China's beauty records began in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. "Songs of the South" said: "White and black, sweet lips." It shows that ancient women used to wear decorative eyebrows and beautify their lips with fragrant and bright pigments.
In ancient China, lipstick was also called rouge. For example, in A Dream of Red Mansions, Jia Baoyu loves to eat the rouge on the girl's mouth, which actually refers to lipstick. "Rouge" can also be written in classical Chinese as "(Moon Swallow) Branch" and "Swallow Branch". According to the literature, lipstick and rouge were used around 1320 BC. According to China's Notes on Ancient and Modern Times, rouge "starts from the mouth and condenses into branches, red and blue." ; Han Feizi's Xue Ji: "Therefore, it is not good for us to apply the beauty of buttercup noodles, but it is twice as good as using fat and powder." There were some special terms such as "makeup spot", "powder makeup" and "makeup" in Han Dynasty.
The "fat" and "dot" here actually refer to lipstick.
Mouth red makeup in Tang Dynasty began to develop in the direction of shaping and beautifying the image, and initially formed the artistry of mouth red makeup. Princess Yongle, the daughter of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, personally made all kinds of cosmetics, and also specially opened up a garden to grow all kinds of spices and fragrant flowers. Among them, there are only twenty or thirty kinds of plants that make rouge and lipstick. It shows that the technology of making lipstick in Tang dynasty in China has tended to be perfect and diversified.
With the development of history, cosmetics represented by lipstick have penetrated into our daily life. Everyone uses it every day and keeps using it for a long time. From the origin of cosmetics, we can see that beauty modification is an instinctive desire of human beings and a symbol of cultural development. Not only women, children but also men use cosmetics. The age range of people who use lipstick is also gradually expanding. It can be said that the social and cultural significance of lipstick is becoming more and more important.
Lipstick, not only accompanied by the history of women, but also gradually entered the history of all mankind. Because men, women and children should have a healthy lip. The diversified development trend of lipstick fully reflects people's demand for health and beauty.
Any process of scientific and technological development, like the process of human cognition, will inevitably go through a long regression cycle of "from simple to complex and then back to simple". The ultimate sign of maturity is the combination of reason and intuition, the unity of science and technology and art, and the realization of harmony, conciseness and randomness. The same is true of the cultural development history of lipstick in the world. It will be introduced in detail below.
Historical traces of lipstick in China;
(1) China's products are decorated in red.
Blush and lipstick, whether in the East or the West, were not strictly distinguished at first, so in China, before the Han Dynasty, women's red makeup was mostly used for makeup and lip painting.
(1) Wodan, Sumu and Zikuang
Red as a decorative color began in the era of Neanderthals. Archaeologists found all kinds of stones, bones and shellfish ornaments dyed red by hematite powder in the remains of cavemen. Later, the red and black content in painted pottery culture was extremely rich, and it developed into dyeing cloth. By the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, red dyes had developed into many colors, such as source (light crimson), (red), smoked (light red), vermilion (deep red) and blue-red, and obtained the range of red pigments. Roses and so on.
Cinnabar, also known as Dan, is a dance. There is a phrase "Yan Ruwu" in the Book of Songs Qin Feng Zhongnan, and there is also a phrase "He is like a lock" in Gaopian. Han Liuxi further said in Ming Jie: "Lip fat is Dan. Visible cinnabar makeup and lip function. From the earliest appearance of cinnabar in the Book of Songs to the definition of cinnabar in Ming Shi, taking into account the oily cinnabar paste in lacquerware unearthed by archaeologists in Han tombs in Haizhou, Jiangsu and Changsha, Hunan in recent years, and the introduction of the method of making cinnabar lip grease in Qi Yaomin's Book by Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei Dynasty, it can be inferred that cinnabar was one of the main raw materials for women's jewelry for a long period of time. According to Kao Zhan's report, although these cinnabar ointments were buried underground for two thousand years, they were still red when they were unearthed. According to Qi Yaomin's Book, cinnabar paste is made by mixing and decocting oily raw materials such as butter or pith, clove, agastache wine and green oil, and adding fine cinnabar powder to coagulate into red grease, which can be used for decoration.
In addition to cinnabar, there is also a peculiar "purple mine", which was used by the ancients as a material for making rouge. This kind of purple ore is actually non-mineral and quite coral-like. Amin Li Shizhen said: "The purple mine started in the south, and the fine worms are the branches of ant lice ... Today, Wu people use rouge." Purple ore is composed of the secretion of lac insect (an ant louse). This kind of insect is born in trees, and its secretion is purple and resinous, which is very beautiful and can be used as a colorant. China, Yunnan, Tibet, Taiwan Province and other places. In ancient times, it was included in the tribute together with ivory and frankincense, so it was not popular among the people.