From the Days of Our Mother Eve

Woman has been woman from all eternity, and her passion for adornment and elegance is ancient, going back to the days of our mother Eve... The old Egyptian pictures and statues and the papyrus scrolls reveal how deeply versed the women of the Pharaohs were in the arts of adornment... And the old Pharaonic songs are filled with mention of perfumes, scents, and precious oils, which were an important and indispensable element of daily life...

Here is a Pharaonic song that says: 'When I move to embrace my beloved, and her arms open at my coming... then I feel as though all the perfumes of the world were pouring over my body and anointing it.'

And when the king — or the queen — wished to show honor to some person at one of the festivities, he would command the men of his court to anoint that person's body with scents...

As for the mirror — woman's eternal companion — the women of the Pharaohs used to keep dozens of them... The mirrors were made of polished metal, and their handles of ivory...

It is recorded in the various papyri that the care of the ancient Egyptian woman was bent upon showing off the kohl in her eyes; then she would sit with her maid before a great mirror, and before her lay necklaces of different kinds, their beads of quartz or carnelian... and bracelets and combs of ivory, mother-of-pearl, gold, and turquoise... The prevailing fashion of hairdressing did not differ greatly from the modern fashion... and most often a ribbon ornamented with flowers and small precious stones would be wound about the hair, after it had been plaited and gathered up upon the head...

And perhaps the modern age has not added very much to the Pharaonic art of beautification: the humblest woman of the Pharaonic people knew how to pencil her eyebrows, to anoint her hair, her face, her neck, and her bosom with scent and perfume, and to beautify her lips and cheeks with a red powder that completed her adornment...

The ancient Egyptian woman is the inventor of dyeing the fingers and hands with henna and the like... Hers is the greatest credit for the invention of gold rings whose stones are of lapis lazuli, carnelian, or turquoise... and of gloves made of cloth, ornamented and colored, ending in ribbons that tie them at the edges...

As for the clothes of the Pharaonic woman, they were, for all their simplicity, beautiful and splendid, bespeaking a sound taste and a knowledge of the secret of beauty...

— 'Akher Saa'