The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-30
ANCIENT COSMETICS.
Face Painting and Annoiting is an A

Face Painting and Annoiting is an Art of Almost Prehistoric Origin.
 The fashion of painting the face dates from time immemorial, and is of no modern growth; therefore, the dressing table of the twentieth century woman with it's cosmetics and it's 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 paint ing may justly be considered modern. What first inspired women to paint their faces is unknown, but the fashion may have had it's origin in a custom of 1 the savages of prehistoric times, who colored their bodies with brilliant or dull pastes, as the case might be, in or der to render themselves fascinating to the women or repulsive to their enemies in battle, it is recorded that amid the remains of the earliest people frag- ments of innonite-a brilliant red-and | of manganese ore-which produced black-have been round, and Herodotus says: When the Philippians go to war | they rub half of the body with plaster and the other half with vermillion. !" Face painting is believed to have been 1 in vogue 4000 B. C., for we are told that in the tornbs of women belonging to the oldest Chaldean civilization Jumps of black coloring stuff, which served to paint the eyebrows, were found.
 l The Bible makes several allusions to the use of cosmetics among the women folk. We read of painted Jezebel looK- 1 ing out at window on the arrival of Jehu at Jezreer; and Jeremiah, in re- proving the young Jeweses, says: Tn vain you paint the circle of your eyes with antimony. Your lovers will de- spise you" We are reminded, too, by a modern writer that "the author of the l bok of Enoch assures us that even be- fore the deluge the angel Azael had
 taught the daughters of men the art Of painting the face.'' These biblical al- | lusions to the Vanities of women sug- gest that the modern love of the rouge pot is too deep rooted to be easily overcome, and many, in fact, be regard ed as an inheritance from some of the
 earliest peoples. In the use of antl- mony there was originally, no doubt, a motive other than vain one, the eye brows and eyelashes being blackened in order to shield the eyes from the daz-
 zling light, in the same way that Indian mothers to-day protect the eyes of
 their babies 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 Beer bohm, in his "Defepse of Cosmetic" tells us that "at Rome, in the keenest
 time of her delingolade, great ladies,
 according to Lucian, did not scrlAple to
 squander all they had upon unguents
 from Arabia" The use of rouge in
 Rome was originally reserved for re- ligious 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 themselves into 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 paint boxes. "
 Poppoca, the unhappy wife of the En- peror Nero, introduced a 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
 a plaster-From the London Dressing
 Table.