Modern people are most impressed by the customs of Laba Festival. Drinking a bowl of Laba porridge can be regarded as completing the life ceremony. But as the saying goes, "after Laba is the year", the day of opening the new year's festival is highly valued in ancient times. Looking back thousands of years ago, we would never have thought that this was a great day for the ministers to receive the year-end gifts from the monarchs. Among these gifts, there were "beauty make-up" and "medicine make-up" products, such as lipstick sachets, red snow beans. We would not have thought that this was the national welfare system enjoyed by all the officials in the Tang Dynasty.

"Skin care gift bag" distributed by the king

In the second year of Zhide (757), Du Fu, who returned to Chang'an after the rebellion of Anshi, received a gift from the emperor suzong of Tang Dynasty, namely, oral rouge facial medicine, emerald tube and Yinying. The emerald tube is a green tubular utensil, and the Yinying is a silver box, which is used to hold the facial medicine. Lipstick is applied to the lips. Facial medicine is used for cleansing skin, moisturizing skin and preventing cracking. It is equivalent to today's lipstick, face cream and other daily necessities.

After the middle of Tang Dynasty, it became more popular for the court to distribute year-end gifts. Not only the close officials in the capital of the country can enjoy the kindness of the emperor, but also the local feudal officials and soldiers. In the 16th year of Zhenyuan era (800 years), the imperial court sent envoys to Duyou's tent in Huainan to issue a new year's calendar, two copies of each of which were face cream, lipstick, red snow, purple snow, gold flower silver box and gold ridge box. The imperial edict not only cared about Duyou, but also consoled generals, officials, monks and Taoist priests, long-lived old men and the people. In the 19th year of Zhengyuan (803), the envoys of the central government arrived at Li Zhongcheng's house, and they also gave a box of face cream, lipstick, red snow, purple snow and a bag of bath beans. Red snow is a bitter medicine to drive away diseases, and bath beans are bath products.

At the time of wax winter, the imperial court widely distributed red snow and purple snow to the officials, which was obviously not heatstroke prevention. In the Tang Dynasty, these two medicines were mainly used to assist in taking the gold stone. Because the most obvious side effect of taking gold stone is heat poison. Although it was popular in Wei and Jin Dynasties, it still had a large number of followers in Tang Dynasty.

Source: China News Network

Time: January 2, 2020