The barber labours until dusk. He travels to a town, sets himself up in his corner, and moves from street to street looking for a customer. He strains his arms to fill his stomach, like the bee that eats as it works.
Middle Kingdom Satire of the Trades
Wealthy ladies did not dress their own hair or wigs, but were assisted either by a female servant or by a daughter, mother or friend.4 There was no ancient Egyptian equivalent of the beauty salon, and barbers were either attached to the staff of the larger establishments or worked as itinerant tradesmen servicing the less affluent members of society. Inscriptions dating to the Old Kingdom show that these professional hairdressers, who were invariably male, were regarded as people of some importance with a possible ritual function; the association of human hair with witchcraft and superstition has been a frequent one throughout the world and hair-cutting often forms an important part in rituals or rites of passage. Indeed, the cutting of male hair has even been regarded by some psychoanalysts as a symbolic form of castration, as genitals are apparently at a subconscious level invariably associated with hair. The biblical tale of Samson and Delilah, which tells how Samson lost all his male strength as a direct result of his unscheduled haircut, appears to lend some support to this rather ingenious theory. However, by the Middle Kingdom female hair and wig-dressers had become far more common and any ritual significance in their work had been lost. The hairdressers are usually depicted standing behind their mistress, who keeps a close eye on the proceedings through a polished metal mirror which she holds in her hand. A variety of specialized equipment was available to those wishing to enhance the hair, and tombs have yielded curlers, hairpins, and wooden and ivory combs all similar in design to their modern counterparts. Many women chose to weave fresh flowers into their newly dressed locks, while more formal ornaments – including diadems, circlets specifically intended for wear over wigs, hair-bands, hair-rings and hair-weights – provided the final touch to the elegant coiffure.
Fig. 25 Girl wearing a fish ornament in her hair
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Western societies traditionally make a clear distinction between medicinal and beauty treatments, with health farms sitting uneasily on the fence between the two. An even firmer line is drawn between the many cosmetics used by women and those few considered socially acceptable for men, with cultural conditioning tempting us to view makeup as a rather trivial matter of purely feminine interest. The Egyptians approached this matter very differently, regarding their cosmetics as an important aid to health and enhanced good looks for both sexes, with magical and amuletic benefits providing an added bonus. A well-stocked cosmetic chest was a prized masculine possession at a time when a well made-up face conveyed a message of high social status rather than effeminacy.
I wish to paint my eyes, so if I see you my eyes will sparkle.
New Kingdom love poem
Both men and women adopted a dramatic 1960s-style makeup with heavy emphasis on the eyes. Kohl, or eye-paint, was used to enhance beauty while providing healing and protective powers against the fierce Egyptian sun. The paint was applied to the upper and lower lids, outlining, defining and exaggerating the eyes and lengthening the eyebrows; frequently a bold line drawn from the outer corner of the eye to the hairline completed the look. Even allowing for artistic exaggeration in tomb paintings and statuary, it is clear that the ‘natural’ look was not much admired. Two pigment colours were widely available from the Predynastic period onwards. Green (malachite) was by far the most popular colour during the earlier Dynastic period, but dark grey (galena) gained in popularity during the New Kingdom. The most fashionable ladies used the two colours in combination, with green applied to the brows and corners of the eyes, grey to the rims and lashes. Black kohl is still widely used as an eyeliner by Egyptian peasant women, as it is believed that it will decrease reflected glare from the sun and reduce the chances of eye infections. Other cosmetics were far less common, although some women used a powdered rouge made from red ochre. There is little indication of the use of lip paint by either sex, although the Turin Erotic Papyrus does show a prostitute painting her lips with the aid of a modern-looking lip brush and a mirror.
More permanent body decoration was demanded by those women – the professional dancers, acrobats and prostitutes – who relied on displaying the charms of their bodies to earn a living. This could be achieved by the tattooing of intricate patterns on the arms, torso and legs. Tattooing is a traditional Egyptian form of female adornment whose popularity has lasted from the Dynastic era until the present day, as Miss Blackman recorded: