Today, whether we favour a natural look or a more sophisticated style for evening or party wear, it's a matter of personal preference and the emphasis is on purity and safety, but it wasn't always like that. The use of cosmetics is recorded from the time of the Ancient Egyptians 4000 years ago when pale make-up was fashionable, and this trend followed through to the Roman and Greek periods. A healthy bloom indicated you belonged to the poorer classes and so whitewash or chalk was used to make the skin lighter.The Ancient Egyptian equivalent for kohl and mascara was a black sulphide called antimony that was painted onto eyelids and eyelashes.

A Fashionable Renaissance Beauty

In the seventeenth century, powder mixed with egg white was densely pasted onto the skin by fashionable beauties - a forerunner, maybe, of the thick pancake make-up some of us wore in the sixties. During the Renaissance, there was a horrifying trend when arsenic became a key ingredient in the skin-bleaching process. White lead was also used to lighten the skin, but it wasn't just the skin that needed to be light. Although henna was sometimes used in Roman times, blonde hair was especially favoured. Ladies lightened their hair using a mixture of goat's milk and beech tree ashes, which they applied with a sponge to remove their colour.

In the eighteenth century, slices of mouseskin were pasted on to improve the eyebrows and pads of pitch balls slipped inside the cheeks to plump the face.

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