The silent depths of the Egyptian pyramids teem with life — and not just the spirits of those long mummified.  Populating the once-secret inner walls of these ancient tombs are hieroglyphics.  Gently brush the dust away and shine your flashlight over these dusky surfaces.  When you do, you’ll see that kohl, the original eyeliner, outlines the eyes of many of these figures: gods, goddesses, pharaohs, and other nobility.  Why did the practice of adorning one’s face emerge?  And why has it so intrigued the world that we have spent billions of dollars on the products of L’Oreal, Borghese, Mac, Avon, and other leading cosmetics manufacturers?

Historians postulate that the Egyptians of old began to use cosmetics somewhere between the years 10,000 to 4,000 BC.  Face painting was incorporated into religious rites; it was also thought to differentiate royalty from commoners.  And, makeup was also used for its most obvious purpose: to beautify oneself.

I’m no historian, but I believe the reasoning may go deeper than that.  Look again upon those walls of old and you’ll see that, in the hieroglyphics, the kohl was carefully applied, configured like sideways Ankhs (the Egyptian symbol for life, with the human eye serving as the “eye” of the Ankh).  This design by the Egyptians was most assuredly deliberate.

And what of human beings who lived prior to hieroglyphics or any other written language?  What of the people in Lascaux, France, for example?

The herds depicted on the walls of the caves in Lascaux were created approximately 17,300 years ago, during the Paleolithic Era, thus pre-dating the Egyptians by at least 700 years.  If the French painters had the means and motivation to record their hunts in great detail and in various colors, using Earth’s minerals, they also had the tools with which to paint their faces.  If they did, they probably wished to disguise themselves from the animals as they waited in the tall grass to make their kills.  Or perhaps they employed face painting as a ritual, beseeching their gods for blessings in securing the nourishment necessary for their survival.

If this is so, then, the application of cosmetics implies that one possesses a heightened sense of self, an awareness of one’s worth, and a sense that one is a member of a larger community.  And I think that’s why the practice of applying makeup has endured for so long.

We wish to appear attractive to ourselves when we look in the mirror because we value ourselves.  Some of us want to look sophisticated to others.  The judicious use of cosmetics can be a boon on an interview or on the job itself.  It’s a maddening but well-known fact that attractive people are hired more quickly, and more often, than their plain Jane (or plain Jack) counterparts.  Several years ago, in a well-publicized case, an employee of a major airline sued that airline because she’d been ordered to stop ignoring corporate policy.  Policy stated that female employees who serviced the general public, as this woman did, had to wear makeup to present an pleasing appearance to the public, for they represented the corporation.

But, like that employee, not everyone agrees that makeup enhances one’s physical appearance.  Old Italian housewives believed that a woman who wore makeup was either a streetwalker or hiding something from the rest of the world!  A member of my extended family declared, out of the blue one day, as if she’d suddenly been struck by Tourettes, that women looked better sans makeup.  She’d recently given birth and without makeup, she looked it.  Maybe it was the still-raging hormones talking.

I’m in the camp that favors makeup.  I love it.  Unlike that family member of mine, I’ve appeared for surgeries, plural, wearing makeup as well as polished nails. When the nurses complimented me before the anesthesiologists got their hands on me, I replied, “Just because I feel like s**t doesn’t mean I have to look like s**t.”

Yes, I much prefer the way I look with makeup, even the basics, to how I look without it.  I love the colors and the textures; I delight in experimenting with them.  Today, in fact, I bought a palette of 50 eye shadow colors.  You read that right: 50.  They were too cheap to be of real quality, but I bought the box anyway because I loved the colors.  They reminded me of the old boxes of 64 Crayola® crayons, when the manufacture used names that sparked a child’s imagination, names such as thistle and carnation.

And maybe that’s the true allure of cosmetics — that somehow, they make us not only look a bit more youthful, but allow us to feel a little closer to the children in our souls.  ☺