Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Skincare ancient Egyptian style
by Hedvig E. Jeney
Human nature: if you place a mirror in front of any of us, you’ll see that sooner or later, we will take a peek or a more extended look at it without even noticing. Our images on a shiny surface have fascinated humankind since the earliest ages. A glance in the morning can show you what the daily stress and the winter in South Sinai can cause to your skin and body. But did you know that you could spend a spa day in ancient Egyptian style at home and feel like a beautiful queen?
Mastering the art of beauty and splendour, the ancient Egyptians took pride in their attractiveness and devoted much time to maintaining their appearance. They were known for their passion for magnificent beauty, exotic perfumes, beautiful clothes, and intricate hairstyles.
One wouldn’t think that we can find all the ingredients to spend a day with the wisdom of the ancients. All you have to do is walk down to a local market, pass by the pharmacies or supermarkets, and find the simple but very efficient products right at your hand and available to everyone.
If you wish, I’ll take you on a journey to enhance your beauty and shine like an ancient queen.
The Secret of Cleopatra
The famous queen was known to bathe in milk and honey. Run yourself a nice warm bath and put two cups of whole milk and a splash of honey in the water. The milk has lactic acid, which helps to lightly exfoliate and nourish your skin - allowing it to hold its hydration. Honey has natural antibacterial properties and helps the skin retain its original moisture. So, you’re removing the rough layer of dead skin, hydrating and nourishing the skin, all in one relaxing bath.
The ancient Egyptians knew the process of making soaps. An unclean body and unpleasant odors were considered undesirable and impure. But the soaps they used were unlike the bars or body washes we use today. Many of these detergents were a paste of ash or clay mixed with olive oil and scented with perfume. Their technique resulted in a material that cleaned the body and soothed any skin disease or damage.
You may want to treat your skin with a mineral clay wrap. You can find many products for this in the pharmacies, maybe choose one which contains the salts of the Dead Sea. The naturally found clays and minerals absorb into the skin, directly receiving their beneficial properties.
Remove all that is unnecessary
Body hair was considered unsightly, and its removal was essential to Egyptian women. You should use the so-called “Sugar” to follow their ways in modern days. The ancient Egyptian art of body sugaring is a homemade alternative to waxing. It removes the body hair from the root and gives a lesser chance for regrowth. It is simple to make a paste of sugar, water, and lemon juice heated to a softball candy stage. Most find sugaring less painful than waxing. You can find this readymade in the pharmacies.
You can choose hair removal by threading, also called the “Fatlah” in Arabic. A thin, cotton thread specially designed for threading is doubled and twisted. It is then rolled over the face, plucking the undesired hair at the follicle level. Threading can precisely remove lines of hair. When done professionally, it’s quick and painless. Although it may be best to ask someone to do this for you, many spas and esthetics offer this service.
Treat your body with oils
The scorching sun and the sand the wind carried at all times in ancient Egypt constantly resulted in dry skin, burns and infections, just like today. Body oils, mostly olive oil, were central to their well-being, and both men and women used it as a natural moisturizer to protect their skin. It was actually part of the workers’ wages. Sometimes people used honey on their skin for its fragrance and hydrating ability. Men brushed certain oils on their heads to stimulate hair growth or ward off baldness, which is not so different from today!
Bottle and lid with the name of Thutmose III.
Metropolitan Museum - New York
Although oils were also necessary for day-to-day living in ancient times, but they became luxury items once fragrances were added. The scents came from different sources, but mostly from flowers. The most valuable oils were those blended with the tiny but potent drops of essences the Egyptians squeezed out of flowers. Today, you can find these scented oils as natural products in shops.
A little body art
Henna not only decorated the nails and hair of the members of the ancient Egyptian royalty but also conditioned them through its medicinal properties. Although physically, Egyptians felt henna improved the quality of their hair and nails, spiritually, they believed henna provided good fortune. People use henna even today in many ways, for semi-permanent tattoos, hair dye and ceremonies, like the henna ritual for brides in many cultures. In ancient Egypt, men and women used henna to color their lips a deep red. Even today, many cosmetics companies produce henna-based lipsticks.
Henna is a natural colorant made from the dried leaves of a plant called Lawsonia inermis. The leaves originally are green, but after drying and crushing, they turn into a deep orange-red powder. Some varieties of henna are black because they contain iron. When the powder is mixed with water, it creates a cream that is easy to apply. Henna leaves an impermanent stain on the skin or hair that lasts a few weeks before fading. You can buy many products all over Egypt to achieve even semi-permanent tattoos for your skin. It will stain the orange/red/brown range. However, the exact shade can vary. Darkness varies with each person’s body chemistry, the area of the body chosen, and the length of time the paste remained in contact with the skin.
Two women are shown pressing the blossoms from the white water lily to extract its oil for susinum, a lily-based perfume.
(Late to Ptolemaic Periods, c. 350 BC – Musée du Louvre,
Perfumes and fragrances
Egypt has always been rich in fragrances. In ancient times they used the scented flowers along the Nile and imported oils and tree resins from other countries to create perfumes. As a carrier for the scents, they used almond oil mixed with frankincense and myrrh. The principal ingredients in most of their perfumes were lavender, lily, myrrh, thyme, marjoram, chamomile, peppermint, rosemary, cedar, rose, aloe, olive oil, sesame and almond oil. These perfumes were also an additive to a hot bath, as flowers like jasmine, gardenia, hibiscus, magnolia, and rose. All these, with wide other varieties as your taste wishes, are available in the perfume oil shops in Egypt.
The signs of time on your face
Another beauty secret of this ancient civilization is reportedly a mixture of oil and lime. There were jars of creams in the ancient Egyptian tombs, which were thought to be used as a cleansing cream. The oil would be hydrating (obviously, try using a lighter oil like grapeseed). Lime would be a natural exfoliant, removing dead skin cells and impurities while keeping the skin well hydrated.
Use 1 tsp sweet almond oil, 2 drops of frankincense essential oil, or rose essence. If you mix these ingredients, you will have an excellent anti-wrinkle cream. Cleanse your face and apply this to your face at night. Massage it in your skin gently for about 5 minutes, and wash it off the next morning.
Applying fresh ripe avocado to the face was not uncommon. Leaving avocado slices on for 20 minutes could reduce eye puffiness. Another treasured substance was Aloe Vera, used for smoothening skin and healing minor cuts and burns.
For your hair
We have mentioned henna as a natural colour for your hair, available in many shops dealing with natural products. An ancient queen’s hair was cleansed with coconut milk or warm extra virgin olive oil to strengthen and condition it. Amazingly, even then, hair extensions were used for volume, applied by using beeswax and resin. Egyptologists at the University of Manchester have discovered a gel-like substance used to hold hair in elaborate styles in mummies over 3,000 years old. Further analysis of this “gel” revealed that it was mainly composed of fats of coconut oil and butter scented with perfume. They also discovered what could be called “curling tongs” next to the bodies, probably used to hold the hair in place while the gel was applied - as the gel solidified, it held the curls in place.
A statue of Maya and Merit displayed in part in the permanent Egyptian collection at the National Museum of Antiquities or Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, Netherlands
Beauty was essential to the ancient Egyptians, and it’s particularly interesting for their use of makeup. The archaeologists found small clay pots containing residues of colours in even the humblest tombs. The makeup was common in Egyptian society. The difference in wealth was the containers the Egyptians kept them. Besides the stunning looks, their makeup also served another purpose. The Egyptians crushed to powder a blue-grey ore called galena (today, we call it kohl), coming from the mines of Upper Egypt or the coasts of the Sinai Peninsula. Then they mixed the powder with animal fat and created the black eye paint we see today on all their tomb paintings and statues. The dark lines around the eyes helped protect them from the sun and expelled insects. The green eyeshadows came from malachite (an emerald-coloured mineral) powder; today, we know it helped to protect their eyes from infections. If you want to create the makeup of the ancient Egyptian queens today, you can find many kinds of green eyeshadows in the beauty shops, and real kohl you can still buy anywhere in Egypt.
Highlight your beauty with makeup
Hathor-shaped mirror (18th dynasy) Metropolitan Museum, New York
Cosmetic Box of the Royal Butler Kemeni
ca. 1805 B.C.
Metropolitan Museum, New York
After all this, dress in a simple white linen or cotton dress, and now you are ready to receive your admirers. They will be thrilled to see you with soft skin, a hint of lotus fragrance, lush and shining hair and a beautiful face.
And now, please tell me. How does it feel to be like an ancient Egyptian queen?