History of Ming Dynasty Makeup and Hairstyle

History Background

In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang has crowned emperor. His regime was established with the name of Hongwu and the whole dynasty was named Ming. In the 14th year of Hongwu, the remaining forces of the Yuan dynasty in Yunnan were pacified and ancient China was finally reunified again. Zhu Yuanzhang abandoned the costume system established in the Yuan Dynasty and adopted the system of the Han and Tang dynasties and tried his best to restore the various rituals of the Han people.

From the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the reign of the second emperor Chengzu, the Ming Dynasty had been quite prosperous, and after Chengzu, Emperor Xuanzong and Emperor Yingzong were still able to maintain prosperity. But since then, due to the eunuchs' disorderly administration and the invasion of pirates, the country had been on the way of declining. In 1644, Wu Sangui opened the Shanhai Pass and led the Qing troops into Beijing to fight against Li Zicheng. And after that the Qing troops entered the Central Plains. The Ming dynasty lasted 227 years from the beginning of the Ming dynasty to the death of Emperor Chongzhen who hanged himself.

 

Ming Dynasty Makeup Features

During the first and middle periods of the Ming Dynasty, the country was strong in the military and economically prosperous, and the country experienced a switch of political pattern from Nanjing as the only political center to the dual political center of Beijing and Nanjing.

The economic center of the Ming Dynasty was in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River where agriculture and commerce had been flourishing for a long time, so the dress aesthetics of the south went popular everywhere in the country, and women regarded the makeup style of economically affluent areas as an object of emulation.

After the middle and late Ming Dynasty, with the country's power declining, the economy withering, and the sea trade often being disturbed by pirates, the government abolished the Department of Maritime Transport and maritime commerce came to a halt.

At the end of Ming Dynasty, the economy became even more difficult, and the options for women's dresses and makeups were quite limited. At the same time, the bad habit of women's foot-binding from the Song and Yuan Dynasty was still worshipped as beauty in the Ming dynasty, which resulted in women being suppressed and destroyed in various ways.

 

Ming Dynasty Hairstyles

The hairstyle of Ming Dynasty women, at first, basically retained the style of Song and Yuan Dynasty wearing their hair in a bun, but the height of the bun dropped a lot.

After the Jia Jing period, women's hairstyle began to change a lot. During the reign of Emperor Longqing, many women liked to wear the bun in a flat round shape and decorate the top of the bun with flowers made of precious stones, called "peach blossom bun". To match this hairstyle, young women also wore hairbands decorated with flowers.

After this, it became popular for women to wear their hair in a high bun, with gold and silver wire. For a while, the women's group also had a more elegant hairstyle which tended to be long and round, without any hair ornaments.

Women in Ming Dynasty also imitated “Duo Ma Ji (堕马髻)" in Han Dynasty, but there were differences in the Ming Dynasty was backward hanging, combing the hair all backward, being pulled into a large bun at the back of the head. At that time this style was relatively gorgeous.

Ming women also used wigs, which consisted of gold, silver, horsetail, yarn, and other materials, to make different wig packages, worn on real hair. There is a wig bun called "Di Ji (䯼髻)", which was a woven hair cover and usually consisted of gold and silver wire or horsehair, hair, gomer, and other materials, which also covered the black yarn, and a variety of jewelry. The most common type of Di Ji is the spiked cone shape, which is worn over the top of the bun to keep it in place.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the style of the wig bun was gradually improved. Various ready-made wig buns could be bought in some jewelry stores. And the hairstyle could also be changed with headbands, and women's hair bun styles renovated from time to time.

About the headdress, the Ming Dynasty women had more popular headwrap attire. Wrap the damask yarn in the head, belonging to the hair bun tie towel class decoration method.

This kind of headdress is called "E Pa (额帕)" or "E Zi (额子)", at first the production is relatively simple, and later pay attention to the style of cutting, developed into a decorative than practical "Tou Gu (头箍)". It was commonly worn by both noble women and civilian women. Tou Gu in that moment was regarded as a symbol of fashion, becoming a major feature of women's headdress in the Ming Dynasty.

Another frontal ornament similar to the "Tou Gu" was the "Zhe Mei Le (遮眉勒)", which evolved from the Tang Dynasty and was still worn in the Ming Dynasty. In addition, women also liked to use flowers to decorate the hair bun, especially the jasmine.

With the development of handicraft industry, the production skills of women's hair ornaments in Ming Dynasty were more refined and better than before, not only retaining the traditional production techniques since Tang and Song Dynasty, but also the new method of firing enamel imported from the West countries, which made the design of the ornaments more complex, delicate, and characteristic.

 

Facial Makeup

Overall, the Ming Dynasty women's facial makeup was still mostly in the color of red and pink with powder. But it was not like the women's gorgeous makeup in the previous dynasties, and in favor of beauty of grace and gentleness.

The eyebrows are slender and slightly curved, the eyes are tiny, the lips are thin, the face is plain and white and clean, the more delicate and elegant the clean face looks, there is a different flavor.

Although the aesthetic point of view of women in the Ming Dynasty was generally to promote the type of elegance and dignity, but there are also particularly playful women, and they made different shapes of Huadian with green feathers and stuck them between the two eyebrows to increase their brilliance.