The secret privacy of ancient women is exposed: bathing once every five days and hanging upside down for contraception

When watching costume dramas, the maids and young ladies in them are all glamorous and glamorous, and they even wear heavy makeup when they sleep. But think about it carefully - in ancient times, there was no foundation, no mascara, no shower gel, no female razors, no sanitary napkins, no bras... And what did they do when their "period" came? Oh my God, how did women in ancient times live!

1. In ancient times, women wore bellybands as tops, so did they wear underwear?

The ancients referred to clothes as "衣" for the upper body and "尚" for the lower body.

"Shang" is a bit like a skirt, to put it simply, it is a piece of cloth to cover the body. Pants did not appear until the Spring and Autumn Period.

Later, women would wear an extra pair of old pants inside during menstruation to avoid soiling their outer pants. Gradually, men followed suit, and it gradually evolved into the underwear we wear today.

Nowadays, not wearing underwear has become another expression of sexiness.

2. How often did ancient people usually take a bath?

What did they use to wash their hair? The ancients were much more hygienic than we think.

As early as the pre-Qin period, the ancients washed their hair every three days and bathed every five days.

In the Han Dynasty, the custom of "rest and bath" appeared, which meant that officials could take a day off to take a bath after working for five days.

3. Did ancient women shave their body hair?

Compared to their high IQ that keeps up with the times, Chinese women have not evolved much when it comes to shaving body hair.

In fact, long ago, ancient women advocated shaving their eyebrows and then drawing them with black pigment...

That’s right, the women in Akira Kurosawa’s film “Ran” like to make their eyebrows into small dots, which is the result of learning from Chinese ancestors…

In addition, it was popular among ancient women to "wipe the face", which is to use thread to remove the fine hair on the face... It is said that only men care about face, but it seems that this is not the case.

4. Was there lesbianism in ancient times?

In ancient China, lesbianism was often called "mojing", where both parties would rub or caress each other's bodies to obtain a certain degree of sexual satisfaction.

Because both parties have the same body structure, it seems like a mirror is placed in the middle, so it is called "grinding mirror".

There was also a woman dressed as a man, tying a dildo around her waist and having sex with the other person.

In ancient times, lesbianism mostly occurred in the harem, because the only men the palace maids came into contact with were the emperor and eunuchs. In the absence of a sufficient number of men, the palace maids had to "digest the evil" on their own.

5. How did ancient women prevent pregnancy?

The ancients did not have condoms or contraceptives, so how did they prevent pregnancy? In the ancient palace, if the emperor did not want his concubine to get pregnant, he would order the eunuchs to hang the woman upside down and clean her private parts with saffron.

In the past, brothel girls would also take a "cooling medicine" containing musk to prevent pregnancy.

6. How did women in ancient times put on makeup?

Putting on makeup is a hobby of women that has never changed from ancient times to the present.

The three most commonly used magic weapons by ancient women were: eyebrow powder, makeup powder and rouge. "Dai" is a black mineral. Grind it into powder and then mix it with water, and it can be used to draw eyebrows. Makeup powder is what we now call pressed powder.

Rouge is the lipstick in ancient times. The raw material is a flower called "red and blue". It can also be used as blush after mixing with makeup powder.

Today’s wide range of cosmetics gives women more choices, and their “mask” skills are much better than those of the ancients.

7. There were no sanitary napkins in ancient times. What should women do when they have their period?

The longest item on ancient women's bodies, apart from their hair and foot bindings, was their menstrual cloth.

A menstrual cloth is a long strip of cloth that is used to tightly wrap the lower body during menstruation. However, since ancient women participated in physical labor more frequently, they still could not avoid "seeing blood".

In addition, because China has always advocated frugality, the used cloth strips will be washed and reused.

8. Did the ancient emperors really have 3,000 concubines?

3,000 concubines; this is actually just a conservative number.

Ancient emperors were tireless in their pursuit of women. The famous tyrant Emperor Yang of Sui once issued an edict to recruit beauties from all over the world and even selected 3,000 virgin girls to enter the palace for his "entertainment."

Emperor Yang of Sui is a piece of cake, the top of the list goes to Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Although the ancient books describe his love with Yang Guifei as earth-shattering and soul-stirring, the number of his concubines in his harem was as high as 40,000...

Well, if you take one a day, it will take more than 100 years to use them up.

9. Did babies in ancient times drink goat's milk or cow's milk? Or did they only drink breast milk?

If babies in ancient times could drink goat's milk or cow's milk, there wouldn't be so many tragic cases of infant deaths.

Ancient people usually had to reach a certain age before they could drink animal milk. Babies still mainly feed on breast milk containing human antibodies, because at that time animal milk did not have the current sterilization technology, and babies had no resistance to bacteria.

What to do if the mother has no milk? She can only "borrow milk", and thus the profession of wet nurse was born. Poor families who had no milk could only use rice ground into a fine paste suitable for swallowing as a substitute.

10. How did ancient women lose weight? Are there any folk remedies for breast enlargement?

Compared to the various weight-loss drugs available today, the ancients' methods were much simpler, such as drinking tea to lose weight.

However, the common people in ancient times rarely had the luxury of eating meat and fish, and they had to do heavy and tiring work all day long, so how could they get fat?

The ancients’ methods of breast enhancement were relatively natural, such as using food supplements such as red beans and soybeans to achieve breast enhancement effects.

In addition, the ancients believed that acupoint massage could also help to increase breast size.