Joseon women's skincare knowhow

Portrait of a Joseon lady by 18th century painter Shin Yun-bok / Korea Times file

By Lee Min-joo

In recent years, Korean cosmetic products became so popular to the point where the many duty free stores had to institute a purchase limit. Not only that, many global cosmetics companies use the Korean market as a test bed for new products, which shows not only the soaring prestige of Korean cosmetics products but also the discerning eye of Korean consumers for the cosmetics.

Since when did Korean women develop a keen eye for good cosmetics products? Let’s travel through time back to the Joseon period.

Among women in the Joseon period, having fair skin and luxuriant, jet-black hair was the main requirement to be considered a beauty. Especially, a porcelain-like complexion was the most desired attribute. To have a clear, transparent and smooth skin without blemishes or discolorations means that one needs to be free from labors.

Although not every woman was fortunate enough to not have to work, they were not willing to give up on having beautiful skin. The solution to this dilemma can be found in “Takjijeongrye” (a book of rules concerning the government’s spending) and “Gyuhapchongseo” (encyclopedia of women’s life) in the collection of the Jangseogak Archives at the Academy of Korean Studies.

The first step to achieving a beautiful complexion is cleanliness, i.e. to wash face clean. The most common facial cleanser was “jodu,” or powdered beans. To make jodu, mung beans, adzuki beans and soybeans are ground on a millstone, dehulled, ground again finer and finally sifted through a sieve.

Takjijeongrye explains that this powdered soap would scrub off dead skin cells and reveal soft skin when rubbed onto wet face, and that it even has an excellent whitening effect.

There is no doubt that mung bean powder was a great cosmetic ingredient for clear skin, for it is described to be effective in preserving vitality and curing skin eruption, according to Donguibogam, a medical encyclopedia compiled during the Joseon period.

One major flaw is that the cleanser made from jodu had a rather unpleasant fishy odor. But the fragrance added for masking the offensive odor actually transformed it into a pleasantly perfumed soap, which eventually became the luxury gift item for women in the court.

What then did ordinary women outside the royal court use in place of expensive jodu? Popular ingredients were the byproducts of common cereal grains such as rice bran and wheat bran, which were wrapped in muslin or silk cloth, and rubbed onto skin. The milky-white water easily obtained from washing rice was also used in washing face.

These natural cleansers made from ordinary ingredients were every bit as good as the more expensive jodu for getting clear skin.

The second step to beautiful skin is to keep it moisturized. The bottle gourd was considered the most effective ingredient for moisturizing skin.

If you put a fresh-cut gourd stem in the vase, you can collect its juice of a sticky consistency. When applied to face, this natural moisturizer makes skin moist and smooth. Other plants such as sponge gourd, cucumber and citron have similar effects.

With the juice from peppermint leaves squeezed in, you get a fragrant, smooth moisturizing cream.

What comes next is necessary to achieve a porcelain-like complexion. The application of a nourishing cream called “myeonyak,” or facial medicine, is the last step for a dewy, fair skin tone, reminiscent of a bright full moon in the midnight sky.

In Gyuhapchongseo, it says “If skin gets chapped and uneven during the winter, put three eggs into liquor, seal the jar airtight and let stand for about a month. If you apply this to face, it will not only relieve the chapped skin but also make your skin glow like jade.” It tells us that the perfect skin ultimately meant having radiant, glistening skin.

There is another thing that should not be overlooked: the jet-black hair that would accentuate the porcelain-like complexion. The long, luxuriant black hair was all the more important standard of beauty. Koreans had a reputation for their silky, fine, long hair that was raven black with deep green sheen.

Chinese envoys to the Joseon court especially set their eyes on the gache, a traditional hairpiece worn as a wig or braided together with real hair to add height and fullness to hair.

The beauty secret of Joseon women for maintaining beautiful hair was their hair care regime. As in skin care, cleanliness is important in taking care of hair. Good combing was just as important. Joseon women used two kinds of combs — first a wide-toothed comb to disentangle hair, then a fine-toothed comb to tidy up hair. Once combing was done, the hair was parted for braiding and pulled back slick so as not to leave any stray hairs.

Skin care and hair care were the matters in the private realm of women’s quarters. How do we find out what real women used and for which purpose? In the Jangseogak Archives there are about 950 historic documents and manuscripts from the royal court that provide a vivid insight into the life and culture within the royal court.

These documents inform us what kinds of beauty products Joseon women used. It is explained that hwangmil or honey was applied to give luster to face and that jinyu or sesame oil was used to add shine to hair. There is also a mention of buying soseong, which is a special brush used for cleaning combs, for the court.

Though well-tended hair in such a meticulous way was beautiful on its own, Joseon women wanted to achieve a bigger, fuller hairdo by adding someone else’s hair to their own.

This hairstyle is best illustrated in a painting called “Miindo”(Portrait of a Beauty) by Shin Yun-bok (1758-?), one of the greatest artists of the time. Gacheshingeumsamok (A Court Order Banning the Use of Women’s Luxury Wigs), in the collection of the Jangseogak Archives, laments that the desire for beauty gave birth to luxury, which developed into a serious social problem. What is noteworthy is that the ban against gache was distributed not only in Chinese but also in Hangeul, so that commoners could read it.

It tells us that regardless of the class difference, every Joseon woman had the same desire to look beautiful by achieving a porcelain-like complexion and sporting a big, full hairdo. When one considers the spotlight that Korean cosmetics and Korean standards of beauty are enjoying in the global market, one cannot help but wonder whether the true origin of the Korean Wave sweeping across the world’s beauty industry lies in the Joseon period.

The writer is a research fellow at the Academy of Korean Studies.