Fact or Fiction: The History of Makeup
Estimated Completion Time 3 min
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About This Quiz
This might be stating the obvious, but makeup sure has come a long way since the days of ancient Egypt. You might be shocked at what women do in the name of beauty today. Test your knowledge with this history of makeup quiz.
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The ancient Egyptians made their makeup out of sand mixed with ink.
almost fact: They used sand mixed with crushed insects.
Copper and lead were the more prevalent ingredients in ancient Egypt.
Members of a certain ruling class in ancient China could be identified by their blood-red fingernails.
almost fact: Gold or silver nails were the fashion.
Members of the Chou dynasty (which ruled from 1050 to 256 B.C.) had gold or silver nails. Commoners were forbidden from decorating their nails.
Women in ancient Rome lightened their skin with creams made from talc.
almost fact: The fashion was for darker skin, so they mixed talc with river mud.
Romans did want to lighten their skin, but they did it with creams made from chalk.
Makeup production and application in ancient Rome was usually performed by female slaves called cosmetae.
almost fact: Cosmetae were male.
Well-to-do Roman women were made up multiple times a day by their female cosmetae.
Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder thought that women should make sure to have long eyelashes to prove their chastity.
almost fact: He thought that straight teeth were a sign of purity.
Yes, Pliny thought that women's eyelashes fell out when they had too much sex -- hence the ancient Roman craze for false eyelashes.
The poisonous plant belledame ('beautiful lady') might have gotten its name because women would put drops of it in their eyes to dilate their pupils, making them look sexually aroused.
almost fact: Women used belledame on their cheeks for blush.
The plant was used for eyedrops, but the name is belladonna, not belledame.
Queen Elizabeth I of England's signature thick white makeup probably contained lead and arsenic.
almost fact: It definitely contained lead, but not arsenic.
White lead paint -- which also most likely contained arsenic -- was de rigueur for fashionable women in Elizabeth's day. Yikes.
Up until the late 1800s, Japanese women would dye their teeth black as a sign of maturity.
almost fact: Women in Japan made their teeth red.
The practice of ohaguro dyed the teeth black. It was used by women in all walks of life, from married women to geishas to prostitutes.
In the early 1900s, George 'the Beauty Doctor' Burchett made a career out of tattooing eyeliner.
almost fact: Burchett tattooed lipstick.
Women came to Burchett in droves for his permanent lipstick procedure. Ouch.
Lipstick exploded in popularity when the metal lipstick container was invented in 1915.
almost fact: Lipstick did take off around then, but it was because of all the new colors that were being made available.
Maurice Levy introduced his metal lipstick container in 1915 and watched sales soar.
Fashionable American women in the 1940s drew their lipstick in a Cupid's-bow shape.
almost fact: Cupid lips were all the rage in the '20s.
Flappers in the '20s -- aided by the new lipstick tubes -- made their mouths into Cupid's bows.
Maybelline started out with nail polish in 1932 and then added lipstick in 1940.
almost fact: This was how Cover Girl entered the market.
Actually, Revlon introduced nail polish in the heart of the Great Depression and then lipstick in 1940.
Max Factor created his Platinum makeup shade for screen siren Bette Davis.
almost fact: Platinum was for Betty Grable and Medium was for Bette Davis.
Factor made Platinum for Jean Harlow, Special Medium for Joan Crawford, and Dark for Claudette Colbert.
In the 1950s, Revlon's unprecedented marketing campaign for the Talk of the Town products forever linked the company name with frosted pink lips and nails.
almost fact: It was the '60s, and Talk of the Town was a raspberry shade.
Neither option is correct. Revlon -- and photographer Richard Avedon -- revolutionized cosmetic advertising with the campaign for the bright-red Fire & Ice products.
The Japanese brand Shiseido was the first makeup line to be created by dermatologists.
almost fact: The first dermatologist-driven line was Guerlain.
Neither -- it was Clinique, in 1968.
Demand for brand-new makeup line Urban Decay soared in 1995 when Alicia Silverstone wore its products on the 'David Letterman Show.'
almost fact: The brand in question was Hard Candy.
Silverstone told Letterman that her light-blue nail polish was Sky by Hard Candy.
Cheryl Tiegs became the first exclusive 'face' of a makeup company when she signed with Cover Girl in the '70s.
almost fact: Lauren Hutton was the first 'face' and it was for Revlon.
From 1973 to 1983, Lauren Hutton was the face of Revlon's Ultima II line. Thus began the age of the spokesmodel.
The Jessicas Biel and Alba are now Revlon spokesmodels.
almost fact: Jessica Biel is with Revlon, but Alba's a spokesperson for Lancome.
Yes, both actresses -- along with Halle Berry and Elle McPherson -- now represent Revlon.
Maybelline's Great Lash mascara is the fastest-selling item in the history of makeup.
almost fact: That would be Max Factor's Pan-Cake makeup.
Great Lash is the best-selling product, but Pan-Cake was the fastest, flying off the shelves when it was introduced in the 1930s.
Cosmetics giant L'Oreal sparked controversy in 2006 when it bought socially responsible beauty company The Body Shop.
almost fact: L'Oreal bought Bare Minerals, and it was in 2002.
L'Oreal -- which was still testing on animals -- bought the very pro-animal Body Shop in 2006.
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