Cosmetics: Beauty, Status, Health, and Money by Bruno Lavi
Hanoi, Vietnam April 2023, heat, and humidity have taken over every skin cell on my body. A lot goes through my mind about the Vietnam War, about the millions of people who paid with their lives. Nothing that is revealed to me, here in Vietnam, mentions the atrocities that took place here. I've been walking for hours, with no particular purpose. The only thing that concerns me is finding a perfect frame. Unfortunately, I can't find it.
The streets are lively, residents run diligently from place to place, loaded with all kinds of belongings and objects, skillfully loaded on mopeds scooters, motorcycles or just bicycles. There are those who rest or even sleep in impossible positions and places such as on the back of a motorcycle or just on a low chair made of crumbling plastic. I continue my search for the perfect frame, still without much success. I pass by a business that looks like a barbershop, filled with dozens of young women dressed in black, including about 5 other women who look naked and painted in colour. The curiosity of the street photographer is awakened and with it the instincts of the palaeolithic hunter hidden in the soul of every reasonable street photographer. We approach the place quietly and peek through the window. The scene is surreal, about 5 beautiful young women, models, dressed only in underwear with stickers on their nipples. Around each model, 5-6 young women draw or makeup on the models' exposed bodies, all kinds of paintings in bold colours.
I asked one of the girls what it was all about. The answer is simple: this is a makeup school.
Suddenly, while taking photos, many thoughts about the whole make-up thing roll through my mind. Why makeup? When did it start Who started the makeup thing? Does makeup have meaning? What is the relationship between social status and makeup? What is the history of makeup?
After we returned home from Vietnam, and I approached the photo processing job, I got to the makeup model shoots and the same questions about makeup came to my mind again. I decided to read a bit about makeup and cosmetics in general and release my thoughts on the subject by answering all the questions I was flooded with. It turns out that the first evidence of the use of makeup by women but also by men takes us back in time about 7,000 years in the time of ancient Egypt. Egyptian women and men used perfumes, oils to soften the light, sun protection agents, black eyeliner paint and even cheek blush created from flowers. At that time, the cosmetics industry was very developed, and the upper class used it to increase their presence in society, very similar to the use of makeup today.
The use of cosmetic materials is also mentioned extensively in the Bible, when women of different classes used to wear makeup to enhance their beauty in public or in the private environment. For example, In the book of Esther there is an extensive description of the cosmetic treatments that the upper class used to receive at that time.
In China, during the first millennium, women wore makeup inspired by plum blossoms. This was based on a fairy tale about a Chinese princess. Legend has it that one day the cherry blossoms landed on her face and left their shape and colour on the face of the beautiful princess.
In Mongolia, upper-class women used to paint a red circle on their cheeks.
In the Roman Empire two classes of the female gender used to wear makeup: on the one hand women of the upper class and on the other hand prostitutes as a means of attracting men.
By way of attracting men, in Japan, the art of makeup has reached new heights in the famous geisha.
In historical studies done on makeup materials, it turned out that many of them could have a severe negative effect on the health of makeup wearers. There are estimates that some makeup users could even die because of the use of these substances. There is an estimate that Queen Elizabeth I was ill and died due to the use of a skin-bleaching compound, among other things, of lead. Today it is known that lead in frequent and close contact with the human body can have an extremely negative effect on health. From the middle century to the 19th century, substances such as arsenic, Mercury, calcium oxide, sulfuric acid and other similar substances were used extensively and were later found to harm the health of their users.
Like many changes in the Victorian era, the makeup took a sharp turn. The Queen of Victoria has publicly stated her opposition to the use of makeup when it was accepted that only actors should use cosmetic materials.
If in the Western world in the 19th century, the use of makeup became obscene when prostitutes did, elsewhere in the world there were tribes whose use of heavy makeup indicated the high status of that woman or of the mean.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the use of cosmetic materials was still limited and considered provocative, associated with sins and suitable mainly for actors and prostitutes.
The 20s and 30s marked the beginning of a revolution in the world of cosmetics with the appearance of big names such as Eugène Schuller, Coco Chanel, Maurice Levy and Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein and more. These scientists and business people will establish today's cosmetics industry, which is managed and developed by huge corporations with turnovers of half a trillion dollars.
