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History of  Makeup The Evolution of Beauty Through TimeHistory of Makeup
The Atlas

Where beauty happened

Every dated, placed piece of evidence on this site — the first attestation of a pigment, the moment an era turned, the founding of a house — set on a world map and a timeline running from the ochre at Blombos Cave to the present day.

A pin marks where the CITED EVIDENCE comes from, not where a practice was found. Greek white lead sits at Athens because that is where the excavated pellets are from, not because the Greeks were the only people using it.

A torn, unlabelled antique world map with cosmetics from across history resting on it: a dish of red ochre on southern Africa, an alabaster pot of black kohl near Egypt, a porcelain rouge box painted with red flowers over China, a small cup of crimson beside Japan, a pierced silver compact over northern Europe and a gold lipstick across the North Atlantic. Plum-headed map pins are pressed into the paper beside them, a dried rose lies across one corner and gold leaf runs along a torn edge.
Commissioned illustration

Arrow keys move between pins, Enter selects one, Escape hides its card.

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