Since the reason for using cosmetics has always been to make women look more attractive, we must remember that different ideas of “beauty” created different kinds of “cosmetics” all over the world.

For example, a savage African woman who cuts her skin and rubs black paint into the cuts is making herself beautiful according to the standards of her people. And when an Eskimo lady rubs grease and fat into her skin, she is using “cosmetics,” by Eskimo standards!

The first ancient people whose standards of beauty were similar to those we have today, were the Egyptians. They admired healthy, shining hair. They thought a lady’s lips should be well-shaped, and that her brows and lashes should be well-defined. They insisted on a good complexion and a slim figure.

As a result of this, the Egyptian lady had cosmetics and beauty secrets not very different from those used by women today. She had eyebrow paint of black and green. She used rouge several times a day. She painted her cheeks, her lips, and her eyelids. She even tipped her lashes with a black pomade to make them look longer.

The Egyptians were great users of perfumes. Some of them would use as many as fifteen different kinds of perfume at one time. And it was customary for Egyptian women to walk about with tiny glass bottles of perfume hidden in their dresses!

The next people to make use of cosmetics were the ancient Greeks. They not only used many kinds of perfume and painted their lips, but they used special ointments to make their hair blonde.

In fact, when the Romans conquered the Greeks, they brought back with them the Greek “beauty doctors.” Thus they acquired the secrets of dyeing the hair, special face washes and skin foods for complexions, dyes for the fingernails, and so on. The fashion for waving the hair became so popular among the Romans that even young men had their hair waved!

Did you know that ancient Roman ladies made masks out of beauty clays to get smooth, clear skin, just as today’s women do when they go to expensive beauty salons?