Eyeliner in Review

In the past I have shopped at a little makeup store here in the Gulf called Mikyajy and was not impressed what so ever with the products I bought. They did not apply well or last so I just never shopped from them again. This past weekend I thought I would take a stroll through the store and just look at the new products they had on display and found a new line called 22K. The dazzling shimmer eyeliners immediately caught my eye so I thought I would buy one, try it and see what I thought.

Today I remembered that I had bought the product so I retrieved my purse and removed the eyeliner from the shiny black box it came in. I applied it to my upper and lower eyes and was really impressed. With this liner you have no need to wear both liner and shadow. It looks stunning and last all day. I bought the jazzy jade and I plan to go back and get the remaining colors, this are just perfect for any woman. And what a steal at only sr50.

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White Skin

{image via GettyImages}

Having light white skin has been a sign of beauty with women all over the world as far as time dates back. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth a pale skin showed that you were rich and did not need to work outside in the sun. Richer women made their cheeks pink with rouge, painted their lips red, dyed their hair fair and made sure their teeth appeared white. To achieve pale skin, they used a paste of white vinegar lead and vinegar called ceruse. Of course lead is highly poisonous just like the products they used to dye their hair.

During the Renaissance, alabaster skin was the look du jour. The paler your skin, the more beautiful and healthy looking you were considered. If a woman was not naturally blessed with pale skin, there were a variety of ways by which they could achieve this look. One beauty routine developed to really enhance that pale effect was to first apply raw eggs to the face as a primer. Next, lead and vinegar were mixed together to make a thick, ceruse-colored foundation which was applied liberally to the face and neck. If they really wanted to have that dead or statue look, ladies would use blue paint and a thin brush to apply thin veins to the forehead and breasts!

Another Renaissance beauty trick was to apply leeches to the ears. The leeches would drain the blood from the head, giving them that much desired paleness. This practice was actually healthier than most of the other methods used! But something that was not so healthy was that women would also slash their veins in order to drain blood so they could have the pale dead look.

Late in the Italian Renaissance, around the time of the English Renaissance, an Italian woman named Signora Toffana took the concept of pale skin to a new high - or low. She developed a special face powder, made from arsenic, that she not only urged women to use to achieve that desired corpse-like complexion, but to especially wear it around their husbands. This arsenic powder is said to have resulted in the death of some 600 husbands! Eventually, Signora Toffana was arrested and executed for causing these deaths. Women in this period were also known to use pigeon poop all over their faces which is a method that Geishas in Asia use today.

The ancient Greek women would paint their faces with chalk but it would tend to rub off easily so olive oil was also applied to give a shiny look. In China and Japan women have always longed to be white and I remember hearing a quote on a CNN story that covered a story in Hong Kong over the obsession with white skin in the country which was something along the lines of a white face would cover up even the ugliest face. Decades ago the Chinese ground pearl from seashells into powder and swallowed it to whiten their skin.

Even here in Saudi Arabia when I visit the stores the shelves are filled with whitening creams and you always see tons of women looking through them. It was not even long ago that mercury which is extremely poisonous was used in all of these creams. Doctors say that the more effective a cream is the less safe it is as well.I personally do not understand it but then again I also have really pale skin.

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Font Friday

I love this Custom Rook font for this week’s font of choice. It’s kind of a playful font that has an old school look about it something that you can really appreciate. 

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Sexy Thursday

{via Rene' Gruau and Mrs. Lilien}

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