Ancient cosmetic tribulations
Museums are stuffed full with make-up palettes and tools of the past that women used to maintain their look with artificial goodies. But because the museums of the world are skewed towards the ancient classical cultures of the Mediterranean, we’re getting a skewed view of the history of make-up. It actually wasn’t very popular anywhere else—using make-up was a sure sign you were a massive floozy. The rest of Europe wasn’t in on the make-up trend until Queen Elizabeth I started painting her face white. And even then, that was a limited use of whole face paint and powder—anything else was rare and rather scandalous. Even our current Queen Elizabeth doesn’t deal in macquillage lest her subjects think she’s slutty.
