Cosmetic Ingredients through the Ages Quiz

Answer: lip enhancing

The cochineal is a small insect found in South America and further north. A bright-red pigment called carmine (or cochineal) can be extracted. Carmine use goes back as far as 700 BC in the Americas. As well as on lips, it was used by the Aztecs to dye clothing and in medicines.

The synthetic version is expensive to make so the insect is still farmed on cacti. These days you might find it colouring products like yoghurt.

Answer: lip enhancing

Bees wax has been used in many areas over the centuries around the world. There continues to be strong demand for it in modern cosmetics. It acts as a base for lipsticks, increases gloss and hardness, enhances colour and smell, as well as ease of application. It is also is considered non-irritating to the skin and may have antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.

Answer: lip enhancing

Ochre is a ferric oxide, clay and sand mix. Its colour varies from yellow to a deep orange or brown depending on which iron mineral is present. The colour 'ochre' takes its name from yellow ochre (with the iron mineral limonite), haematite gives red ochre its colour and brown ochre's colour come from geothite. An archaeological dig on a Bronze age Indus Valley settlement uncovered a small rectangular block used as a lipstick.

Other uses are said to include an Ancient Egyptian lip gloss and as part of an Aboriginal puberty ritual for girls in Australia.

Answer: skin whitening

Arsenic is poisonous however it has been used for skin whitening in the past. One example is an 1899 advert for "arsenic complexion wafers" which are eaten to beautify the woman's complexion. During the 19th century, it was common to make cosmetics at home from recipe books with such toxic ingredients.

More recent skin whitening products tend to focus on reducing the melanin pigment in the skin. There are potential health issues with some products even today.

Answer: skin whitening

The 16th Century cosmetic Venetian ceruse was an upmarket version of a lead-based skin whitener. Two different forms of lead carbonate are believed to be involved, with different proportions for the ordinary and Venetian versions. Lead carbonate is white and was used in making paint.

It has been claimed that Elizabeth I of England was a user and also that lead poisoning contributed to her death. Lead poisoning also causes skin damage and hair loss among other issues.

Answer: skin whitening

Rice flour is still very much used as a skin whitening ingredient, particularly in China, South Korea and Japan. In Japan the trend started during the Edo period (17th to mid-19th Century) when it became a "moral duty" for women to whiten their faces. Some Chinese were swallowing powdered pearls to try and achieve the same result.

Answer: eye highlighting

Deadly nightshade or belladonna (Atropa belladona) is a toxic herbaceous shrub from the same family as food crops such as potatoes and tomatoes. The name "belladonna" comes from the Italian for beautiful woman due to the practice of using eye drops of the plant extract to dilate a woman's pupils, which was considered attractive.

These days the eye dropper is likely to be wielded by your optician.

Answer: eye highlighting

Galena is the mineral form of lead sulfide and the main lead ore used since ancient times. Galena eyepaint was used in Ancient Egypt. Needless to say, it is toxic. The city of Galena, Illinois, is the source of the name. Native Americans mined the area for more than a 1,000 years before the appearance of Europeans. These days galena is mainly mined as a source of lead and silver.

Answer: eye highlighting

Charcoal or soot was often a component along with galena in making an Ancient Egyptian eye paint. When used, the mineral malachite gave the paint a green colour. Kohl is the Arabic term for the eye cosmetic. Kohl originally to referred the antimony mineral 'stibnite'. Its meaning has changed over the centuries and, strangely enough, is the source of the English word "alcohol".

Answer: eye highlighting

Mascara is used to enhance eyelashes. Some say it is named after the Moroccan city of the same name conquered by the French in the mid-19th Century. The French found antimony powder there which the locals were using as a beauty product. Back to kohl again.

The modern version stems from an innovation made by Helena Rubinstein in 1957, turning it from a hard cake into a lotion-based cream and adding an application brush.

Answer: lip enhancing

Crystalline guanine is made from crushed fish scales and is probably the term that will appear on your cosmetic's ingredient list. It was first extracted from fish scales in the 17th Century to be an ingredient in pearl essence. The word "guanine" actually comes from the Spanish for bat or bird guano, which is also a source of guanine. Guanine is one of the four nucleobases that make up DNA.

Although the cosmetic glitter is sourced from fish scales, there is a facial treatment based on the bird droppings of the Japanese nightingale. These days guanine also provides gloss to mascara and nail polish, amongst many other uses.

Answer: skin whitening

Titanium dioxide, also known as titania, is commonly used as a pigment in white paint. It is used as a mineral filter in sunscreens, typically combined with zinc oxide. Cricketers with white streaks on their faces is one example that springs to mind. It helps reflect, filter and absorb UV light. You can also find it in many foods, medicine pills and toothpastes.