The Chemistry of Makeup and Adornment

The natural human desire to be attractive and visually appealing is a fundamental trait shared equally by men and women. Recognizing this inherent inclination, astute and innovative entrepreneurs have transformed cosmetics and beauty products into an essential part of modern civilization. This industry continues to grow rapidly across the globe.

The enchanting effects of makeup and adornment were so influential that as early as 1770, the British Parliament introduced a bill restricting women of all ages and classes, whether virgins, divorced, or widows, from attempting to attract men for marriage through the use of perfumes, cosmetics, artificial teeth, hairpieces, or high-heeled shoes. Such marriages would be considered null and void.

Every man and woman harbors a subtle yet persistent desire to be beautiful and to appear attractive to others. Nature intensifies this urge around puberty. The instinct for self-display, present since childhood, blossoms with age. While women tend to express this desire more visibly than men, men are not immune to it. Women go to great lengths, often with considerable effort and care, to enhance their beauty. If only such dedication were channeled towards solving other challenges, many great achievements could be realized.

Whether endowed with natural beauty or not, women use every means at their disposal to enhance their appearance. Among these, after clothing, the foremost tools are cosmetic and beautification products, items women have relied on for thousands of years to enhance their allure. Men, too, have not lagged far behind and throughout history have also used beauty products to some extent.

Humans likely began using beautifying substances thousands of years ago, even before the invention of clothing, when they would cover themselves with leaves. From then on, the use of colorful natural clays or powders applied to the body like vermilion and to the face like a veil became a form of beauty competition. This practice persists today among various underdeveloped tribes around the world, who decorate their bodies and faces in myriad ways. Indigenous peoples of North America, the Red Indians, ancient tribes along Brazil’s Amazon River, Aboriginal Australians, and traditional tribes of Assam and Hindustan all continue to adorn their bodies and faces with various colors and pigments, often red or yellow ochre, to enhance their beauty.

It is worth noting that humans have not only enhanced their appearance by applying pigments but also by tattooing, permanently marking their skin with designs. Though painful, tattooing remains popular even in developed countries like the United States, where many choose large tattoos on their arms and other body parts. Some ancient tribes even practiced full-face or full-body tattooing to create elaborate and beautiful designs. For instance, the Maori men of New Zealand traditionally tattooed their entire faces as a form of fashion and identity. While this custom has declined, many Maori men and women still sport one or two facial tattoos as a mark of their heritage.

The use of various beauty-enhancing mixtures has traditionally been aimed at cleansing the skin, removing or concealing blemishes, or simply enhancing one’s appearance. The earliest records of such products date back to ancient Egyptian civilization. Evidence of their use can be traced to the era of the first Pharaohs, who ruled between approximately 3,500 to 5,000 years before Christ. In tombs from the period between 1,350 and 1,600 BC, containers made from white marble and onyx have been discovered, which held cosmetics.

Women of ancient Egypt enhanced their beauty by applying different colors, a practice perfected by Queen Cleopatra, who magnified her allure through the use of cosmetics and perfumes. Particular attention was given to enhancing the eyes, which were naturally beautiful. Among Egyptian women, especially the Coptic women, eyes were larger and more striking compared to Arab women. Perhaps this is why, from the time of the Coptic Pharaohs, special care was devoted to eye beauty.

Eyelids and eyebrows were darkened using kohl, applied with ivory or wooden sticks. The earliest use of mirrors has been traced back to Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty, around 1,500 BC. Following this period, women also began using combs and henna to dye their hands and feet. This ancient tradition continues today in the Indian subcontinent, where girls decorate their fingers, palms, and feet with henna patterns, a custom dating back at least three thousand years.

Jewish women also have a millennia-old tradition of using beauty products and applying kohl to their eyes, as mentioned in the Old Testament. Similarly, kohl and other eye cosmetics have been used by Arabs since ancient times.

The Romans are known to have used cosmetics for over two thousand years. Emperor Nero, who ruled Rome in 54 AD, and his wife Poppaea were known for their lavish use of beauty products. They used chalk and white lead to whiten their skin, kohl to darken their eyes, and rouge on their cheeks and lips. Mixtures of barley flour and lead compounds were applied to remove blemishes and acne. Roman court ladies also used various soaps for bleaching their hair.

Like the Romans, the English in Britain have a long history of using cosmetics. Bathing in milk to enhance beauty was a common practice. Queen Mary of Scotland was famously known to bathe in vats filled with wine to keep her skin fresh and beautiful. Washing the face with wine was widespread as a method to maintain a radiant complexion.

The use of beauty products was not limited to Britain but was also prevalent across Europe. Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon, was renowned for her extensive use of cosmetics and perfumes to maintain her beauty.

By the seventeenth century, the use of beauty-enhancing products in Britain had increased so much that in 1770, a bill was introduced in the British Parliament. This bill-imposed restrictions on women of all ages and social classes—whether virgins, divorced, or widows—prohibiting them from enticing men to marry them using perfumes, cosmetics, artificial teeth or hair, high-heeled shoes, or similar means. If it was proven that a marriage had occurred through such artifices, the marriage would be declared null and void. In other words, the use of makeup, artificial hair, and other beauty products to attract a man for marriage was legally forbidden.

Cosmetics have a long history in the Indian subcontinent as well, with their use being widespread during the Mughal era. Empress Noor Jahan, wife of Emperor Jahangir, was known for her use of cosmetics and perfumes. It is famously believed that the rose-scented perfume was invented by Noor Jahan herself.

In essence, the use of beauty and grooming products has been practiced by humans since ancient times. Today, their use has grown to such an extent that every country and society spends millions and even billions on these products. Cosmetics have become a highly profitable global industry.

In Pakistan, millions of rupees are spent annually on beauty products, and a significant amount of foreign exchange is used to import either these cosmetics or their raw materials. Cosmetics come in hundreds of varieties, but many of them can be broadly categorized into powders, creams, bath salts, deodorants, hair care products such as oils and dyes, eye cosmetics like eye shadows and eyebrow sticks, lipsticks, mascara, nail care items, and hair tonics. For men, shaving soaps and aftershave lotions are commonly used.

Most beauty products are applied to the face, hands, and other parts of the body or hair. Therefore, before assessing their effectiveness, it is important to understand the nature of skin and hair.

Human skin is a remarkable gift from nature. It is one of the largest organs of the body. For a person about five and a half feet tall and weighing around seventy kilograms, the skin surface area is roughly sixteen thousand square centimeters. Its volume is approximately two thousand four hundred milliliters, and it weighs about three kilograms.

The skin forms the interface between the body and the surrounding environment. It separates the body’s chemical and physiological systems from the external world. Among the many functions of the skin, three are particularly vital.

First, the skin regulates body temperature through the evaporation of sweat, preventing the body from overheating. Without this evaporative cooling, the body would become excessively warm, causing discomfort.

Second, the skin assists the kidneys by excreting chemical compounds such as urea through sweat. This helps cleanse the body of unnecessary substances.

Third, the skin contains antibacterial and antifungal compounds like fatty acids and other chemicals that protect the body from infections. Moreover, certain chemical compounds on the skin also play a role in emotional signaling and chemical communication.

Human skin consists of three layers. The outermost layer, called the epidermis, contains no blood vessels and receives nourishment through diffusion from the underlying dermis. Below the dermis is a third layer made up of fat cells, which protects the body’s deeper tissues and blood vessels and acts as insulation, preventing excessive heat loss. Understanding the structure and functions of the skin is essential to appreciating the real benefits and limitations of beauty and grooming products.

The upper layer of the skin, called the epidermis, varies in thickness from one to three millimeters. However, it is much thicker on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, while the skin on the face tends to be thinner. Even within this upper layer, there are multiple layers. The inner layers are alive, but the outermost rough layer, known as the stratum corneum or the “horny layer,” consists of dead cells. This tough and protective layer is made of a fibrous protein called keratin.

In the innermost layer of the epidermis, new skin cells are produced. As these cells multiply, they move upward from the lower layers towards the surface. During this journey, their keratin content increases, and by the time they reach the surface of the skin, they have died and begin to shed as tiny flakes. This process continues constantly, with approximately one gram of these cells shedding from a person’s body every day.

These dead cells on the skin’s surface are called squames. They have the ability to absorb water, oils, and other fluids, which they then spread across the skin after releasing various substances. These are the very skin cells that combine with sweat and bath residues to form the dirt that comes off during washing. It takes about two to four weeks for a new cell formed in the lower layers to reach the surface and eventually shed.

Alongside the shedding of skin cells, lipids produced during this process spread over the skin’s surface, helping to keep it smooth and moisturized. Deficiencies of various vitamins can also be reflected in the condition of the upper skin layer.

Beneath the epidermis lies the dermis, which is composed of fibrous tissues. This layer contains elastic fibers, blood vessels, nerves, lymphatic vessels, and hair follicles. Two key proteins found in the dermis protect these fibers, while collagen, another essential protein, plays a crucial role in wound healing.

The dermis itself can be divided into two layers: the papillary layer and the reticular layer. The papillary layer contains nerve endings responsible for the sense of touch, which are especially dense at the fingertips, thumbs, nipples, and genital areas—where tactile sensitivity is the greatest. This layer gradually merges with the reticular layer below, which contains nerves, blood vessels, hair follicles, and connective tissue fibers.

The skin perceives four primary sensations: touch, cold, heat, and pain. Other sensations such as smoothness, oiliness, itching, or tickling result from combinations of these basic feelings processed by the nervous system.

The color of the skin is determined by five pigments, among which melanin is the most important. Melanin is found in brown granules in the lower layers of the skin and protects the skin from the harmful effects of ultraviolet (UV) rays. Exposure to sunlight increases melanin production. People living in warmer climates have more melanin in their skin to protect themselves from intense sunlight, which is why their skin tones are darker or more tanned. The dark complexion of Ethiopians is also due to melanin, but even the darkest Ethiopian’s skin contains no more than two grams of this chemical.
Different parts of the body contain varying amounts of melanin. For example, the face, forehead, genital areas, areolas, and nipples have higher concentrations, making them appear darker than the rest of the skin. Melanocytes, the cells that produce melanin, are sometimes found in sebaceous glands, as well as on eyelids, eyebrows, and the nipples of adult women.

The amount of melanin can increase in certain diseases and during pregnancy, causing some body parts to darken compared to normal skin. In colder countries, women often sunbathe on beaches during summer to achieve a tanned complexion, which they believe enhances their beauty. Fair-skinned women may desire a suntan so that their skin tone resembles that of those naturally darker-skinned. However, the truth is that fair-skinned populations naturally have less melanin, which protects against ultraviolet rays, compared to darker-skinned populations.

Due to the deficiency of this pigment in the skin, prolonged exposure to sunlight can cause skin cancer. This is why, in Western countries, doctors advise people against spending excessive time outdoors with exposed skin during the beginning of summer, warning them about the risk of skin cancer. Cosmetic companies have developed new formulations specifically for sunbathers, among which sunscreen products are the most prominent. These formulations are applied to the skin in the form of oils or creams. Their purpose is to reduce the intensity of ultraviolet rays rather than completely block them, enhancing the skin’s defense by thickening the outermost layer, the stratum corneum. After application, these products protect the skin for two to four hours. Additionally, there are formulations designed to prevent sunburn, as well as oils and creams that help the skin tan easily under sunlight. These suntan lotions or creams often contain para-aminobenzoic acid combined with other ingredients.

Fingerprints on the skin are unique to each individual, enabling personal identification. Police forces have long used fingerprints found at crime scenes to identify suspects. The sweat or moisture found on human skin is acidic, meaning our skin is naturally slightly sour. Research in Western countries has shown that the skin of white men tends to be more acidic than that of white women. The average pH value of white men’s skin is approximately 4.85, whereas for white women it is around 5.5. These values may vary among individuals, which is not surprising given that skin is a complex organ influenced by both genetics and environment.

The acidity of the skin is primarily due to the presence of fatty acids with antimicrobial and antifungal properties. Because of variations in skin acidity among people, cosmetic products can have different effects. For example, the quantity and quality of a beauty cream might produce different results on the skin of one woman compared to another. This is why the use of cosmetics is considered an art, and why beauty parlors flourish as a business.

Skin does not easily freeze even in extreme cold, and the oils present on the skin help protect it from cold damage. The human body has approximately 2.3 to 4 million sweat glands, each weighing between 23 and 40 micrograms. These tubular glands, about 1/300th of an inch in diameter, are classified into three types: eccrine, apocrine, and sebaceous glands.

Eccrine glands are found throughout the body except on the lips and genital skin. These glands produce sweat, releasing about one liter of water daily, with sweat consisting of over 99% water. Fresh sweat is colorless and slightly acidic, and by itself does not have an unpleasant odor. Sweat from eccrine glands mixes with secretions from sebaceous and apocrine glands on the skin surface. Due to the skin’s temperature and moisture, bacteria break down fatty acids in sweat, producing the typical body odor. Sebaceous glands are most abundant on the scalp and forehead, as well as around the lips, nostrils, nipples, and hairless skin near the genitals. Their secretions serve as chemical messengers. These glands produce an oily substance called sebum, which is largely composed of lipids. Human skin produces one to two grams of sebum daily. Sebum keeps the skin soft and supple, and during puberty these glands become more active, causing increased oiliness in adolescents’ skin. However, sebum production often slows in middle age. Frequent washing with alkaline soaps can reduce sebum levels, leading to dry, flaky skin.

Large coil glands are connected to certain areas such as the eyelids, external ear canal, armpits, breasts, anus, and genital skin. These glands secrete fatty acids, nitrogenous compounds, salts, water, and cells from the lower skin layers. Their secretions play a significant role in chemical communication related to sexual attraction, making them important for subconscious sexual expression. Sweat is a combination of secretions from all three glands—eccrine, sebaceous, and apocrine—and contains chemicals important for communication.

From these facts, it is clear that the skin, like other organs, is complex. External substances cannot easily penetrate the skin barrier. Therefore, it is incorrect to assume that applying any oil, lotion, or cream on the skin will result in its ingredients being absorbed. Nature has protected the skin from penetration by external agents. However, internal changes such as protein or vitamin imbalances and dietary alterations do affect the skin. The skin cannot be nourished directly through external applications. Many cosmetic products claim to nourish the skin and restore its youthful beauty and glow. However, such claims are often exaggerated, and manufacturers primarily exploit consumers financially. Companies producing beauty products have created billions of rupees’ worth of powders, creams, dyes, and other items for both men and women, selling them worldwide and profiting immensely from this trade.

Considering the above facts, one can conclude that these products mainly help in cleaning and maintaining the skin but their other grand claims are far from reality. These products can indeed help to replenish the loss of sebum and lipids in aging skin, thereby slowing down the formation of wrinkles. As a result, the skin feels youthful for a longer period and avoids becoming dry and flaky. However, beauty is never permanent. If it were, iconic and glamorous women like Elizabeth Taylor, Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, and Grace Kelly would have remained eternally young and radiant, never allowing age to touch them. Yet, despite spending millions on cosmetics and even undergoing advanced plastic surgeries, these celebrated faces could not escape the passage of time. Eventually, aging caught up with them too, leaving us wondering where that youthful glow vanished—and involuntarily prompting a nostalgic whisper, “Call upon the years gone by.”

For adornment and skincare, a variety of creams are used. These include cold creams, vanishing creams, skin creams, antiperspirant creams, sunscreens for sunburn protection, greaseless creams, massage creams, deodorizing creams, and depilatory creams for hair removal. Hand creams are specifically formulated for the care of hands. Additionally, there is a basic makeup base cream, applied first on the face, serving as a foundation for other cosmetic products. Each cream comes in many varieties tailored to different needs.

Most creams are emulsions of waxes, oils, and water. Cold creams often contain rose water, while skin creams include borax. Vanishing creams and hand creams primarily consist of stearic acid soap, glycerine, stearic acid, and water. These creams can also serve as a base for face powder foundations. They function by forming a protective layer on the face and hands. Cleansing creams typically include base wax, lanolin, paraffin wax, borax, and water.

Beautifying powders include face powder, talcum powder, and toilet powder. These generally contain talc (hydrated magnesium silicate), magnesium carbonate, chalk, kaolin, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, and magnesium stearate. Starch is also commonly used as a basic powder ingredient.

To enhance lip beauty, lipsticks contain various waxes such as spermaceti, beeswax, and carnauba wax, combined with castor oil or other oils, lanolin or wool fat, petrolatum, synthetic glycerides, and a range of pigments known as lakes—complexes of dyes with metals like aluminum, titanium, calcium, and strontium. Resins are added to bind the waxes and oils. The mixture is then poured into molds to form lipsticks.

For eye enhancement, mascara, eye makeup, and eye shadows are used. These formulations include iron oxide, carbon black, and ultramarine pigments. Mascara darkens and thickens eyelashes and is typically an emulsion of oils, colorants, and emulsifiers. Eye shadows derive most of their color from iron oxides and are made by mixing pigments into waxes dissolved in mineral oil, lanolin, or petrolatum. Metallic lustre shadows contain finely powdered aluminum, silver, or gold powders.
Nail beauty is maintained by growing nails or applying nail polish, which can significantly enhance their appearance even without nail extensions. Nail polishes typically contain cellulose nitrate as a film former, plasticizers like dioctyl phthalate or dibutyl phthalate, various pigments, and solvents. Nowadays, resins often replace cellulose nitrate. Nail polish removers include lanolin, solvents that dissolve nail polish, and perfumes.

Just as women use various cosmetic products, men also use a range of grooming items tailored to their needs. These include after-shave lotions, skin creams, shaving creams, greaseless sunscreen creams, and hair grooming creams. The ingredients in men’s products are generally similar to those found in women’s creams; however, the perfumes used in men’s cosmetics tend to be spicier, catering to masculine preferences.

Men also use numerous products for hair growth, protection, and styling. Before diving into these products, it’s helpful to understand some basic facts about hair. A healthy person typically has around 120,000 to 140,000 hairs on their head, varying by hair color and texture. Brown hair is usually finer and can number up to 140,000, while black hair tends to be coarser with about 108,000 hairs. The average lifespan of hair is roughly six months (about 180 days), but this can extend to nearly 197 days in summer. This is why hair shedding feels more noticeable in winter. Women can take comfort in knowing that losing some hair while combing is a natural process—these are hairs that have completed their natural life cycle.

Similar to skin, hair is minimally affected by external factors. Good health promotes hair growth and thickness. A balanced diet rich in proteins, vitamins, carbohydrates, and minerals—found in meat, milk, eggs, and fruits—is essential. Therefore, men and women who desire fuller, healthier hair would benefit more from investing in nutritious food rather than spending large sums monthly on various hair oils, creams, and lotions.

Hair is primarily made of keratin. The sebaceous glands in the scalp secrete oils that keep hair lubricated. When these glands become less active or the scalp dries out, hair roots lose lubrication, increasing the risk of hair fall. Currently, it is fashionable to avoid applying oil to hair, leaving the scalp dry. This dryness can lead to more hair loss. Applying oil keeps the scalp moist and hair strong. Claims about miraculous hair-growth remedies and oils are unfounded; no topical treatment can accelerate hair growth.

Dandruff is a common scalp complaint. To combat it, countless soaps, shampoos, and oils flood the market, earning cosmetics companies millions. However, as explained earlier, the skin continually sheds dead cells, and the scalp does the same. Sebum lubricates these dead cells, which fall out naturally during combing or washing. When hair or scalp is dry, these cells harden and fall off as dandruff. Dandruff itself does not cause hair loss, and oiling the scalp can effectively control it.
Male pattern baldness has plagued men for thousands of years—Hippocrates himself failed to find a cure. Baldness is believed to be hereditary and linked to male hormones (testosterone), as women rarely experience it. Baldness typically starts with an “M” shape recession on the forehead, gradually spreading to cover the entire front and eventually most of the scalp.

Hundreds of remedies and products claim to regrow hair and cure baldness. Many men eagerly purchase these hoping to regain their hair, but while their pockets become lighter, their scalps remain bare. As stated before, skin cannot absorb nourishment externally, and most chemicals do not penetrate the skin. Thus, topical hair growth treatments are ineffective. Hair health depends on overall body health, genetics, and hormone levels, none of which can be changed by creams or lotions applied externally. Consequently, baldness remedies benefit only their manufacturers financially.
For enhancing hair appearance, products such as hair oils, creams, tonics, hair fixatives, hair setting fluids, curlers, conditioners, and shampoos are available. Perfumes are a common ingredient in most cosmetics and grooming products, making fragrance inseparable from beauty.

When considering the strong desire among men and women to look attractive, it becomes clear that nature has a profound wisdom behind this urge. Modern chemical research confirms that living beings communicate through semiochemicals—chemical signals that convey messages. In insects, these are called pheromones. Humans too rely heavily on chemical communication through scent, with each individual having a unique natural odor. Minute quantities of these chemical compounds in body secretions, especially sweat, can attract the opposite sex and play a crucial role in sexual attraction.
The human nose can detect incredibly low concentrations of these compounds, with women generally more sensitive than men. These chemical signals stimulate sexual attraction and readiness for reproduction, but for these subtle messages to be effective, close physical proximity is necessary. Nature’s aim is reproduction, and at puberty, it makes men and women highly attractive to one another to fulfill this biological purpose.

Cosmetic products enhance physical appeal and draw the opposite sex closer, with beautiful faces amplifying this magnetic pull. The perfumes in these products further intensify attraction. Such proximity allows the chemical signals to take effect. These natural phenomena are intrinsic to human nature, but over millennia, humans have learned that unchecked expression of these desires can cause social chaos and destruction. Therefore, societies impose restrictions on free mixing of men and women, and religions universally discourage unrestricted sexual freedom. In our culture, men and women are advised to avoid displaying their beauty and adornment openly before unrelated members of the opposite sex. However, after marriage, a woman is not only permitted but encouraged to beautify herself for her husband. This encourages chemical signaling, supporting natural reproductive processes. While these reflections delve into philosophy, there is no denying that although cosmetic products often fall short of their extravagant claims, their modest benefits are undeniable. For thousands of years, the trade in cosmetics has flourished because every individual has the right to look beautiful and boost self-confidence. Temporary enhancement of beauty through these products can increase personal satisfaction and confidence. Societies with confident and content individuals tend to prosper and develop. This is why the use of cosmetics increases in wealthy and developed civilizations. So, if you ever consider purchasing a cosmetic product, indulge your desire and enjoy the confidence it brings.

After all, even the most sensitive human can detect one part sugar in nearly two hundred parts water—while bees, butterflies, and other nectar feeders can sense one part sugar in three hundred thousand parts water.