Remaking Rouge from the Northern Wei Dynasty of China

Introduction

*Figure 1,* Gu, Kaizhi, *The Admonitions Scroll*, a Chinese narrative painting portraying court ladies applying makeup

“Red Makeup”

As cosmetics may be thought related to modern chemistry and mass production, they have long been on the beauty desks since the ancient world. In ancient China, cosmetics for women were called red makeup (红妆 hong zhuang). Rouge, in the color representing the ancient Chinese cosmetics, is what I wish to achieve in this term project through a recipe found in The Essential Methods for the Common People’s Needs (齐民要术 Qimin Yaoshu ).

History of Rouge

Scholars have commonly agreed that the earliest type of rouge first appeared in the imperial palace of Shang Dynasty around 1000 BCE.[1] Using Cinnabar, a toxic mercury sulfide mineral, as the main ingredient, this archetype of rouge had been applied to women’s cheeks and lips for hundreds of years until it was replaced by a new type of rouge imported from the nomadic tribes of the West (匈奴 xiong nu) by Zhang Qian, a Han explorer who traveled there around 138 – 126 BCE.[1] This recipe, using safflower as the main ingredient that provides the red pigment, later became the most commonly recorded recipe among all kinds of rouge. Thus, aside from improving the recipe by moving away from toxic ingredients, rouge made of safflower also has social and cultural significance as it provides evidence to the long relation of xiong nu to China and their diplomacy during the Han Dynasty.

Practice and Practitioners

According to Qimin Yaoshu, the plantation of safflowers were adopted by the Han and practiced in great scales:

“safflowers are ought to be planted after the rain and harvest in the morning when the temperature is still cool outside. Flowers planted in May are called late flowers, which will harvest in July. These flowers have saturated and bright colors that resemble those planted in the spring. Every acre of safflowers needs a hundred people to harvest every single day.” [2]

It is noteworthy that women, from imperial palaces and family households alike, were not only the main users of rouge but also active participants in making rouge.[3] There has been a tale about Princess Yongle of the Tang Dynasty who loved gardening spices and flowers, among them more than twenty kinds of flowers containing red pigments were for making rouge. It can be deduced from the story that safflowers were not the only option to make rouge during the Tang Dynasty.

Motivation

But the reason why this specific recipe from Qimin Yaoshu fascinates me is not only the fact that rouge is a conspicuous example of crafts used predominantly by women, who are often overlooked when talking about ancient Chinese history; also, the process of making rouge from Qimin Yaoshu shows an intimate relevance with agriculture and with food-making, relying on both natural ingredients and environmental factors such as geographics, season, climate, etc. Through this project, I wish to experience that intimacy with nature, while gaining a better perception and appreciation of ancient craftsmanship performed by women.

Primary Source and Translation

《齐民要术》(Qimin Yaoshu)

Titled The Essential Methods for the Common People’s Needs, the first agricultural encyclopedia of China was written in the Northern Wei Dynasty around 544 C.E. by an official and agronomist Jia Sixie. The book provides comprehensive recipes and farming techniques related to grains, vegetables, fruit, trees, livestock, brewing, seasoning, conditioning, foreign products, etc.

Indicated through its title, Qimin Yaoshu was not written for scholars but for the common people to help practice agriculture in their daily lives. Another piece of evidence suggesting the audience of the book is that it was written in straightforward, vernacular language and agricultural idioms. In his preface, Jia claimed that the book was written based on research, interviews with skilled farmers, and experiments by himself. Texts written in parentheses, as will be seen in the rouge recipe below, were believed to be his own annotations after doing hands-on trials, which gives credit to the book’s authenticity.

Consequently, I chose Qimin Yaoshu as my primary source to recreate rouge for three reasons:

First, it uses natural ingredients that are easier to obtain and safer to operate with.

Second, while acknowledging the geographical specificity that will probably cause the same ingredients I obtain to be different from the recipes’, I still believe that the book’s authenticity would likely yield the best result to recreate the ancient rouge.

Third, according to Li Xiulian who discusses the history of rouge in Summary of the History of Chinese Cosmetics (中国化妆史概说), rouge from the early imperial of China was mostly air-dried; it is therefore required to be mixed with a small amount of water before applying onto the face. Not until the Northern and Southern dynasties, during which Qimin Yaoshu was written did people start adding ox marrow or pig fat into rouge, which then became lubricated and could be used without adding water.[1] Thus, this recipe gives me more flexibility to make different kinds of rouge that can be used either with or without water.

Below is an excerpt of the rouge recipe and my translation of it.

“摘取即碓捣使熟，以水淘，布袋绞去黄汁，更捣，以粟饭浆清而醋者淘之，又以布袋绞汁即收取染红勿弃也……预烧落藜、藜、藿及蒿作灰[无者即草灰亦得]，以汤淋取清汁，揉花[十许遍，势尽乃生]，布袋绞取纯汁著瓮器中，取醋石榴两三个，擘取子，捣破少著粟饭浆水极酸者和之，布绞取沈，以和花汁[若无醋石榴者，以好醋和饭浆亦得，若复无醋者，清饭浆极酸者亦得，空用之]，下白米粉大如酸枣[粉多则白]，……痛搅，盖冒至夜，泻去上清汁至淳处止，倾著白练角袋子中悬之，明日干浥浥时，捻作小瓣如半麻子，阴干之，则成矣.” [2]
“Grind the safflower until it is mashed; run it through water and put it in a cotton bag to squeeze out the yellow pigment; grind the flower even more and run it through clear, acidic rice water; again, squeeze yellow pigment out of the cotton bag…… Prepare burnt chenopodium ash (use wood ash as a substitute); pour bioled water into the ash and acquire its clear portion; rub the flower (for more than ten times until the transformation is completed); squeeze it in a cotton bag and collect the juice in a container; get two to three sour pomegranates; take out their seeds and crush them; mix with a small porion of acidic rice water; put in a cotton bag and squeeze out the juice, which is added into the flower juice (use good quality vinegar mixed with rice water as a substitute for sour pomegranates; use clear, highly acidic rice water if no vinegar either); put in rice powder as big as a jujube (the color will be too white if too much powder is added); ….stir thoroughly and cover the container; wait until night time and pour the upper clear portion until the mixture becomes rich; pour the condensed mixture in a cotton drawstring bag and hang it up; wait until the next day when it is half dried; take it out and twist it into small petals; air dry it and it is done.”
1) Day 1 Prepare basic solution: pour hot water into wood ash. Mix the solution and let it sit for a while, then take the clear solution on the top layer while discarding the rest.
2) Day 1 Prepare acidic solution: use good quality vinegar.
3) Day 1 Extract yellow pigments from red pigments in safflowers (Context: Safflowers contain both red pigments and yellow pigments. Red pigments are the main ingredient needed for rouge. The reason why we prepare base and acid in steps 1 and 2 is that red pigments are insoluble in acid but soluble in base, while yellow pigments are insoluble in the base while soluble in acid): crush the safflowers in the mortar and pestle set, pour in the vinegar and continue to crush more than ten times. Squeeze the flowers through the gauze fabric to separate out the juice with yellow pigments. Now the flower is mostly left with red pigments.
4) Day 2 Extract red pigments: pour the basic solution prepared in 1) and mix thoroughly with the mixture obtained in 3). Add rice powder to the flower and stir thoroughly. Let the mixture sit overnight, covered. Wait until the solution becomes clear. Dump the clear solution until the rest is all enriched. Squeeze out the juice with red pigments through the gauze cloth. Pour the resulting solution into drawstring bags and hang them up. On the second day, the residue in the bags should be paste-like.
5) Day 3 Make Rouge: for making oil-based rouge, add beef tallow into the paste made from 4). Take a small portion and press it into the shape of a petal. Air-dry the paste and the resulting product will be the rouge.

Experimentation

Ingredients:

Note:

Because the product would be applied on the skin and inevitably possible to be inhaled or eaten, all ingredients should match the quality of food. The wood ash (in which the active ingredient is potassium carbonate K2CO3) from the original recipe, therefore, appeared a little dangerous from my perspective and I so I replaced it with baking soda (in which the active ingredient is sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO₃). Although sodium bicarbonate is a much weaker base than potassium carbonate, it is still a reasonable substitute because the recipe only requires diluted potassium carbonate, whose pH can be the same as diluted sodium bicarbonate at a different concentration.
By the beginning of the experiment, I did not have clear, white vinegar but only black vinegar (as shown on the bottom right in figure 3). The first step using vinegar, nonetheless, does not matter if there is color in the vinegar since the yellow pigments are dumped out anyway. I later purchased white vinegar to replace the black vinegar.

Hypothesis:

Before starting, I realized that this recipe is supposed to be performed in the spring or summer rather than in the winter, according to my primary source. Together with other deviations I have from the original recipe, I wonder if these differences in natural conditions will hinder the recreation of rouge. My hypothesis is that although nature plays an important role in making rouge, I would still be able to remake this ancient recipe with different ingredients in a different time of the year.

Round1

Preparing basic solution:

I first carefully measured 23.3 grams of baking soda and some pour hot water in to make the base, which oversaturated. I later noticed that I forgot to measure the amount of water in the solution but then realized that there was no need to obtain either of the numbers since I only need the upper portion which is just about saturated. I filtered it through a coffee filter and obtained the clearer solution for later use.

Extracting yellow pigment:

I used the mortar and pestle set to grind the safflower petals with vinegar. As mentioned above, I used black vinegar for this step and found that there was no problem extracting the yellow pigment from the safflower. However, after running the bag through water and squeezing it a couple of times I noticed that it was difficult to get rid of all the yellow pigment - every time I let it sit for a while, there were always more yellow pigments coming out when I washed it again. I was not sure when to call it an end, so I just went washing the bag for 15 minutes before I was done with this step. In the end, my hand turned yellow.

Extracting red pigment:

I poured in the basic solution from the first step and saw the color to be too orange as soon as it is mixed. I assume this was because I did not fully get rid of the yellow pigment earlier but was hoping that the red pigment was still able to peel off. After sitting for a while, I was sad to find out that the color in the bowl became even more yellow and all the red pigment was absorbed by the cotton bag rather than collected in the solution.

Making rouge:

Regardless of the color, I went on and stirred in the rice powder but less than the size of a jujube, since I only had little enriched pigment left. I then pour the mixture into a new bag and hang it there overnight. In the morning, I was surprised to find that what was inside the bag was completely dried rather than moist. I twisted the rouge and it easily became powder. This was the end of the first iteration, in which I made some powder that was too white and had too much yellow pigment left in there. Also, the powder, as suggested in Li’s book, hardly ever stayed on my skin were it not mixed with water. For the next iteration, I decided to change up some steps and interpretations of the recipe.

Unexpected inspiration:

After finishing extracting the red pigment of my first round, my white vinegar had arrived and I suddenly decided to try repeating the steps extracting the yellow pigment to see if any more yellow came out. I was surprised to find that most of the yellow pigment was gone after soaking the flower under white vinegar. So I suspect that alternating between the base and acid solution may clean off the colors more thoroughly.

Round 2

Preparing base and extracting yellow pigment:

For the second round, I repeated the same steps preparing the basic solution and pounding the safflower except that I switched entirely to white vinegar instead of black vinegar.

New interpretation and Iterations of extracting yellow and red pigment:

To avoid having all the red pigment attached to the cotton bag like last time, I removed the flower from the bag before I added in any base. After letting sit for a while, I pour the basic solution into another container. I reason why I did this was that I noticed in the recipe that Jia mentioned rubbing the flower more than ten times when running it in the base. At first, I thought it could be just rubbing the flower with my hands ten times in the solution. But then I considered the possibility of running the entire step more than ten times, which means pouring additional base into the flowers each iteration. So I went repeating ten times the same process of extracting red pigment. In light of the inspiration from the previous round, In between each repetition I stuffed the flower back in the cotton bag again to soak into the vinegar, hoping that more yellow pigment could be extracted this way.

Here is the resulting red pigment solution after ten iterations.

Making rouge:

After finishing extracting red pigment, I filtered the red solution with the gauze and did the rest of the steps the same way as last time. However, I intentionally put in less rice powder so that the product would not turn out too white. Also, to prevent the rouge from drying to fast, I put a humidifier on the side when hanging the cotton bag up. As a result, it did end up more humid than the last round.

Making oil-based rouge:

I heated up beef tallow with a small portion of lip balm (which was not listed in the recipe yet I wondered it would help lubricate the rouge). When both melted, I added in the red solution and stirred thoroughly. I let the mixture cool down and solidify, but noticed there was too much oil floating on top of the rouge. So I waited for a while and dumped the top part down the sink, leaving as much rouge in the container as I could.

After air-drying for two nights, the rouge changed from liquid to a jelly-like texture. Below are the photos of the finished product:

Reflection

Comparing the first and the second round, I believe that the second round is closer to successfully reconstructing the historical recipe because more yellow pigment is disposed from the rouge and more red pigment remains. In addition, I agree that oil-based rouge is easier to stick on skins than powdered-based rouge, which matches the argument that Li has in her book. I am also satisfied with the process of discovering the meaning behind implicit wording in the recipe. For example, by reflecting on the first attempt, I realize that the instruction of “rubbing the flower more than ten times” actually means starting over with mixing new basic solutions with the flowers for ten times, as opposed to rubbing the flower ten times in the same solution.[2] However, there are still many more things I have yet to figure out, such as the exact amount of rice powder to add, the amount of beef tallow to add, and the way to keep rouge from drying out too fast. Thus, if I could revise the recipe, I would write it in a quantitative way so that ingredients can be measured in proportions. But understanding the un-standardized measurement and the importance of tacit knowledge in making in ancient China, it is unlikely to have a modern recipe in which every ingredient can be measured in numbers.

Through experimenting, I come to an argument that making rouge from a recipe written in Nothern Wei Dynasty China with modern ingredients and under different weather conditions caused by geographic locations does not impact the feasibility of recreation. In other words, whether having the exact same natural ingredients operated under the same weather conditions as the recipe suggests is not a determining factor of making the rouge successfully. Rather, more essential is the tacit knowledge behind the recipe that is gained by repeating the process over and over by the practitioners, who could add the correct amount of rice powder or vinegar just by looking or smelling. Thus, if I could further have a chance to improve, I wish I could have more time going over more iterations with the experiment using more carefully-designed control groups so that I can keep track with the change in numbers and conditions in each group. In this way, the tactic knowledge from the ancient Chinese artisans may turn into explicit knowledge shared by the modern people.

Works Cited

[1] Li, Xiu Lian, Zhong Guo Hua Zhuang Shi Gai Shuo. Beijing, 2000.

[2] Jia, Sixie, Qiyu Miao, and Guilong Miao. Qi min yao shu yi zhu. Di 1 ban, di 5 ci yin shua. Zhong guo gu dai ke ji ming zhu yi zhu cong shu. Shang hai: Shang hai gu ji chu ban she, 2014.

[3] Wu, Lingyun. Hong Zhuang: Nü Xing de Gu Dian. Beijing di 1 ban. Beijing Shi: Zhonghua shu ju, 2005.

Image Citation

Figure 1. Gu, Kaizhi. The Admonitions Scroll. Accessed 7 December 2021. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1903-0408-0-1.

Figure 2. Photo of a Safflower. n.d. Photography. Lotus Garden Botanicals. Accessed 7 December 2021. https://www.lgbotanicals.com/Safflower-Oil-Organic-High-Linoleic_p_743.html.