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Beauty Legends
| Article
# : |
10053 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1986 |
1,959 Words |
| Author
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Constance Schrader
Connie Sachrader is a free-lance writer living in Manhattan.
She is the author of five books on health and beauty. Her
latest book, Beauty from the Inside Out, published by
MacMillan, Inc., will soon be released. |
Cosmetics and skin-care preparations weren't invented in the twentieth century. Historical evidence shows that beauty potions have been concocted for over five thousand years, at one time or another in nearly every corner of the earth--in small farming communities as well as the meccas of trade and industry, often on the basis of secret family formulas passed on from mother to daughter. Even our prehistoric ancestors probably used animal and plant oils to soothe their uniquely hairless skins, and clay and mineral colors to call attention to their most fashionable features. To produce cosmetics, you don't need the military-industrial complex!
Ironically, now that the production of cosmetics has, in fact, moved almost completely out of the kitchen and into the factory, and beauty has become one of the biggest of businesses, the industry's advertising stresses that its products are "natural" and its chemists are striving to recreate the purity and effectiveness of hundreds-of-years-old formularies.
A Long History
The cosmetics industry as we know it today originated over 4,000 years ago when Chinese scholars collected, classified, and recorded in a book the compounds being used in their country for skin beautification and the colorants made from herbs and ores being used as cosmetics. This was the earliest recorded mention of rice powder as a complexion-maker.
Rice Powder: put several tablespoons of rice flour in a thin silk scarf or linen handkerchief. Force the rice flour through the cloth and collect the resulting rice powder. Dusted on your
... (1998 of 11400 Characters)
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