For a female new presenter on the Iranian state television channel the makeup look is ordered to be natural. As in nilch, nada, zero. They say it’s not kosher. Oh, I mean not in keeping with Islamic sharia law. This was reported by The Washington Post on Dec. 2 and The Huffington Post yesterday.

Ancient Persians were among the first peoples, not long after the Egyptians, to use cosmetics with substances like kohl. After the Arab tribes conqured the region and converted it to Islam, the use was scaled back to only being prohibited if the purpose wasn’t to disguise or cause unruly desire. Other than that, it was good to go for a verrrryy long time. Currently Iran is the 3rd largest consumer of cosmetics in the Middle East.

Abu al-Qssum al-Zahrawi (or Abulcasis), a great Islamic scholar of his time (936-1013) and considered the father of modern surgery, dedicated an entire volume of his medical encyclopedia, Al-Tasrif, to cosmetics, which he called the “Medicine of Beauty”. One of his areas of expertise is listed on Wiki as ‘cosmetologist’.

Perhaps the newscasters are in fact causing unruly desire. Maybe it’s the very berry balm and fushia fun blusher that’s actually been causing the street riots. Otherwise I have to say, with all due respect, that I don’t get it.

ahmadinejad's makeover