In the daily life of the Song people, elegance was commonplace. No dynasty understood life and beauty better than the Song Dynasty. As Mr. Chen Yinke said, "The culture of the Chinese nation has evolved for thousands of years and reached its peak in the Zhao Song Dynasty." Travel through thousands of years and enter the elegant life of the Song people.

Take a look at what cosmetics are on the dressing table of the "goddess" of the Song Dynasty?

Song Dynasty ladies' dressing box

There are combs, brushes, makeup mirrors, and white porcelain makeup boxes.

In March, when the weather is bright and beautiful, beauties are like paintings. They are "pretty as peaches in spring, and pure as chrysanthemums in autumn." Everyone loves beauty. In the Song Dynasty, women's makeup advocated fresh, elegant and natural charm.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, the women in Lin'an pursued fashion and beauty in all aspects. Not only in clothing, but also in a wide range of cosmetics: foundation, eyebrow ink, rouge, lipstick, perfume... and even nail polish. It can be said that everything is available!

Foundation

The lead powder in the Song Dynasty was a must-have cosmetic for women at that time.

Lead powder was the base makeup they used at that time, also called lead powder or rice powder, similar to the foundation and setting powder we use now. Lead powder was widely used at that time, even many men would use it, and people even used "lead powder" to refer to makeup.

A famous cosmeceutical product in the Song Dynasty: Jade Girl Peach Blossom Powder. Frequent use of this powder can make the skin smooth and the complexion as pink as peach blossom.

Wang Shen of the Song Dynasty: "Embroidered Mirror in the Morning"

Eyebrow Ink

In the Song Dynasty, women used special "eyebrow ink" to draw eyebrows. This kind of eyebrow ink is a kind of smoke ink. Chen Yuanliang of the Southern Song Dynasty recorded the production method of smoke ink in "Shilin Guangji", which shows that its production process is complicated.

In ancient times, eyebrows were more important than eye makeup. Yan Jidao of the Song Dynasty described it in "Liu Mo Ling": "In the evening, the green eyebrows are like the palace, and they are cleverly imitating the distant mountains." Song women had to shave their eyebrows before drawing their eyebrows, and then use eyebrow ink to carefully draw the eyebrow shape they liked.

rouge

Rouge was also a cosmetic that women in the Song Dynasty could not live without. Rouge was made from the raw materials of safflower: "The juice of safflower was condensed into rouge, which was produced in the State of Yan, so it was called rouge."

People in the Song Dynasty also used the secretions of the plant "Zimai" to make high-quality rouge.

Lipstick

There is a Song Dynasty poem that goes like this: "When applying makeup in the morning, I often see the fragrance of face powder blended with lip balm." The "lip balm" here refers to lipstick.

The lip balm used by the Song people was generally in the form of paste or tubes - similar to today's lipstick. The raw materials of this lip balm are mainly beeswax, dyed with lithospermum and cinnabar, and made with small bamboo slips as molds. The lip balm is in the form of round strips, which can be put into a cylinder and used.

The lip balm of women in the Song Dynasty also added spices, so the lip prints they left behind were also fragrant.

perfume

How could the Song people, who loved perfume so much, live without fragrance? Perfume was also a favorite item in the dressing boxes of Song women. "The reflection outside the glass bottle is clear, and the fragrance can be smelled without waiting for the wax seal to be opened." The glass bottle in the poem is obviously a perfume bottle.

Perfumes popular in the Song Dynasty were usually called "rose water", and the best quality rose water was imported from the Kingdom of Daqin. The Song people also mastered the technology of refining perfume: high-temperature distillation, taking the distillate and "sealing it in porcelain, the fragrance is the best", and it seems that the quality is not inferior to imported perfume.

Nail Polish

Women in the Song Dynasty were already well versed in nail art, and often spared no time to decorate their nails to increase their feminine charm. At that time, it was customary to dye their nails with Impatiens balsamina, which was called "Golden Phoenix Dyeing Fingers".

Zhou Mi's "Guixin Miscellaneous Notes" in the Southern Song Dynasty recorded this method in detail: "For the red Impatiens flowers, crush the leaves and add a little alum... Wrap it with a piece of silk and leave overnight. The initial dyeing is light, but after dyeing three or five times, the color will be like rouge and cannot be washed off..." By dyeing their fingers with Impatiens flowers, it seems that the love of flowers by women in Lin'an City of the Southern Song Dynasty had already penetrated to their fingertips.

On the dressing table of women in the Song Dynasty, there were bronze mirrors, combs, brushes, flower ornaments, hairpins for dressing up, a small knife for shaving eyebrows, small scissors for trimming nails... everything for them.

Through a small dressing table, we can get a glimpse of the pursuit and yearning for a better life of women thousands of years ago. And these exquisite cosmetics allow the "goddesses" of the Song Dynasty, who are lost in time, to still smile sweetly in the scroll of history.