Similarities Between Ancient Greek And Roman Women

Ancient Greek and Roman (1,000 BC – 100AD)
Aphrodite (Venus), the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation
The Noble ancient Greek and Roman people, Pale skin, free from blemishes. Noble women stayed indoors to prevent them from developing a tan – which only the poor, lower classed women and men had from working outdoors. Lead and chalk to lighten skin. Lead = infertility, insanity and lead poisoning leading to death.
Perfumes made of roses, violets, lillies herbs used ointments and oils to mix = for todays equivalent of aromatherapy (healing and therapeutic properties of plants and herbs)
Baths, for keeping away disease and to cure diseases. Bathe in waters infused with perfumes, aromatic oils – much like our use of essential
The women of this era wore wigs and tweezed their hairline back for the appearance of a higher forehead. Knowledge of chemicals back in this time period was very minimal. Poisonous plants (deadly nightshade) were used to create eye drops to make pupils appear more dilated, kohl was applied to lashes. (Cressy, 2010). Women would use a white powder, called Venetian ceruse which was made out of lead, carbonates and hydroxides. Vermillion was used to paint their lips red. Heavy, elaborate makeup in this era was indicative of nobility as the lower classed citizens couldn’t afford to buy the cosmetics which were used to create the look of the time. As time progressed however, the products used on the face were beginning to be associated with disease and death. Lack of hygiene and cleanliness led to outbreaks of plagues and smallpox, leaving those who had survived with terrible scars on their faces. Disease struck the rich and the poor, however the rich had the money to buy the products that would disguise the scars and alike on their skin. Doctors of this era started to discover that the lead powder used to whiten faces was not as safe as they had thought. As it was so hard to remove from the skin, women then just began to layer up the white powder over the old powder, leaving the real skin underneath a grey shade. When the woman did decide to remove the powder, they would have to do so with red wine, urine and donkeys milk as water alone was not enough to remove the caked on powder. Mercury was also used as a method to remove blemishes and scars left behind, unfortunately in doing that, it corroded the skin and caused more scars that were worse than the ones previously removed.