Our Beauty P.I. series is where Makeup.com editor Alanna delves into the history of various makeup products — where they originated and how they’ve evolved. Next up on the list is the conception of face powder.As far as skin acceptance is concerned, we’ve come a long way. Today, we wear our skin on our sleeve (so to speak): whether it’s imperfect, discolored, bumpy or anything in between. We embrace our beauty for what it is, and even if we love a great foundation or setting powder, we’re learning that we don’t have to use these makeup tools to hide our blemishes and “flaws.” But it hasn’t always been this way. Baring your face *au naturale* is far from what our OG ancestors saw as beautiful: Only a silky smooth complexion would do. While face powder is one of our favorite products, its past is rooted in more hiding than we’re proud of — and it's our job to alter this legacy for good.OG Powder = StatusLike many makeup items of olden times, white powder for the face consisted of crazy ingredients. In Roman times (A.D. 100s), “chalk and vinegar face creams lightened the complexion, and finely ground orris root was used in face powder,” reports Gabriella Hernandez’s Classic Beauty: The History of Makeup. And in Ancient China, rice powder was used to whiten and smooth out the complexion. In addition to these additives, the other major commonality between globally-used white powders was their service as, you guessed it, a status symbol. The whiter and smoother your complexion, the higher class status you were (this was common for many other beauty rituals too, like nail polish.) This notion continued throughout the Crusades and into the Medieval era — where the “ideal medieval face [was] pale and round with plucked eyebrows and a receding plucked hairline,” Hernandez’s text explains. In the Middle Ages, powder was also used to hide natural features on the face: “women powdered their faces with flour and used harsh natural bleaches, such as lye, to get rid of freckles.”  And just like that, after decades of practice, a white powdered face became the epitome of beauty standards, and with it an exclusive, incomprehensive and naturally injust makeup was born.  Powder in All Kinds of ArtistryWhen you think of the word powder, a few artistic depictions probably come to mind. One would have to be the Renaissance beauty we’ve seen illustrated in paintings — most notably Botticelli’s Birth of Venus to his Primavera in 1482. In these legendary works of art, each muse is detailed with an extremely white, blemish free complexion, free of any differentiation or makeup individuality. This white-powdered face also appears in works from the Elizabethan age, where Liz the First herself would of course sport a colorless face with her signature tomato-red hair (a lewk).
