Quote from the brilliant Facepainting company “About Faces”…….

Origins of Face Painting

From hunting camouflage, to religious decoration, to military subterfuge, face painting has been applied to everyday living in many ways. In today’s society, it is used most commonly as entertainment.

Wife of Papua New Guinea chief applies face paint
The use of face paints can be traced back to the indigenous people of Australia and Africa. During ceremonies, tribespeople would adorn their faces and bodies with clay, charcoal, and other natural pigments.

Ivory Coast girl acrobats with face paint.

Surma stick fighter, Ethiopia
Their choice of colors would depend on the available raw materials located in that region, such as red clays and blue dyes from berries. In North America, face paint was an integral part of Indian culture.

After painting his face, Eddie “Two Clouds” Zermeno prepares to dance
Effects would be added to the decorations by using dust or feathers, or any number of other things that could be locally found. The evolution of body painting has now split off into various forms of decoration. Most noticeably you see the art of henna forming in India and the Middle East.

Face painting for entertainment

Mummy bloggers at a Nestle event…lots of goodness in cereal such as Cheerios, Weetabix.. There were a lovely lady whose pets included spiders, Scorpio, ants and centipedes.And the children loved them and we were kept extremely busy. Xxx