Helen's Daughter

The Mycenaean cosmetic palette was quite simple: kohl or lampblack for the eyes, galena or malachite for the eyelids, red ocher for the lips and cheeks, and a foundation of white lead oxide, or perhaps white clay powder.  It's not clear how often women, particularly noblewomen, painted themselves, but they could not have worn white lead on their faces every day and survived for very long.  I suspect the white paint, like the breast-baring bodices, was used only on ritual occasions, when the women transformed themselves into priestesses and agents of the divine.




Perfume during this period had an olive oil rather than alcohol base, and was manufactured by mixing sweet herbs like coriander, saffron, or cumin, or fragrant flowers like iris, narcissus, or lily with the oil.  The Mycenaeans also used olive oil as a skin emollient and hair conditioner, and the higher classes impregnated their garments with oil then rinsed them to give them a satiny sheen.