You are going to read a text about beauty rituals around the world.
Download the worksheet and fill in the grid (on your own) and discuss the answers in your group.
A ritual is a ceremony, an event that takes place in a particular order on a regular basis. For at least 6,000 years, people in nearly all societies around the world, especially women, have been performing daily rituals with the purpose of making themselves beautiful. Skin and hair care products (called cosmetics) are not modern inventions, because ancient societies used them, too. In fact, some of the present-day beauty rituals have roots in very old practices. In Iran people used a black powder called kohl to darken their eyelids, in a ritual similar to what people do with eyeliners. Chinese people started using nail polish around 5,000 years ago. Different colors, made of gelatin, beeswax and egg white, were used by different social classes. For example, lower classes were not allowed to paint their nails in bright colors. Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, the ideal of beauty among higher classes was pale skin. For this reason, royals stayed indoors most of time, and used additional white powder to make them look paler. |