Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Japanese Geisha

The Japanese Geisha isn't an extremely popular era that comes to mind when thinking of history. However the Japanese culture must have extremely different concepts of beauty than Rome, at least I'd imagine so.
First, I had to find out what a Geisha actually was. A Geisha is a traditional Japanese entertainer who act as hostesses and whose skills include performing various arts such as classical music, dance, games and conversation, mainly to entertain male customers, according to Google.
The Japanese Geisha is most popular for the makeup trends. One of the most widely-known concepts was, again, a pale face, with smooth skin. Smooth skin is a beauty concept of almost every culture and time era, however in addition Japan believes the lighter the skin the more beautiful a person is. Female entertainers wore white paint on their faces along with red lipstick, which is most likely where the beauty standard of today's age originated from. This beauty concept was achieved by painting on a heavy, white foundation. Which is painted on the face, and all around the neck revealing some skin on the back of the neck in a 'W' shape. I found this unique and quite interesting. I discovered the lips were painted on in the shape of a budding flower. As for the eyes, charcoal was used to line the lid, with red on the outside.
 
Even though makeup was most definitely the most popular beauty standard, body shape was also a big role in defining beauty. In the Japanese Geisha era, a thin, petite frame was all the rage. In fact, even today in Japan a thin, petite frame is most desirable.
Finding any other details on the beauty standards of this time era, other than makeup, was quite difficult and almost impossible.
 
                            Ash, Donald. "The 8 Standards Of Japanese Beauty." The Japan Guy. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2016.                                                  


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