In the 17th and 18th century, European men and women would stick patches of star-shaped taffeta on their faces. This might seem like a crazy time in makeup history, until you remember that women nowadays pay good money to have someone meticulously attach hair from what's essentially a water ferret (albeit a really soft water ferret) to their eyelashes. And they tattoo permanent pigment onto their lips. And have lasers zap away hair. Beauty is all relative, as the history of makeup and other cosmetic aids shows. What's normal in one culture and one period of time would result in horrified looks in another. Below, our history of makeup timeline takes you through 100,000 years of beauty, including all of the times people smeared lead onto their faces.

Illustration: Jessica Snively 

See what else people have done in the name of self-expression with the illustrated history of tattoos and body modifications.