Natural Cosmetics

4 min read

The beautiful Uygur girls are sung repeatedly in those songs full of tenderness which were adapted by Wang Luobin. They are as beautiful as flowers. and charming for distinctive five sense oraans. Indeed. the Uvour airls in Xinjiang are very beautiful, not only due to the natural gift, but also the cosmetics they applied. The cosmetics the Uygur women applied are granted by the nature and cannot be bought in shops, so they can be truly called”specialty”.

“Please raise your veil and let me see your eyebrows. Your eyebrows are thin and long, just like the falcate moon over the tree.”All the tourists who step into Xinjiang are deeply attracted by the black and bushy eyebrows of the Uygur girls while listening to the song of Please Raise Your Veil. The Uygur women like making their eyebrows quite black, thin and long and they even link between the two eyebrows. From a distance, there is a crinkle-like black eyebrow above the watery big eyes, which really has some unique interests.

Especially when they are talking, they always express their emotions through eyebrows, making their thin and long eyebrows more charming.

The Uygur women regarding the black eyebrows as beauty like using the dark green juice of”Osma”to pencil eyebrows. The roots of Osma, namely isatis root, are used by the people of Han from the perspective of the Chinese medicine health culture, while its leaves are used by the people of the Uygurethnic groupfor beauty. They think that the Osma is the nutrient for eyebrows and if they are usually used to pencil the eyebrows, the eyebrows can become more brushy and black. The Uygur women not only pencil their own eyebrows, but also pencil their young daughters’, and at last they will daub the left Osmajuice on the hair of their children, wishing their children black and long hair.

When spring comes, the Uygur women will pick up the green leaves of Osma and knead them in the centre of the palm, extrude the dark green juice and drop it into the centre of the bottom of a China bowl or into a small dish.

Then they use a small thin stick wrapped with cotton to dip the juice, and carefully daub it on the eyebrows for several times. When the juice dries slightly, they wash off the floating juice on the eyebrows with clear water, leaving a layer of black eyebrows, which makes the inborn bushy eyebrows darker and more beautiful and maintain for more than a week without fading.

In the absence of the fresh green juice of Osma in winter, the Uygur women will use “Surme”(graphite) to pencil eyebrows and eyelids, which will make eyebrows darker, eyes bigger and the women more charming.

The Uygur women not only regard the long braid as beauty, but also are good at taking care of their hair, and are fond of using “Yilim”(Desert Date Glue) to daub hair. Desert Date is a common sand-fixing plant in South Xinjiang, which will outflow a kind of glue when getting old and the glue is called”Yilim”in the Uygur language. Usually, they collect this kind of glue.

After washing hair, they will daub “Yilim”which are soaked in water and diluted by water on the hair. After drying, the hair will become black and brilliant. This kind of glue can maintain brightness and orderliness of the hair style for a week and can protect the hair-this is the effect no fixature can achieve. It is the Uygur’s nature fixature with deserved reputation.

When the “Hangul”(Impatiens Balsamina) are in blossom, the Uygur women like using it to paint fingernails. These women smash the petals, daub it on the fingernails and toenails, and wrap them with cloth before sleeping.

On the next morning, the fingernails and toenails will be dyed in the color offresh jacinth, which will maintain for several weeks. These cosmetics the Uygur women applied are truly natural cosmetics bestowed by nature.

In the middle of the 1980s, Xinjiang, being enlightened by that the Uygur use the grass juice of Osma to pencil the eyebrows, developed and produced a series of “Osma”products, paving a successful road for the combination of folk traditional techniques of the Uygur and modern science. In every shopping mall of Xinjiang, customers can find the specialized counter for the makeup,”the expert for face and eyebrows”-Osma Cosmetics Shop. In the glittering array of the cosmetics market,”Osma”has become the only indigenous cosmetics brand thriving forever of Xinjiang.