A Woman Without Paint is Like Food Without Salt

This cosmetic history was from 254-184 B.C. During this time, the Plautus reportedly wrote, “A woman without paint is like food without salt.” Also the teeth were cleaned using pumice and they did have their version of depilatories.

Some of the minerals and natural ingredients used by the Romans were things like ceruse, soot, red ochre, saffron, and chalk. In the Greco-Roman era, the women used a combination of chalk and white lead.

White lead wound up causing even certain deformities. On the other hand the Persians liked to apply henna to their faces and their hair to color them. They were superstitious in that they thought by using henna it called up the earth’s majesty. Nice cosmetic history so far?

As an example of a mineral that was not healthy, let’s look at arsenic. Arsenic was used during the Renaissance in Italy in makeup. Signora Toffana invented Aqua Toffana, which was a face powder containing the mineral arsenic.

Her clients were actually told to only wear the powder when the husbands were around. It needs to be pointed out that Signora Toffana was put to death after the death of about 600 of these husbands not to mention what wearing arsenic did to the women.

Not so nice cosmetic history here! Other minerals were used in makeup though during the Renaissance including lead, antimony, and sulfide.