Welcome to a history lesson on eyeshadow (featuring my lil' Christmas star)! Shall we?
▸ Egypt & Mesopotamia
The first ones to use a sort of eyeshadow were Egyptians about 10,000 years B.C. What they used was kohl, which I guess is where the name of today's kohl pencils came from. They would line their eyes and eyebrows heavily with kohl, not only for appearance, but to protect them from the sun and prevent eye infections, as well. Royalty used kohl to look more like their gods. Women were not the only one using kohl. It was also used in India and Morocco. Kohl was a dark-coloured powder, whereas in Mesopotamia 'eyeliner' was made from the dust of grinded semi-precious stones.
▸ Greece & Rome
In Greece, cosmetics were very important for the economy and trade as they exported it around the Mediterranean. During the 7th and 8th century B.C. eyeshadow was know as 'fucus' in Greece. As for Romans, eyeshadow lost all religious meaning and were a matter of aesthetics.
▸ Japan
Around the 11th century, Japanese women would decorate their eyes with rice flours, crushed flower petals and bird droppings using wax brushes.
▸ Modern Eyeshadow
Today's version of eyeshadow was created during the fashion revolution in 1920s. That's when chemists found a way to make eyeshadow with mineral ingredients to avoid irritation and difficult removal. Today we have a bunch of different colours and textures of eyeshadows which, I think, is very fun and amazing. We have powder ones, baked ones, creamy ones, liquid, mousse ones, etc.
I hope you've enjoyed this installment, there will be two more blog posts in this series, I think. Talk to you tomorrow!
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2 comments
This is actually a very lovely post, I like how different it is from the usual beauty posts. It's refreshing to read a little history about eyeshadows, very informative, thank you!
ReplyDeleteReflection of Sanity | Smashbox Giveaway
Oh, that's so sweet, glad you like it. Thank you, Shireen .xx
ReplyDeleteYou've got a lovely blog there, by the way! :)