Cosmetics

When you find Maiko (Geisha), you’ll forget the time with her appearance. And her white skin and brilliant lip color are contrasted beautifully. They use “Oshiroi” for their skin and “Beni” for their lip.

Oshiroi

Oshiroi is a kind of foundation. Lately, Oshiroi are innovated, i.e. included skin care lotion. The traditional way for preparation is the followings.

1. Take special oil to your hand and liquefy the oil
2. Thinly give the face to the chest, the neck to the back coat of the oil
3. Solve Oshiroi into the water and paint it to where coated the oil
4. Powder one's face with a puff

Normally the oil which uses Maiko is almost same as the Sumo wrestlers’ hair oil. The oil calls “Binzuke Abura”. Long time ago, Oshiroi was contained lead and caused diseases.

Beni

Beni is lip rouge in English. It is a small stick and solves just a small part to the water to use it. To finish it, uses high dense sugar liquid to coat the lip rouge. The first year Maiko (Geisha) paint only to the lower lip. The material of Beni is safflower which was separated coloring matter with apricot vinegar. Traditionally these lip rouge was called as “Kyoto Beni” in Japan. Beni uses materials which uses for food production even now. Those materials have fewer loads to the skin and remove it much easier than recent coloring matters. However it takes so much cost, it is little difficult to get it.