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Monday 12 January 2015

Eyeliner

Eyeliner first arrived on the scene around 10,000 B.C in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Back then, men also applied it to enhance their looks, accenting their eyes with a heavy, black color, too.

Its original function was more than just making your eyes look big and bright. It was intended to protect eyes from the sun god, as well as to ward of the "evil eye."

Ancient Egyptian women and men wearing kohl eyeliner, from the tomb of Nakht in Thebes (15th century BC).

The lead ions in Ancient Egyptian eyeliner helped produce nitric oxide, which killed bacteria before they could infect the eyes.

Cleopatra wore kohl, an eyeliner made up of ground up minerals, which gave it a smokier appearance rather than the smooth style we're used to.

After the fall of Egypt eyeliners fell out of the fashion in Europe, having little or moderate use during the reign of Greek and Roman empires.

In Asia, eyeliners remained in use, but they did not manage to influence European fashion after it came out from Dark ages into Renaissance and modern age.

Before the 1920s it was social suicide for respectable Western women to wear make-up. The eyeliner was associated with actresses and prostitutes. Thanks to the female longing to imitate the dream images of glamorous movie stars, such cosmetic use became acceptable.


Another reason why eyeliner became popular again was the discovery in 1922 of King Tutankhamun's tomb in a highly-publicized excavation by archaeologists.

Liquid eyeliner was invented in the 1960's when cat-eyeliner became popular.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, heavy eyeliner use has been associated with Gothic fashion and Punk fashion.

There are currently five types of eyeliners; powder-based pencils, wax-based pencils, gel, sheer and Kohl.

Source Good Housekeeping

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