Cosmetics in ancient Rome
Some fashionable cosmetics, such as those imported from Germany, Gaul and China, were so expensive that the Lex Oppia tried to limit their use in 189 BCE.
Due to the stench of many of the ingredients used in cosmetics at the time, women often drenched themselves in copious amounts of perfume.
The assortment of cosmetics available increased as trade borders expanded and the resulting influx of wealth granted women additional slaves and time to spend on beauty.
[10] Unlike their eastern trading partners however, the Romans felt that only the "preservation of beauty" was acceptable and not "unnatural embellishment".
Juvenal wrote that "a woman buys scents and lotions with adultery in mind" and mocked the need for cosmetics, believing that they were ineffective.
Seneca advised virtuous women to avoid cosmetics, as he believed their use to be a part of the decline of morality in Rome.
Archaeologist and Haaretz columnist Terry Madenholm writes: “Ovid is one of the few who understood the sexist social system of his time, portraying in his poems the expectations and criticisms women were facing.
They were projecting a self-constructed image that they wished to present to others.”[14]Pure white skin, a demarcation of the aristocracy, was the most important feature of Roman beauty in women.
One recipe called for the application of sweat from sheep's wool (lanolin) to the face before bedtime,[16] emitting a stench often criticized by men.
[17] Other ingredients included juice, seeds, horns, excrement,[18] honey, plants, placenta, marrow, vinegar, bile, animal urine, sulfur, vinegar,[6] eggs, myrrh, incense, frankincense,[19] ground oyster shells,[20] onions with poultry fat, white lead, and barley with vetch.
Bathing in asses’ milk was an expensive treatment that worked like a chemical peel and was used by wealthy women such as Cleopatra VII and Poppaea Sabina.
Other ingredients used in whiteners included beeswax, olive oil, rosewater, saffron,[3] animal fat, tin oxide, starch,[23] rocket (arugula), cucumber, anise, mushrooms, honey, rose leaves, poppies, myrrh, frankincense,[7] almond oil, rosewater, lily root, water parsnip and eggs.
[7] The Romans pasted soft leather patches of alum directly over blemishes to pretend that they were beauty marks.
Consequently, women removed hair by either shaving, plucking, stripping using a resin paste, or scraping with a pumice stone.
[25] Although Romans esteemed pale faces, a light pink on the cheeks was considered to be attractive, signifying good health.
[4] Sources of rouge included Tyrian vermillion,[10] rose and poppy petals, fucus,[26] red chalk, alkanet, and crocodile dung.
[28] Kohl was the main ingredient in eye makeup, and was composed of ashes or soot and antimony, with saffron usually added to improve the smell.
[7] Wealthy women bought expensive makeup that came in elaborate containers made from gold, wood, glass or bone.
[2] Gladiator sweat and fats of the animals fighting in the arena were sold in souvenir pots outside of the games to improve complexion.
Due to their low income, prostitutes tended to use cheaper cosmetics, which emitted rather foul odors.
Men seen carrying mirrors were viewed as effeminate, while those using face-whitening makeup were thought to be immoral because they were expected to be tanned from working outside.
