Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c7.s2.t1.116

c7.s2.t1.116

Women required less excuse to look pretty. They spent most of their time, if not the whole of it, in cultivating physical charms and graceful looks, not without successful results.⁶ The dressing of hair was carefully attended to, though not with such elaboration perhaps as in Burma.⁷ Among articles of physical decoration we may mention the use of antimony for the eyes, vermillion for marking the parting of the hair, musk for the breast and betel-leaves for the lips, dentifrice for the teath, a certain black powder for the eye-brows and the caste-mark for a Hindu maiden.⁸ Henna (*Lawsonia alba*) had timely come to their aid and its use soon became universal and popular.⁹ In the South women went still further and started using false hair. In the North natural long hair was common among both sexes.¹⁰