d did you know?
From the iconic white makeup of the Japanese geisha to the intricate patterns of scars marking the body of women from parts of Africa, every culture has a markedly different expression of female beauty. While many may be familiar with the general body decoration associated with various cultures, there are often little-known facts about each tradition that speak of the long history and complex social rules of each culture involved.
Geisha makeup
Women now may use a barrage of beauty products including foundation primers, eyelash curlers, bronzers, shimmers and gloss to achieve a 'natural look'. Japanese geisha (above), however, opt to look deliberately artificial, alluding to their natural beauty with heavy makeup while leaving a line of bare skin around the hairline so that, as author Arthur Golden noted in Memoirs of a Geisha, when a man 'sees the makeup like a mask, he becomes that much more aware of her bare skin underneath'.
Another interesting beauty ritual would be a Japanese woman's dental practice in the 18th century. Now, when our bathroom cabinets are stocked with whitening toothpaste and our purses with whitening chewing gum, it can be hard to come to terms with the idea that some Japanese women used to dye their teeth black. Called ohaguro (black teeth), the effect was accomplished by colouring teeth with a dye made with a solution of iron soaked in tea or sake.
Indian henna application