The great moralist Tertullian called women "the devil's gate." Golden hair was now covered with a white kerchief, and the wigs were banned - God's blessing did not condescend through other people's hair. At these times, the black hair color became the women's favorite. To achieve it, used fantastic and killer stinky recipes. One of them prescribed to cook in the oil on low fire the blood of a black bull, the shell of a turtle and the neck of a strange bird, a gaggoo. Another 60 days in vinegar, together with different plants of black leeches, until they completely dissolve. At the same time, barbers advised clients during the painting of hair to keep butter in their mouths - so as not to talk too much and not even paint their teeth. And women for the sake of a wonderful transformation were ready for anything! The formula of ideal beauty is opened - about it in the article.
The revenge of the brunette
In the Middle Ages, cosmetics was in the top - thanks to flourishing alchemy, black magic and magic. Recipes using snake and feline fats, raven eggs, donkey hooves and other exotic ingredients were kept in the strictest secrecy. Widely used folk remedies: hair colors from wiped berries, wood ash and squeezed various herbs. The hair was powdered with vegetable powders, and so that the "pollen" did not crumble, the hair was carefully greased - but over time, the fat began to grow stale, this all the charm ended ... And the men shared themselves between "earthly" love and platonic worship to the lady of the heart. It is interesting that from the early Middle Ages of the Middle Ages no, even literary evidence of normal - emotional and physical - love between a man and a woman has survived. Maybe it was not there. Love and marriage were strictly divided: marriage - pure trade, love - pure poetry. In the XII century a special model of love emerged - amour courtois, courtly, or chivalrous love. Its essence: the court knight, the poet-troubadour (southern France) or Minnesinger (Germany), the song proved his love for a beautiful lady, certainly married. Perfect love was unhappy - otherwise what's special if the lady is available! The brunettes were virtually ignored - all the ardor was meant for blondes. The hair of a beautiful lady has always been "golden," her face is "white as a lily," her lips are "rosy like a rose." And in the famous knightly novel "Tristan and Isolde" the main character is tossed between two Isolde - a wedded Beloruka and beloved Belokura. But how long could a healthy man, without losing enthusiasm, ignore the call of the flesh, standing under the balcony of an unattainable beauty? His erotic fantasies were skillfully performed by terrestrial girls - burning brunettes, who gave men a passion, and did not dream of pale countesses. Dark hair became a powerful erotic signal: they symbolized the most secret place of the female body - pubis. But the red-haired people walked along the very edge of the blade - the fiery hair meant a dirty trick, so their owner was often burned at the stake like a witch. In the painting of that time, sinners and women with a strong-willed character were portrayed as red-haired.
The birth of a blonde
The concept of "blond" appeared during the Renaissance: for the first time in writing, the word was mentioned in England in 1481 and denoted the tone "between golden and light chestnut". In the era of Elizabeth I in England, makeup was loved. In honor was the royal standard: a high forehead, a face white with chalk, fiery red hair, pink lips. For the sake of beauty, women went to hell's sacrifices, sometimes risking their lives. Eyelashes were painted with coal tar, which spoiled the vision and could even lead to blindness. The face and the decollete zone were smeared with poisonous lead white and mercury paste. Consequences were tooth loss, corroded skin, sickness and slow death - poisonous substances entered the blood. Some, however, acted smarter: to give the skin whiteness, they just regularly caused vomiting. Here is the characteristic magical recipe of the 16th century: "Take the white pigeons and feed them for 15 days only with pine seeds; then zabey, their internal organs mix with the crumb of white bread, soaked in almond milk, add 400 grams of veal brains and melted pig fat. This mixture is cooked over low heat - you will get a wonderful face cream. " The Renaissance brought a wind of change. The fashion included various shades of red. Botticelli embodied the ideal of reddish-blond beauty in the canvas "The Birth of Venus", depicting the first beauty of Florence, Simonetta Vespucci. The return of the goddess of love and beauty of Venus became symbolic - a woman descended from the transcendental heights of platonic worship to the earth, gaining flesh and blood. While Petrarch persistently worshiped the inaccessible golden-haired Laura, his friend Giovanni Boccaccio erected a monument to his sensual, unconcealed lust for his "Decameron."
The phenomenon of "dark beauty"
At the court of Louis XIV, annually, up to two million jars of every make-up were emptied. In the Baroque era, only wigs were painted, and hair, like in the Middle Ages, was pampered and generously powdered. To muffle the unbearable stink, a nutmeg was added to the powder. The culmination all this decoration reached in the Rococo era, which is considered the time of the birth of romantic love. However, the heyday of the era coincided in France with a crop failure, and in Paris, not only baked cookies, but also the powdering of wigs with flour were banned. Then the plaster powder was used. And the ladies continued to disfigure the skin with poisonous ointments and pastes from mercury and lead white. But the English gentlemen treated the artificial beauty severely, and in 1779 the law was issued: "A woman of any age, whether she is a girl, a married woman or a widow who, with the help of perfumes, ointment, blush, high heels or crinoline, will embellish the given to her from above is sued for sorcery, and her marriage will be annulled. " At the end of the XVIII century, the great enlightener Jean-Jacques Rousseau urged contemporaries to return from the pretentious life of palaces and courtyards to virgin nature. He taught: a real, happy man lives not in powdered Versailles, but in the corners of nature untouched by civilization, far away from the lands, in the shade of palms. Seaports have already discovered these heavenly places - exotic islands, for example Tahiti, to whose shores in 1788 the legendary British sailboat Bounty came. There, the English sailors were subdued by the natural sexuality of the black skinned, graceful flowers - and a dream of "dark beauty" was brought to Europe. And now Lord Byron sings in his poems "Tahitian Venus."
Explosion of sex bombs
- Female experiments on themselves continued. For example, an effective bleach such as magnesia bisulphate or a lime mixture was taken - despite the author's warnings that such "lotions" can eat not only the hair color, but also the hair, the scalp and even the brain. The bravest experienced mixtures of gold and arsenic or cadmium - which often led to a lethal outcome. Then came the theory: the dark color of the hair is caused by excess iron in the body, it is to neutralize it with acid - and you are a blonde! The ladies were advised to dilute the oxalic acid with water and drink until the acid "reaches the skin". End of all this barbarity put the invention of hydrogen peroxide. In 1870, for the first time with her help, successfully brightened hair, having realized the dream of millions of women - quickly and easily become a blonde without harming health and life. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new feminine type came into fashion - a young, free, defiantly sexual, emancipated to the marrow of a woman. And there where sex - there blondes. Idols of the 30s were the Hollywood femmes fatales - the cold Marlene Dietrich and the hot Mae West (debuting on screen at the age of 39!). Soon burst the sex bomb Jane Mansfield - and the era of dazzling pergidrill blondes. In 1925, an emancipated brunette - American writer and screenwriter Anita Luz, released an ironic book "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", in which the famous Hollywood musical with Jane Russell was cast in 1953 as a brunette and Marilyn Monroe as a blonde. The painting had a phenomenal success, and she made happy the traders of perhydrol. And Monroe's image of a huntress for millionaires became a turning point for the entire blond culture. The most widespread stereotype of the blonde was born: charmingly naive, sexy creature, whose best friends are diamonds, and the blue dream is to ring the millionaire. Since that time, a popular anecdotal image has come into use. However, now, it seems, this image comes to an end: the blond fool is replaced by an ambitious "blonde in the law". In her heart she is red. A few years ago there was a bad news: the natural blondes are irretrievably dying out. Predicted that in 2200 somewhere in Scandinavia, where 80 percent of all blond people of the planet live, the last on earth natural blonde will be born. But there is good news: while there is hydrogen, blondes will not go anywhere!