Sugarflick
3500 years of removing body Hair
A Sunday at the Louvre
Last Sunday I was in Paris and visiting the Louvre. I have always loved history, particularly anything regarding Egypt; they were so advanced for their time. I came across a full Egyptian beauty kit on display there, and I had to share this with you all.
The tweezers and mirror
The daily lives of the Ancient Egyptians is on display in the Louvre, and wow, it is truly fantastic. I was looking at 4 bronze tweezers dating back to around 1500 BC. They sat mounted alongside a bronze mirror with a handle shaped like a papyrus stem; on top sat the face of the Goddess Hathor.
We are still using the same items today|1000’s of years on and we are still using the same contraptions. I stood staring through the glass at many Egyptians’ beauty kits; it was fascinating. There was make-up, an oil holder and many mirrors, all so well preserved. Crafted so long ago, yet many items are still intact. Unlike many things today that don’t even last a month.
The Egyptian original beauty kit
There was also eye kohl holders, which archaeologists have found in tombs of every social class and report that it was a daily ritual. Black was worn around the eyes for protection in the underworld; green was connected to fertility. We have all seen the dramatic black eyeliner on hieroglyphs, and their personal toiletry kits were buried with the owners.
Do any of us believe in life after death? Well, these folk sure did and wanted to keep up appearances when they got there. Archaeologists found these tools buried with their owners amongst the treasures, in many tombs. The top image shows what looks like a holder for body oil; just look at the craftsmanship here, standing the test of time.
Bronze tweezers were very common
The tweezers themselves are clever: a single strip of bronze, bent in half, and the metal’s own spring tension holds the jaws together. No hinge, no moving parts, just good old metalwork. Craftsmen chose bronze because it could hold a shape and an edge. Egyptian razors from the same period also used the same method. Their obsession with hair removal wasn’t casual.
Egyptian priests had to be completely hairless as a matter of ritual purity. They shaved or plucked their entire bodies regularly. For everyone else, a smooth, hairless body was tied up with ideas of cleanliness and beauty, not so different from the standard a lot of us hold today.
This brings me to a subject that sent me right down the rabbit hole: the origins of removing hair with sugar. We have all been taught that body sugaring originates from Egypt, the “Ancient art of hair removal”. Mmmmmm, I have discovered something different…
That is a blog post for another day!