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Introduction to Harquus: Part 2: Kohl 

Kohl as traditional women’s adornment 

in North Africa and the Middle East

 

Catherine Cartwright-Jones 



 2005  

TapDancing Lizard Publications



 

www.harquus.com

 

 

 

 

Detail: 181 – Egyptian Types and Scenes – an Arab Woman; Levy et Neurdfin, 44, Rue Letellier, Paris 

Author’s private collection

 

 

19

th

 century Egyptian woman with kohl painted eyelids and eyebrows 

 
Henna and tattooing have been used in combination with black eye and eyebrow 
cosmetics since the Bronze Age.  Eye paints were nearly universal across North Africa, 
the Middle East, and South Asia. The black paint provided relief from the glaring sun and 

 

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reflection from the sand before sunglasses were invented.  Lamp-black was the most 
common source of pigment, though galena, (lead sulphide), and stibnite (an antimony 
compound), were also used for black, and copper compounds for blues and greens.   
These metals were toxic to bacteria carried by flies and contaminated water, so they 
provided some relief from conjunctivitis and other bacterial eye infections.  The irritation 
from having soot in one’s eyes caused tearing, which kept the eyes washed clean of 
contaminants, grit, and bacteria.  However, these toxic metals also entered the 
bloodstream of the wearer and the traditional formulae with these metals should never be 
used when there is safer cosmetic eye paint available. 
 

 

Detail: 7050 Scenes & Types du Maroc, Type de Femme du Souss – LL, Levy fils a Cie, Paris 

Auhor’s private collection 

 

Women from early 20

th

 century Souss, Morocco, with kohl applied in a straight line 

across her eyebrows, over a forehead tattoo, and western style lipstick.

 

 
In the Bronze Age Sumer, women used eye shadow made of finely ground malachite, a 
green-blue mineral.  Malachite occurs naturally as a surface mineral in the Sinai, and was 
carried across the trade routes into Egypt and the Middle East.  Canaanite women painted 
their eyelids with stibnite. Stibnite occurs in large deposits near Lake Urmia, in Armenia 
and Afghanistan, so it was also available across the trade routes.  The black cosmetic 
remnants found in tombs in Ur contained magnese dioxide, turquoise, and lead (probably 

 

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galena).  Egyptians used galena (lead sulphate) and powdered malachite to outline their 
eyes.  Ancient Egyptian men and women wore eye paints from childhood, throughout 
their lives, and were adorned in death. They laid eye cosmetic pouches and applicators in 
tombs for use in the afterlife. Even the statues of Egyptian gods had their eye paints 
reapplied daily.   
 
Pliny and Discorides describe the manufacture of another black eye paint by Ancient 
Egyptians:  galena was pounded with frankincense and gum, and then mixed with goose 
fat.  It was put in dough or cow dung and burned. The burning drove sulphur out of the 
galena to form lead oxide.  This was quenched with milk, and then pounded in a mortar 
with rainwater.  This was decanted several times and the finest powder was collected, 
dried, and divided into tablets.  Each woman would pulverize these and keep them in her 
cosmetic jar for application. 
 

 

Detail: 1331 Tunisie – Scenes et Types Femme Arabe 

Author’s private collection

 

 

19

th

 century Tunisian woman with painted eyebrows and eyelids

 

 
In Rome, women painted their eyelids and brows with a black eye cosmetic, “

Illa 

supercilium, madida fulgine tactum oblique producit acu, pingitque, trementes Attolens 
oculos.

”  They applied the color to their eyes by dipping a feather into prepared soot and 

pulling it between their nearly closed eyelids.   
 

 

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In the 6

th

 century, Alexander of Tralle described kohls made of burnt cadmium, copper, 

acacia gum, aloes, spikenard, opium, myrrh, lead, burnt ebony and copper, roses, and 
rainwater.  In the 17

th

 century, Celsus described twenty-six formulae for kohl and 

collyria.  Five used stibnite, eight used burned copper, and others used lead, ash from 
fragrant woods, verdigris, and copperas.   

 

Some women believed that blackening their eyelids and eyebrows would protect them 
from the glance of the Evil Eye, and also prevent them from transmitting the Evil Eye to 
another person.  Most women applied kohl every week, or for any social occasion, except 
during Ramadan, when kohl and all hennas were set aside. 
 

 

 

Detail: Marchand d’oranges, Union Postale Universelle Egypte Carte Postale 

Author’s private collection

 

 

Early 20

th

 century woman and children from Cairo: The daughter’s palms and soles 

are dyed with henna; the baby’s soles are dyed with henna.  The mother and 

daughter have kohled eyebrows and eyelids. The baby’s eyebrows appear to be 

painted with kohl. 

 
Mothers applied kohl to their infants soon after birth. They blackened the baby’s eyes, 
dabbed kohl on their umbilical cord, and darkened their eyebrows.  Some mothers did 
this to “strengthen the child’s eyes,” and others did it to prevent the child from being 
attacked by the Evil Eye.  Mothers often marked the tip of the baby’s nose with a dab of 
kohl. Moroccan Jewish mothers drew a line in harquus or kohl across their infants’ 

 

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forehead to protect them from the Evil Eye.  Mothers applied kohl to their children, both 
male and female, until they were old enough to apply it themselves. As adults, females 
used kohl more frequently than males.   
 

 

 

Detail: 1097 Scenes et Types Ouled-Nails, IMP, Levy fils a Cie, Paris, late 19

th

 or early 20

th

 century 

Author’s private collection

 

 

Ouled-Nail woman with eyelids painted with kohl, kohl or harquus extending the 

eye line from the corner of the eye to the hairline, eyebrows painted with kohl or 

harquus, and kohl or harquus dots accenting her forehead tattoo and eyebrows. 

 

 

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Women often adjusted their eyebrow and eye paints to compliment their tattoos.  The 
woman preceeding, an Ouled-Nail, has a forehead tattoo, but has also made dots with 
kohl or harquus to accent the tattoo, and dots over her eyebrows also.  She has a chin 
tattoo that is not visible without high magnification, and that tattoo is not accented with 
kohl. 
 

 

 

Detail: 1567 L’Afrique du Nord – Type de femme, Comber-Macon 

Author’s private collection 

 

Early 20

th

 century Algerian woman with eyebrows painted in kohl and a pigment 

paint dot above and between the eyebrows, over a forehead tattoo 

 
Indigenous eye paints were often created by collecting accumulated pot-black (the 
velvety carbon coating left on a vessel heated over a flame) and mixing it with oil. In 
rural western Iran, women prepared eye makeup by carbonizing cotton soaked in goat fat 
between two saj, to make velvety soot. This was scooped up with a rooster tail feather, 
kept in a little packet made of chicken skin leather, and applied with a 

mil

 (a small blunt 

applicator) whittled from wild sheep bone.   
 
In Afghanistan, women made surma by pounding antimony with almond oil to make a 
paste, and applying it with a small wood stylus, called a 

mikh

. Antimony was believed to 

strengthen weak eyes.  Felix Howland wrote from Kabul in 1936, that students often 

 

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came to school with blackened eyes, as a claim that they had studied so hard they had 
strained their eyes. 
 
Most women created their own cosmetics. Wealthier people used soot from burning 
amber or aloe wood to make their eye paints; poor women used common pot-black and 
animal fat.  Jews were often formulators and sellers of cosmetics through North Africa 
and the Middle East.  Jewish women were allowed to bring their cosmetic wares into 
harems to sell to the women who were not permitted leave the house and who didn’t trust 
their husbands to purchase good cosmetics in the market for them. Women also made 
paints made from various iron oxides and earths for complimentary red, white and yellow 
cosmetics. Tattoos were the basic ornament for everyday life, and these were augmented 
with henna, kohl, harquus, and other cosmetics in escalating amounts for more important 
occasions, the most complex adornment being reserved for a bride at her marriage. 
 
Unfortunately, the eye paint preparations containing lead and antimony are toxic and 
quite dangerous for women and children.  Present day commercial kohl, kajal, and surma 
preparations often contain dangerously high levels of lead and other toxins!  If you wish 
to recreate these traditional adornments, do not put anything in or near your eyes that 
does not have complete ingredient labeling.  Be certain that the products you use are safe 
cosmetic products produced and tested under strict regulations.   
 

Please see these online resources about the toxicity of kohl and surma before using 
any imported eye cosmetic! 

 
Vaishnav, Ragini  

An Example of the Toxic Potential of Traditional Eye Cosmetics 

Indian Journal of Pharmacology 2001; 33: 46-48 
Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Sultan Qaboos 
University  
Al-Khod, Muscat - 123, Sultanate of Oman. 

http://medind.nic.in/ibi/t01/i1/ibit01i1p46.pdf

 

 
US Food and Drug Administration 

Kohl, Kajal, Al-Kahl, or Surma: By Any Name, a Source of Lead 
Poisoning 

CFSAN/Office of Cosmetics and Colors, October 24, 2003 

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-kohl.html

 

 

References:  

 

Field, H. 
Body Marking in Southwestern Asia 
Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard 
University, Vol XLV No. 1 
Published by the Peabody Museum Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1958 
 

 

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Juvenal, Satires II: 93 – 95; D. Junii Juvenalis Opera Omnia, 3 vols. 
 
Partington, J. R. 
Origins and Development of Applied Chemistry 
London, 1935 

 

Watson, P. 
Archaeological Ethnography in Western Iran 
Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology Number fifty-Seven 
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc. 

 

Web resources on minerals used in kohl: 

 

http://mineral.galleries.com/minerals/sulfides/stibnite/stibnite.htm

 

http://www.mii.org/Minerals/photoant.html

 

http://www.bartleby.com/65/st/stibnite.html

 

http://www.ucc.ie/ucc/depts/chem/dolchem/html/elem/elem051.html

 

 

Medical papers detailing health risks from kohl and surma: 

 

Al-Ashban, R.M.; Aslam, M.; Shah, A.H 

Kohl (surma): a toxic traditional eye cosmetic study in Saudi Arabia  

Public Health, Jun 2004, Vol. 118 Issue 4, p292, 7p, 3 charts, 2bw; (

AN 

13383334

) 

 
Ali, Aulfat R.; Smales, Oliver R.C.; Aslam, Mohamed 
Surma and lead poisoning 
British Medical Journal, 9/30/78, Vol. 2 Issue 6142, p915, 2p, 2 charts, 1bw; (

AN 

4929178

) 

 
al-Hazzaa SA, Krahn PM 

Kohl: a hazardous eyeliner  

International Ophthalmology, 1995; 19(2): 83-8 
 
Alkhawajah AM,  
Alkohl use in Saudi Arabia, Extent of use and possible lead toxicity 
Tropical Geographical Medicine 1992 Oct; 44 (4): 373-7. 
 
Al-Saleh I, Nester M. DeVol E, Shinwari N, Al-Shahria S 
Determinants of blood lead levels in Saudi Arabian schoolgirls 
International Journal of Environmental Health, 1999 Apr-Jun; 5(2): 107-14.

 

 

Hardy AD, Vaishnav R, Al-Kharusi SS, Sutherland HH, Worthing MA 

Composition of eye cosmetics (kohls) used in Oman  

Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 1998 Apr; 60 (3): 223-34. 
 

 

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Hardy, Andrew D.; Walton, Richard I.; Vaishnav, Ragini 

Composition of eye cosmetics (kohls) used in Cairo 

International Journal of Environmental Health Research, Feb2004, Vol. 14 Issue 
1, p83, 9p; DOI: 10.1080/09603120310001633859; (

AN 11622297

 

 

Lekouch N, Sedki A, Nejmeddine A, Gamon S.  

Lead and traditional Moroccan pharmacopoeia 

Science of the Total Environment, 2001 Dec. 3; 280(1-3): 39-43

 

 
Nir A, Tamir A, Nelnik N, Iancu TC.  

Is eye cosmetic a source of lead poisoning? 

 Israel Journal of Medical Science 1992 Jul; 28(7): 417-21. 
 
Parry C, Eaton J.  

Kohl: a lead-hazardous eye makeup from the Third World to the First World 

Environmental Health Perspectives, 1991 Aug; 94:121-3.

 

 

Rahbar, Mohammad Hossein; White, Franklin; Agboatwalla, Mubina; Hozhabri, 
Siroos; Luby, Stephen 

Factors associated with elevated blood lead concentrations in children in 
Karachi, Pakistan 

Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2002, Vol. 80 Issue 10, p769, 7p, 3 
charts; (

AN 7683506

)

 

 

Shaltout A, Yaish SA, Fernando N.  

Lead encephalopathy in infants in Kuwait. A study of 20 infants with particular 
reference to clinical presentation and source of lead poisoning 

Annals of Tropical Paediatrics, 1981 Dec; 1(4): 209-15