9781422272879

The ancient Egyptians used peppermint oil, among other things, to help mask their body odor.

something like coloring the face. These include lotions, bath oils, hair dyes, contact lenses, and nail polish. The first recorded use of cosmetics dates back thousands of years to ancient Egypt. Not only did they use lily, peppermint, and cedar oils to camouflage the smell of sweat brought on by the desert heat, they also created creams to protect their skin from the dry winds. This isn’t surprising since the Egyptians were trendsetters in lots of areas like writing, agriculture, and architecture. Centuries after Cleopatra used ground-up beetles to paint her lips, tribes in southern Europe began to tattoo their skin. Mesopotamian women in what is now known as Iraq started to make their own perfume and skincare lines. Across the Himalayan Mountains, the Chinese made painting one’s fingernails popular, and the Japanese were lightening their skin with natural powders. Grecian women wore fake eyebrows made of ox hair (what a fashion

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COSMETICS