Beautiful history is also the history of medicine. In China, as early as the Shang Dynasty, the ancients realized in their life practice that the magical flowers and plants in nature not only can cure diseases, but also are inextricably linked with beauty. At this time, women began to use Yan Di's red and blue flowers to wipe rouge, which made their lips bright. In Zhou Wenwang, women widely use zinc powder to wipe their faces. China's first pharmaceutical monograph, Shennong Materia Medica, lists 365 kinds of drugs, among which dozens of drugs with cosmetic effects are recorded, such as "winter melon seeds are good in color, can replenish qi and not be hungry, and can strengthen the body and resist aging after long-term use", "Angelica dahurica has long skin, moistens skin color and can be used as facial fat" and "Bombyx Batryticatus can eliminate dark spots and make people feel good in color". In addition, the book also describes the beauty functions of more than 20 kinds of foods such as ginger, onion, jujube and sesame.
Huo Qubing defeated Xiongnu in the Western Han Dynasty, and Xiongnu fled to Mobei, leaving a sad song: "If Qilian Mountain is lost, cattle and sheep will be unhappy;" Losing my mountain makes my daughter colorless. "According to later research,' Yan Zhi' means' rouge', which was rich in rouge grass during the Yanshan reign and was used by Xiongnu women to beautify themselves. It can be seen that even in the wilderness, the pursuit of beauty is like misty rain in the south of the Yangtze River.
In addition to rouge, the ancients also pursued skin as white as snow. The "lead flower" in the idiom "Wash all the lead flowers" refers to lead powder. As early as Shang dynasty, lead compounds were found to have whitening effect in China. The ancients burned lead into powder and painted it on the face to whiten it. At all times, the pursuit of beauty comes at a price. We can imagine how many beautiful women with white faces died of lead poisoning. In the picture of heian period's story, the beautiful Ji Wang, just over 40 years old, was burned into a black spot because she used more lead powder. /kloc-in the second half of the 9th century, lead-free white powder was developed in the world. Japan also imported lead-free white powder during Meiji and Taisho periods. 1934, the Japanese government announced the ban on the use of white powder containing lead. Warbler dung has a strong decoloring effect, and many Japanese women use it as a skin whitening agent.
In many cases, health and beauty do not seem to complement each other. Even in today's highly developed medicine, cosmetics are still unsafe. Some cosmetics contain trace amounts of lead and heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic. A research report published by British scientists shows that European women absorb about 2.3 kilograms of chemicals every year on average because of their daily use of cosmetics. Of course, these chemicals bring more than beauty.
Whether it's "the king of Chu starved to death with a thin waist and many palaces" or "the new makeup abandoned the old six palaces and painted black eyebrows", there are always people standing at the forefront of fashion trends from ancient times to now. The latter sentence tells that Yang Guifei switched to ink painting and smoked thrush, and even made indigo and charcoal sticks in the Tang Dynasty sell well. At that time, the court was a fashion trend. The Tang Dynasty is an era when all rivers run into the sea, so everyone is good at chasing the wind. According to research, a kind of "blood dizzy makeup" was very popular in the palace at that time. Paint red and purple at three or four intersections, and then paint it with your fingers until it melts. It looks bloody. It is very popular now. When I arrived at Yuan Zaju, my makeup changed again. "There is no powder on the cheek. The black tone is like lip mud and the eyebrows are low. The round scorpion has no scorpion shape and the red color is not dizzy. " Bai Juyi's "Makeup of the Times" became the fashion release of popular makeup in Yuanhe summer. His face is painted with ochre, his lips are painted with black mud, his eyebrows are painted with eight characters, and his hair looks
Different times have different aesthetics. Yuefu folk song "Shang Mo Sang" says: "A beautiful man has a long beard." Its face is very white and has a slight beard, which is the standard of beautiful men more than two thousand years ago. Someone joked that if Sister Furong crossed the Tang Dynasty, she would be shocked by nature and human beings. It has been proved that the aesthetics of a specific era even changed history. Richard Zach described in the History of Western Civilization that Napoleon suffered from hemorrhoids at the critical moment of the Waterloo War, so he lay in a tent instead of directing the battle at the front. Some nosy people concluded that Napoleon was actually the decisive moment when he was defeated by Paris fashion. Napoleon suffered from hemorrhoids and had to go back to his tent to smoke opium to relieve the pain. Napoleon got hemorrhoids because he liked to wear tight pants at that time. Why does he like tight pants? Because it was very popular then.
In Liu's early novel "Bell and Drum Tower", a beautiful woman in Qing Dynasty was written: "This daughter is very beautiful, which is naturally measured by the aesthetic standards at that time. She has an oval face, slender eyes, a flat nose and a round and white nose. She has an authentic cherry mouth and a little black scorpion on the right side of her chin. " Today, this is certainly not a beauty. Once, someone saw a picture of Qing Guifei, which was disgusting, but she was really a beauty at that time. Blonde hair and blue eyes are ugly, let alone the Qing Dynasty. Even a few decades ago, China people could not accept foreigners. Fox butterfield, an American journalist, recorded a story in his book "China, Free from 10 Catastrophe": when he was traveling in a provincial capital in central China, boat people along the river saw him at first sight. They lay in the cabin in fear, thinking they had caught a ghost.
In today's world, although there are some primitive tribes whose beauty lies in their long necks, they don't hesitate to wear layers of collars to make their necks incongruous with their bodies, or their mouths beautiful, and even fix a big pot on their tongues to make their mouths bigger. But most places are based on the aesthetic standards of Europe and America. If nothing else, it is said that the real estate in every city in China is now fighting for a foreign name. Now, Lin Daiyu and Marilyn Monroe are one, whose beauty do China people appreciate more? Silence, depression