A Study On The Ancient Chinese Women 's Facials

Decoration on the women’s faces, as a part of the Women’s Ornaments in the ancient world, was the form of decorating on the women’s foreheads, cheeks and temples except the five sense organs, which can trace back to the Warring States period. Since there is a shortage of the relevant research material, the article statement has to start at the beginning of the Han Dynasty. At first, decoration of the women’s faces was called "Di" in the early times and was like a sort of "Red Dot". Thereafter it had developed considerably in the Wei and Jin Dynasties while its old name "Di" was changed into the new one "Ye", and the new name had never been changed again in after times, during the period the most important thing is that apart from decoration of the cheeks there also had been decoration "E Huang" and "Hua Huang" on the women’s foreheads and "Xie Hong" (like a red sunset) on their temples. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, decoration of the women’s faces made greater progress in some aspects about its forms, materials and color, moreover there existed some new names concerning women face decoration, such as "Hua Zi", "Hua Dian", "Bao Ye", "Cui Dian", "Mei Jian Qiao" and so on, these names were actually named after by different decoration materials. Eventually during the Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties the forms of women face decoration were changing gradually, at last, vanished.Here are two different research methods for women’s face decoration:the macroscopic and the microcosmic. By means of the former we can found the specific historical contexts under a certain period, for example, this includes economic development, the level of civilization, aesthetic taste, the status of women and the types of religion etc; By ways of the latter we can catch a glimpse of the perfect skill used by ancient women for face decoration and read the charming stories from the Chinese poets’ writings about women decoration.