Chalk instead of eye shadow and a knife for curling eyelashes: how women in the USSR used to make up

Today, you can find cosmetics on store shelves to suit all tastes and at any price. However, just a few decades ago, during the Soviet Union, people used mostly improvised materials and could not even dream of such diversity.

In times of shortage and limited access to Western fashion trends, Soviet women showed great ingenuity to emphasize their beauty. OBOZ.UA has collected information about unusual makeup methods and products that were often used by Soviet women.

Vaseline

In Soviet times, lip balms and glosses were in real short supply. However, you could buy petroleum jelly in any pharmacy or store. It was not expensive at all, but it shone beautifully.

Despite the fact that this life hack dried out the lips very much, women continued to use it, because lipsticks did not suit everyone, and even then they were incredibly expensive.

Spit mascara

In Soviet times, mascara was hard. It came in a small box with a brush that resembled a toothbrush.

In order to apply mascara to the eyelashes, it had to be moistened with something. Usually, fashionistas used saliva, not water. This is where the name of this cosmetic miracle came from.

Stationery

In the USSR, no eyeshadow was produced, so before the advent of imported cosmetics, women were imaginative and began to use chalk and drawing pencils for makeup.

Soviet women used red pencils as lip pencils, and crushed chalk, mixed with water, to make eyeshadow and blush.

Knife

Today, women can go for eyelash lamination, or simply use special eyelash curlers to curl them.

In the USSR, women also knew that curled eyelashes open up the eyes and began to make their eyes more expressive with knives.

They were heated over a candle flame and then carefully drawn through the eyelashes. This method was quite dangerous, because you could easily burn or cut yourself. But beauty required sacrifice back then.

Pins for combing eyelashes

Soviet mascara had a rather uncomfortable brush that stuck the lashes together. However, no one had invented a small plastic comb at the time, so women used sharp pins and needles to separate their eyelashes.

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