The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1902-11-29
COSMETICS OF THE ANcIENTS.
Face Painting Is an Art That Dates
Back Almost to the Begin-
ming of HistOry.

The fashion of painting the face
dates from time immemorial, and is
of no modern growth; therefore, the
dressing table of the twentieth CEN
fury woman, with its cosmetics and its
face powders, is really no new thing,
but since the use of cosmetics in any
liberal degree was out of general favor
for years, the lavish revival of the
art of face painting may justly be con-
sidered modern, says London Dressing
Table.
What first inspired women to paint
their faces is unknown, but the fashion
may have had its origin in a custom of
the savages of prehistoric times, who
,colofed their bodies with brilliant or
dull pastes, as the case might be, in
order to render themselves fascinating
to the women or repulsiye to their
enemies in battle. 1t is recorded that
amid the remains of the earliest peo-
Piles fragments of limonite-a brilliant
red-and of manganese ore-which
produced black--have been found, and
Herodotus says: "When the Ethiop-
ians go to war they rub half of the
body with plaster and the other half
with vermillion." Face painting is be-
lieved to have been in vogue 1000 B. e.,
for we are told that in the tombs of
women belonging to the oldest Chal-
dean civilization Jumps of black color
ing stuff, which served to paint II e
eyebrows, were found.
The Bible makes several illusions
to the use of cosmetics among the
women folk. We read of painted Jeze-
bel looking out at window on the
arrival Of Jehu at Jezreel; and Jere-
miah, in reproving the young Jewesses,
says: "In vain you paint the circle
of your eyes with anthony. Your
lovers viii despise YOU" We are re-
minded, too, by modern writer that
"the author of the Book of Enoch as
sures us that even before the deluge
angel Azael had taught the daughters
of men the art of painting the face
These Biblical illusions to the vanities
ofwomen suggest that the modern love
of the rouge pot is too deep-rooted to
be easily overcome, and may, in fact,
be regarded as an inheritance from
some of the earliest peoples. In the
use of anthony there was originally.
one, the eyebrows and eyelashes being
blackened in order to shield the eyes
from the dazzling light, in the same
way that Indian mothers to-day pro-
tect the eyes of their babes with kohol.
The ancient Egyptians were great
patrons of the use of paint for toilet
purposes, and the Greek women at
an early date painted themselves with
rouge. Max Beerbohm, in his "De-
Tense of Cosmetics" tells us that Eat
Rome, in the keenest time of her delin-
golade, great ladies, according to
Lucian, did not scruple to squander all
they had upon unguents from Arabia"
The use of rouge in Rome was origin
ally reserved for religious purposes
to paint the statues of the gods on
festal days. In the time of the Caesars
face painting was carried to excess by
the Roman women, who tricked them
selves in to greater charm by the aid of
their paint boxes, so that it was said
of them, ''two-thirds of the women
are shut up in the paint boxes" Pop
poea, the unhappy wife of the Emperor
Nero, introduced celebrated cosmetic
known as Poppoean paste, which was
composed of bread and flour and asses
milk, and for the making of which
she kept train of asses. The paste
was of so thick consistency that the
face when spread with it was like
platter.