust spread over saffron-based dyeing chiomas, flowers and potassium water, extremely abrasive substance; Another mode was that of the use of light hair wigs cut to the slaves of Gaul, or the resort to the info power with strands of Indian (dark) or Germanic (blond and red) hairs also of different color than the natural one... the first mechès!
And men? From the II century B.C. it became a fashion shaving, thanks to the well-known Influencer and Trend Setter Scipione the African, and so the barbers were born, which, however, were very often reported by customers for wounds that caused their rudimentary tools... but of the rest... to appear you must suffer!
